MS Surface

Damn, they do end up costing more than I expect. Canadian dollars, higher end Go plus keyboard comes out to $870 plus tax. Lot of options at that price range. Still, I look forward to seeing how it performs docked, connected to 1440p monitor, for productivity apps.

Another article.

Paging @JeffL , this could be an option for your daughter.

Yeah she’s young, she probably has great eyesight!

I just don’t see a market for 10" laptops. Tablets yes, but Windows lacks the apps to compete there.

To me, the main advantage over a chromebook for that is that it runs real windows… but I fear that its hardware limitation would be such that you couldn’t actually run any windows software I’d need to run.

Yeah, the CPU is fine. Surface 3 had eMMC storage, not a SSD. They are dog-slow.

Oh well good, Microsoft will eventually get their act together I have no doubt and I can continue loving the lack of bezels and comfortably curse the new surface as an ugly monstrosity.

More info on the Go, how it performs, Windows S, …

Nice quick 7’ overview.

It’s not going to be the machine for me, but it’s neat. I’d totally see my son using it as a mobile device to take notes, do some research and document editing at Uni.

Yes, it would be an amazing note-taking machine with OneNote, which is best in class. But remember the MS stylus is another hundred bucks. Thing starts to get pricey real quick once you get the (IMO mandatory) SSD upgrade and the stylus.

A rounded slim bezel, no home button 12.9 inch iPad might be the next sliced bread.

The one thing about stuff like notetaking ect vs actual computers is idle time. Even my Mac laptop has but a fraction of the idle time as my iPad when i used it in that role. I’ve pretty much never seen any review talk about time on idle.

So, my laptop might be 100% at home but 90% at noon and 70% at 5pm… my iPad is probably going to be 99% at 5pm.

That’s my big hangup on Surface Products. In reality they’re not tablets and they’re probably going to be diminishing much faster on idle than an actual tablet. And, yea, once you get the pen and storage upgrade and keyboard you’re looking at $700+, and it’s a 10" screen. I’m actually feeling like the Surface Go is a bigger miss as laptop replacement and only really “works” in the 64gb no-keyboard model, and so you’ll need a use case that fits that functionality.

That’s really ARM and iOS standby implementations being far superior. Microsoft says their ARM Windows devices fix that, but they run x86 (non-UWP) programs really slowly so the market will reject them. OneNote is also available for iOS, of course.

I am typing this on the 8GB RAM 128GB SSD version. I am pleasantly surprised. It is not a main computer, but it is better than my 10.5 inch iPad Pro for the kind of work that I do. Plus it is the perfect size to use for note taking in OneNote. My Surface Pro is just a tad too big in certain situations.

At first I was a bit disappointed but after figuring out how to get rid of Windows 10s and doing a system update, things work pretty nicely. The only thing really missing is instant on.

Is this just the instant-on thing? Because with my Surface Pro 5 (m3 processor), I unplugged it and threw it into my bag yesterday morning. I just turned it on (>10 wake-up time) and the battery is still 100%. I did just change the power settings to ‘never sleep’ on battery, so I’ll look at what it is after work. I guess I just don’t see why this is such a big deal for folks, though.

A counterpoint for the 4 gb model.

Yeah, I think the 4GB is fine if you’re just looking for a companion device.

Too many people are fixated on 8GB, but if all you plan on doing is watching YouTube and typing out documents, then the base model will do you fine. Even the eMMC memory is okay; sure, it’s slower than an SSD, but it’s still faster, quieter, and more efficient than an HDD.

CPU is the same. Graphics is the same. Keep it in S-Mode and you’ll be fine. Edge is a decent browser now. And you’re not buying this device to run Premiere and VMs.

I returned my Surface Go. It did not get along well with Chrome (scrolling in websites was painful at times) and that was one of its primary duties.

I think running a Google flagship browser will be very far off the list of the primary duties of a Microsoft tablet. The reviews shows that it runs the Edge browser very well.

And many have argued that recent updates have caused Edge to turn the corner into something worthwhile.

If you were touch-scrolling, Chrome has been bad at that on Windows since 8. I’d snark that it was on purpose, but it’s not that great on an Android tablet.

Edge is great. The only thing that stops me switching is Enhanced Steam doesn’t have an Edge plugin. :(