Computers & Electronics

Microsoft Surface Go

  • Last Updated:
  • Jul 15th, 2018 7:04 pm
Member
Sep 30, 2006
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Microsoft Surface Go

So any thoughts on the Surface Go product line?
Note there's some "student" discount right now also, but with the exchange rate, it's still quite pricey for the specs. But you do get the Microsoft surface build quality.

Price doesn't include keyboard cover and pen as usual.

64GB, Intel 4415Y, 4GB RAM - $529 ($503 with discount)
128GB, Intel 4415Y, 8GB RAM - $699 ($664 with discount)
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Jul 21, 2005
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It's an interesting device, I am having a hard time understanding the difference between this, and the old Surface 3 LTE that I have..which seems to be pretty much the same thing as this GO Surface. Am I missing something?
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I remember reading that the some of these will have true SSDs vs the usual emmc that you see in budget tablets.
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eblend wrote: It's an interesting device, I am having a hard time understanding the difference between this, and the old Surface 3 LTE that I have..which seems to be pretty much the same thing as this GO Surface. Am I missing something?
I think it's the replacement to the Surface 3.
Shame the price doesn't include ANYTHING. A big issue I have with Surface products is that they advertise all the time with the cover, yet it's completely separate. And quite pricey to boot.
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tyks wrote: So any thoughts on the Surface Go product line?
Nice to see the return of low cost Windows tablets ... may get one for vacation travel - it can run real windows apps so I can VPN into work without lugging around my laptop.
eblend wrote: It's an interesting device, I am having a hard time understanding the difference between this, and the old Surface 3 LTE that I have..which seems to be pretty much the same thing as this GO Surface. Am I missing something?
This is an updated version of the Surface 3, with a 50% faster CPU, 1" smaller, 10% lighter, 8GB RAM option.
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Nov 30, 2003
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MS TechNet - Behind the Design

128 and 256GB options are going to be NVMe SSDs, much faster than the 64GB eMMC. So the 8/128GB price increase is steep but there's a reason for it.

They will all have factory calibrated screens, something I think is pretty rare in this price segment?

CPU performance may be a mixed bag, single-core should be nearly double that of the Z8700 Atom in the Surface 3, but since it's limited to dual-core w/HT it doesn't look like it will be much faster in multi-core (Geekbench). But the GPU should be much more powerful and support the latest decoding hardware. Seems Microsoft prioritized the GPU over CPU, the Pentium Silver N5000 actually outperforms the 4415Y in multi-core and matches single core performance (Geekbench), but has a GPU with lower base clock and less EU.

Will have to wait for reviews for real-life battery life results, 27Wh is a bit smaller capacity than the iPad 9.7's 32.4Wh which is disappointing, that's almost 17% less in a bigger and heavier package, or looked the other way, battery would be 20% better if it had the same capacity battery as the iPad.

I can understand how they went with Intel instead of Snapdragon since they are aiming this at education and enterprise, but for my own use I would've rather it have the 835 or 845 and get something like 15 hours of battery.
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eblend wrote: It's an interesting device, I am having a hard time understanding the difference between this, and the old Surface 3 LTE that I have..which seems to be pretty much the same thing as this GO Surface. Am I missing something?
comparing to Surface 3
Surface GO has faster CPU and GPU
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lazybum131 wrote:

MS TechNet - Behind the Design

128 and 256GB options are going to be NVMe SSDs, much faster than the 64GB eMMC. So the 8/128GB price increase is steep but there's a reason for it.

They will all have factory calibrated screens, something I think is pretty rare in this price segment?

CPU performance may be a mixed bag, single-core should be nearly double that of the Z8700 Atom in the Surface 3, but since it's limited to dual-core w/HT it doesn't look like it will be much faster in multi-core (Geekbench). But the GPU should be much more powerful and support the latest decoding hardware. Seems Microsoft prioritized the GPU over CPU, the Pentium Silver N5000 actually outperforms the 4415Y in multi-core and matches single core performance (Geekbench), but has a GPU with lower base clock and less EU.

Will have to wait for reviews for real-life battery life results, 27Wh is a bit smaller capacity than the iPad 9.7's 32.4Wh which is disappointing, that's almost 17% less in a bigger and heavier package, or looked the other way, battery would be 20% better if it had the same capacity battery as the iPad.

I can understand how they went with Intel instead of Snapdragon since they are aiming this at education and enterprise, but for my own use I would've rather it have the 835 or 845 and get something like 15 hours of battery.
This is good to know... didn't know it was NVMe for the 128, no wonder the jump was a little steep for just harddrive space and 4 gb of RAM....
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I tried searching a bit last night on the included OS => TLDR.
Can anyone quickly explain what "Windows S" is?
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ROYinTO wrote: I tried searching a bit last night on the included OS => TLDR.
Can anyone quickly explain what "Windows S" is?
A version of Windows that ONLY runs applications that can be found from the Windows app store.

However a 1 way "upgrade" to normal Windows 10 Home can be done for free.
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Not sure which model it really is, but it says 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD

If this is the 8GB, 128 GB SSD model then this is the best deal out there considering that the type cover alone is $129 for the black color.

Costco.ca has Surface Go with type cover for $679

https://www.costco.ca/Microsoft-Surface ... 24248.html
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tyks wrote: Not sure which model it really is, but it says 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD

If this is the 8GB, 128 GB SSD model then this is the best deal out there considering that the type cover alone is $129 for the black color.

Costco.ca has Surface Go with type cover for $679

https://www.costco.ca/Microsoft-Surface ... 24248.html
Why would it be the 8gb model when it says 4gb right on the page? :facepalm:
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vivibaby wrote: Why would it be the 8gb model when it says 4gb right on the page? :facepalm:
Oh, as far as I know there's 2 variants of Surface Go...

4GB Ram and 64GB eMMC
8GB Ram and 128GB SSD

The description from Costco doesn't fit the bill... as it states there's 128GB SSD, but with 4GB RAM
Last edited by tyks on Jul 13th, 2018 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tyks wrote: So any thoughts on the Surface Go product line?
Note there's some "student" discount right now also, but with the exchange rate, it's still quite pricey for the specs. But you do get the Microsoft surface build quality.

Price doesn't include keyboard cover and pen as usual.

64GB, Intel 4415Y, 4GB RAM - $529 ($503 with discount)
128GB, Intel 4415Y, 8GB RAM - $699 ($664 with discount)
$159 keyboard extra.
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lazybum131 wrote:

MS TechNet - Behind the Design

128 and 256GB options are going to be NVMe SSDs, much faster than the 64GB eMMC. So the 8/128GB price increase is steep but there's a reason for it.

They will all have factory calibrated screens, something I think is pretty rare in this price segment?

CPU performance may be a mixed bag, single-core should be nearly double that of the Z8700 Atom in the Surface 3, but since it's limited to dual-core w/HT it doesn't look like it will be much faster in multi-core (Geekbench). But the GPU should be much more powerful and support the latest decoding hardware. Seems Microsoft prioritized the GPU over CPU, the Pentium Silver N5000 actually outperforms the 4415Y in multi-core and matches single core performance (Geekbench), but has a GPU with lower base clock and less EU.

Will have to wait for reviews for real-life battery life results, 27Wh is a bit smaller capacity than the iPad 9.7's 32.4Wh which is disappointing, that's almost 17% less in a bigger and heavier package, or looked the other way, battery would be 20% better if it had the same capacity battery as the iPad.

I can understand how they went with Intel instead of Snapdragon since they are aiming this at education and enterprise, but for my own use I would've rather it have the 835 or 845 and get something like 15 hours of battery.
All iPads have factory calibrated screens. So maybe MS felt they needed to compete with that.

I’m a little concerned about those Geekbench scores though. They seem rather slow for a 2018 product.
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Nov 30, 2003
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EugW wrote: All iPads have factory calibrated screens. So maybe MS felt they needed to compete with that.

I’m a little concerned about those Geekbench scores though. They seem rather slow for a 2018 product.
Microsoft really doesn't have other options for the price point, next step up is the Core m3-7y30, recommended price of $281 vs $161 for the 4415Y. Maybe next year if AMD releases sub-6W Zen mobile chips, or the Snapdragon 850 or 1000 are fast enough even with x86 emulation performance drop and compatibility improves.

Hopefully it's actually a balanced product and performs well even at the base price, it seemed to run fine at the 4min mark of the video, but that's probably an 8GB/128GB model and I would've loaded up Edge with a bunch of tabs, have Spotify playing music and then demonstrate multi-tasking and split screen to really see if it lags or not. It better not perform like the Acer Chromebook Tab 10 does in this Engadget video, that looked more painful to use than my four year old V8P with a BayTrail Atom and 2GB of ram.
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Shame they still don't include a keyboard with it, practically a required accessory so has to factor into the price.

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