New Microsoft Surface Go tablets

[atcoates]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-aim-at-schools-consumers-and-businesses-with-surface-go-tablets-starting-at-399/

 

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/7/9/17550252/microsofts-surface-go-tablet-10-inch-screen-399

[Arthur]

The Surface Go is still too expensive compared to the typical Chromebook and if it's anything like the Surface Laptop, it's going to be

yourself.

 

Microsoft is getting back into the cheaper tablet game today with the new Surface Go, a smaller, less powerful take on the popular Surface Pro device. The Go features a 10-inch screen, integrated kickstand, Windows 10, and a similar design to the Surface Pro, and starts at $399. It is available for preorder starting 10th July nd will ship in August.

 

The Surface Go doesn’t change Microsoft’s Surface design philosophy one bit — it really just looks like a smaller version of the Surface Pro design that’s been around since 2014’s Surface Pro 3. It has a 3:2 aspect ratio display (1800 x 1200 pixel resolution), the signature built-in kickstand with unlimited positions, a front-facing camera with facial recognition login, and Microsoft’s proprietary Surface Connector port for charging and connecting to a desktop dock. Microsoft has added a USB-C 3.1 port, capable of charging the tablet or outputting video and data to external devices. It has also rounded the corners a bit compared to the latest Surface Pro, but overall, it’s the same familiar magnesium design Surface users have come to expect.

 

[...]

 

Inside, the Go has Intel’s Pentium Gold 4415Y processor with either 4 or 8GB of RAM and 64 or 128GB of storage. The processor is a dual-core seventh-generation model, which Microsoft says was chosen because of its balance between performance, battery life, and thermal properties that allow for a thin, fanless design. The company says the Go has up to nine hours of battery life as a result. We’ll reserve judgement until we’re able to review the Go, but the processor is where I have the biggest reservations when it comes to device performance. It’s not a hugely different processor from what’s found in many midrange Chromebooks, but instead of just having to push ChromeOS, it will have to run Windows on the Surface Go. Microsoft will initially release Wi-Fi versions of the Go, with an LTE equipped model to come later this year.

 

Out of the box, the Go runs Windows 10 with S mode enabled, so it only has access to the Edge browser and apps available in the Microsoft Store. Like other devices that come with S mode, such as the Surface Laptop, owners will be able to switch to the full version of Windows 10 for free if they want.

 

Microsoft might have a challenge finding the right customer for the Surface Go, as it straddles the line between a consumption device like Apple’s $329 iPad and a more powerful (and more expensive) productivity tablet like Microsoft’s own Surface Pro or the iPad Pro. Compared to the standard iPad, the Surface Go will be challenged by Apple’s deep bench of apps designed for touchscreens and entertainment, as Windows 10 still lags far behind when it comes to touch optimized apps. For use as a dedicated productivity machine when paired with the keyboard attachment, the Go’s lower-end processor might not be powerful enough to really work well as an everyday computer.

 

It seems like Microsoft is targeting the person that uses an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard instead of a laptop, but doesn’t rely on it enough to pony up for the iPad Pro or the even more expensive Surface Pro. The Surface Go will provide that person with access to the full Windows 10 experience, along with Microsoft’s full Office productivity suite, while still being significantly less expensive than the Surface Pro. We should be able to find out the answers to these questions and more when the Surface Go hits shelves next month.

 

www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/7/9/17550252/microsofts-surface-go-tablet-10-inch-screen-399

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Arthur

[free780]

So $500 as you need a keyboard. So about £380. It's only going to be a 1:1 device with the lower storage option. Most education organisations want shared devices like Chromebooks. I like Office 365 but Microsoft seem intent on forcing education to 1:1 if they are invested fully in Office 365 and intune.

[Arthur]

So $500 as you need a keyboard. So about £380.

Probably more like £498 (£415 ex. VAT) with type cover since the Surface Pro started from $799 / £799.

Edited July 10, 2018 by Arthur

[sted]

why oh why cant you get the 4gb one with more storage 64 is all but useless and the price jump to the 8gb/128 is massive

[atcoates]

I can't see this taking off other than in schools that are very well funded.

[Norphy]

At least the CPU is something that should be relatively useful, according to the Intel website the Pentium Gold in question is a Kaby Lake based CPU, similar to 7th gen Core CPUs. At that price, I was worried they would whatever the equivalent of an Atom is these days in there.

[jthompson]

I can see a fair number of our sixth formers might be turning up with these.

[synaesthesia]

Spec wise they're not bad at all; those processors coming out at well over 3000 passmark, and a full windows install; useful. But indeed once all those required addons are added that price doesn't look quite as good and portable decent laptops instantly seem much better value again with better specs.

[3s-gtech]

Having been burned with the shower that was the Surface 3, I'll be staying well clear of any 'budget' Surface line.

[Dos_Box]

Having been burned with the shower that was the Surface 3, I'll be staying well clear of any 'budget' Surface line.

 

I have a Surface 3 too. Whilst useful, it is a device that is neither 'here-nor-there' and lacking the grunt to do the occasional but sudden intensive work you find comes up when travelling.

I do note with interest that the Go very much resembles the Surface 3 in looks and some specs (although lower in storage) abut the beefier CPU would be most welcome.

They should also sell it as a 'whole' item with keyboard supplied as standard otherwise they are just going to sit in mid-range laptop territory price wise.

Microsoft have always struggled to get their own brand devices into the low-cost territory enjoyed by the likes of Chomebooks and when schools can buy two Chromebooks for the price of one of these then I would guess the market will decide.

[snagrat]

As a reseller just got pricing through for these.

You will be looking at around £500 for the 8Gb/128 model with a keyboard.

[snagrat]

And pretty much £100 cheaper for the 4gb model

[atcoates]

[flyinghaggis]

To make it usable IMO you need to go for the 8gb/128gb model and add a keyboard which takes the price up to £650. Even at the entry level of £400 i fear it's too pricey to tempt anyone in education away from Chromebooks and iPads for 1:1 rollouts though ......

 

Being Microsoft I'm sure the fit and finish will be excellent. Plus the specs seem pretty decent. Screen sounds good and the CPU will be fine if it's on the same level as a core M.

 

I'm not sure a 10" display is large enough to be usable for Windows desktop apps. What's Windows 10 like on a tablet these days? Is it much improved over Window 8?

[Arthur]

Being Microsoft I'm sure the fit and finish will be excellent. Plus the specs seem pretty decent.

MS have cut a corner with the storage on the 64GB model. It uses eMMC instead of a "proper" SSD like the more expensive models.

 

https://twitter.com/bdsams/status/1016493257163931649

 

[flyinghaggis]

MS have cut a corner with the storage on the 64GB model. It uses eMMC instead of a "proper" SSD like the more expensive models.

 

In real world performance terms is the difference between an SSD and eMMC going to be that noticeable? I know the last surface 3 had one but I always thought the performance issues with it were down to the atom CPU rather than slow storage?

[synaesthesia]

Yeah, they're not great; figures can top out at around 400mbps but a speedtest I ran on the surface RT's for instance was nearer 200. Depends on implementation really. A likeness test can be running an app on your phone from the inbuilt storage vs from an SD card; very noticable!

[Arthur]

In real world performance terms is the difference between an SSD and eMMC going to be that noticeable?

You're definitely going to notice it and wish you went for one of the other models (random read/write performance is very poor with eMMC).

 

The following video (at the

mark) also mentions storage speed being not great in the entry-level Surface Go.

 

 

www.edandersen.com/2016/08/07/an-ode-to-surface-3

 

The only real downside is because of the slow eMMC disk speed, Windows 10 baseline version updates can take over 2 hours to install.

 

MS should have gone with UFS storage if SATA or NVMe SSDs were too expensive.

 

www.phonearena.com/news/UFS-2.1-explained-the-storage-technology-in-todays-top-Android-phones_id95180

 

One of the reasons for UFS storage's speed capabilities is the way it communicates with the rest of the device's hardware. eMMC can only have data read from or written to it at any given time. UFS, on the other hand, allows data to go back and forth simultaneously, which is definitely of help when the device is under load.

 

 

UFS 2.1 vs UFS 2.0 vs eMMC 5.1

Edited July 10, 2018 by Arthur

[Arthur]

The Surface Go reviews are in, and… they’re a bit all over the place

 

Poor performance

One thing almost every review agrees on is that the Go's processor is slow. The Pentium 4415Y is a 6W processor running at 1.6GHz (with no turbo boosting). As with other Intel chips, that power draw is configurable, and Microsoft has apparently cut it to 4.5W. It should still hit 1.6GHz, but the tighter power envelope means that it will cut back its speed even more aggressively to keep within its thermal budget.

 

On the one hand, this does mean that the system is fanless, and most reviewers found that it didn't get unpleasantly hot under load. But the performance is weak. The cheapest Surface Pro uses a Core m3-7Y30 chip. This is the same architecture (they're both Kaby Lake chips with two cores and four threads) and a comparable power spec: the m3 is, by default, rated at 4.5W, though it can be configured at up to 7W, and Microsoft appears to use this 7W configuration.

 

In its normal configuration, it has a base clock speed of just 1GHz, rising to 1.6GHz in the 7W configuration. But it also has turbo boost all the way up to 2.6GHz and 4MB rather than 2MB of cache. In the Geekbench processor benchmark, the m3 in the Surface Pro scores around 3,100 points in the single threaded test and 6,000 in the multithreaded test. The Surface Go's Pentium? Around 2,000 and 4,000, respectively.

 

This is a big upgrade from the Atom chip used in Microsoft's last attempt at a cheap tablet, the Surface 3, which scores around 1,100 and 2,800. So it certainly could be worse, but clearly there's a sizable performance gap between this Pentium-branded chip and even the slowest of the Core-branded parts.

 

In practice? Gizmodo wrote that while the system was fine for browsing and mail, it was the slowest system (by far) in a Photoshop benchmark, and it achieved around three frames per second in a Civilization VI test. Engadget found that "complex webpages with embedded video" and OneDrive synchronization both pegged the processor at 100-percent usage, concluding that, while "you'll have no trouble if you're using it to browse a few webpages or watching Netflix," you shouldn't go "overboard" with "dozens of browser tabs" or heavier applications such as Photoshop.

 

Mashable was less complimentary. The site described the Go as "painfully slow," saying that it "chokes up fast under even light usage." Chrome struggled with "more than a couple of open tabs," and scrolling in Chrome often stuttered, though the reviewer noted that Edge had "almost none of the janky scrolling issues" and works "way better."

 

But overall? "The slowness is noticeable all throughout Windows 10 on the Surface Go," VentureBeat found similarly, complaining of "noticeable lag" when typing quickly or navigating heavy websites.

 

Several reviews also expressed concern over the 4GB model; even relatively light browsing workloads can push a machine past 4GB, and at any price point, we find it hard to recommend a 4GB machine in the year 2018.

 

[...]

 

Mixed conclusions

So, should you buy one? That's hard to say. Mashable was a fairly unequivocal "no:" for light productivity, a Chromebook or iPad does the job for less money, and the performance is too problematic for anything much beyond that.

 

On the other side of the coin, Windows Central reckoned that "as a mini-PC [surface Go] is about as good as you can get," and Ed Bott said, "It's the best cheap PC I've ever used." Gizmodo called it the "perfect representation of what laptops at this price should be."

 

For everyone else, it depends. TechCrunch says that it's worth a look, but there's no shortage of competition around this price point. Acer and Lenovo, among others, offer decent systems that are a bit cheaper. PCWorld concludes that, if you want a tablet, get an honest-to-god tablet (which is to say, an iPad) rather than a system with Windows 10. But if you want something small and light and might just need the full flexibility of a PC, Go is the system to go for. Engadget acknowledged that the Go is "full of compromises" but that, as a "secondary device," the keyboard and software compatibility give it the edge over other tablets. The Verge concludes similarly: it's "probably not the right thing to be your only computer," but it could have a "real place" as a secondary machine. And VentureBeat took a similar line: if you really want the flexibility of a two-in-one, "you're unlikely to find anything better," but if you want either a laptop or a tablet, "you'll find better options for less."

 

 

 

 

[Arthur]

Microsoft Surface Go Teardown

 

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Arthur

[MagicMadjeski]

So we recently purchased an 8Gb / 120Gb model and have to admit, pretty impressed with it. The better specification device comes with a fully fledged SSD rather than EMMC found on the 4Gb model which is lightning quick for read and write speeds. Battery life is easily 7 hours plus with general office use, browsing, RDP etc. Yet to take it off Windows 10 S Mode and upgrade the home edition so being hampered with MS EDGE rather than Chrome / Firefox.

 

So far the only negative aspect from people who have seen it is the screen size. Shame they shrunk it down to a 10" screen rather than the bigger Pro.

[TechMonkey]

I had a quick look at these and the reviews were odd. They were giving out 5 stars but then listing off issues that seemed fairly fundamental. Things like it would replace every device you have, but then make a throw-away comment of a 4 hour battery.

 

I think they may have a use but I'm not sold yet.

[MrMat]

I was in the market for one but decided to go for the Surface Pro instead.

 

Surface Go 128Gb (£509) plus Keyboard (£99) = £609

 

vs

 

Surface Pro 2017 (i5, 8GB, 128gb) with fancy furry Keyboard = £749 (https://www.johnlewis.com/microsoft-surface-pro-tablet-intel-core-i5-8gb-ram-128gb-ssd-12-3-inch-touchscreen-with-keyboard/p3669538)

 

Better battery (getting 8 - 9 hours using remote desktop Citrix for work, edge for browsing and a little Youtube here and there), better screen, better processor (Fanless i5 which blows my mind, it remains silent and ice cold all day. Only warms up a tad in heavier programs), better keyboard etc etc etc.

Edited September 27, 2018 by MrMat

[Arthur]

Microsoft are due to release some new Surface Pros with 8th-gen Intel processors in five days time. These ones should finally have USB-C too (like the Surface Go).

 

www.theverge.com/2018/9/7/17831262/microsoft-surface-event-date-invite