Donovan Kerssenberg 15 October 2020 64: 13 5 comments

Powerhouse with concessions Microsoft has released Surface products for virtually every audience in recent years, and this time it’s the turn of the college student and those on a relatively tight budget. For these people, the company from Redmond has released the Surface Laptop Go. Several websites published reviews of the laptop this week.

This is by far the cheapest Surface laptop that Microsoft has released. In addition, this device is a bit smaller than the other models and equipped with a 12, 4 inch large screen. Still, the touch-sensitive screen looks bigger because of the 3: 2 aspect ratio. The reviewers only complain about the resolution. With 1536 x 1024 pixels, it is the lowest resolution they have seen on a Surface so far. The material of which the housing is made is also different. Surface devices are known for their aluminum casing, but the Surface Laptop Go only partially has that. The bottom of this laptop is made of plastic. This makes the computer feel a bit cheaper, but the device is still sturdy enough. Another advantage is that the Surface Laptop Go is very light due to this choice of materials.

The computer is 278, 18 x 205, 67 x 15, 69 mm in size and weighs 1, 11 kilos. Under the hood is an Intel Core i5 – 1185 G1 processor, 8 GB lpddr4x ram, one ssd of 256 GB, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5. As far as connection options are concerned, the laptop is equipped with one usb c, one usb a , a Surface Connect port, and a headphone jack.

Inside the housing is also a 720 p f2.0 webcam, two far-field studio microphones and a power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader. The reviewers are very pleased with the sound quality of the speakers and the fingerprint reader works quickly and reliably. However, what is seen as a big loss is the fact that the keyboard has no backlight. There were also complaints about the limited number of ports and the fact that the camera is not Windows Hello compatible.

The reviewers realize that these compromises have been made to keep the price down, but the price of the most expensive model is nevertheless a point of critic. The laptop is available in three configurations where the screen, processor and number of ports are the same, but where the RAM and amount of storage differ. The cheapest copy has 67 GB eMMC storage space and 4 GB ram and costs approximately 530 euro. The second model has 128 GB storage memory and swap for 799 euros from owner. The tested model with 278 GB-SSD precedes 999 euro over the counter and the observation is that this is not exactly an amount that you, as a student or someone with a tight budget, pay for a laptop. The reviewers also report that laptops with better specifications can be obtained for that money.

Despite these compromises, this laptop is still recommended by the vast majority of reviewers. The screen may have a low resolution, but the quality is very good and with a maximum brightness of 400 candela per square meter, using the laptop on a sunny day is no problem. In addition, the screen 128 percent of the srgb spectrum and 78 Display percent of the dci-p3 spectrum. The battery lasts between six and twelve hours on a charge, sound quality is good, the keyboard types nicely and the touchpad is very responsive.

The performance is also good. The Core i5 – 1035 G1 CPU ensures that all common tasks can be performed effortlessly. The Surface Laptop Go scores 1185 points in the singlecore Geekbench 5 test and 3390 points in the multicore test. In the PCMark test, the laptop scores between 3346 and 3410 points and the processor achieves 561 points in Cinebench R 18.

Read the full reviews at the following sites:

The Verge: Surface Laptop Go review: a case study in cost cutting Tech Crunch: Microsoft Surface Laptop Go review: reverse engineering a budget computer ZDNet: Search Surface Laptop Go: Microsoft’s smaller, cheaper budget PC is easy to recommend Windows Central: Surface Laptop Go review: This delightful mini PC gets (almost) everything right PCM ag: Microsoft Surface Laptop Go Review Gizmodo: The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go Is Trying Tom’s Hardware: Microsoft Surface Laptop Go Review: Economy of Scale LaptopMag: Microsoft Surface Laptop Go review