Microsoft Surface Go 2

Is Microsoft’s second attempt at a price conscious ultra-portable 2-in-1 a Go-er?

“While this model only offers Wi-Fi networking and doesn’t carry a heap of storage space, the Surface Go 2 does feature a MicroSD card expansion slot, to allow you to add cost effective storage as you see fit. ”

The most affordable Surface Go 2 you can grab locally starts at $598, and comes with an Intel Pentium 4425Y processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage, which is an offering that seriously competes with some of the best Chromebooks available. While this model doesn’t carry a heap of storage space, the Surface Go 2 does feature a MicroSD card slot.

The next tier up doubles the RAM and storage allocations for a total of $879. This clearly moves the device out of the budget Chromebook space when you add the $199 Surface Keyboard, but we’d recommend considering it if you intend to update to Windows 10 Home from the s stock Windows 10 S OS.

The Surface Go 2 has a bigger 10.5-inch 1920 x 1280 (3:2) PixelSense display that is really vibrant for a budget screen, even though it only manages a peak brightness of 280nits. In Geekbench 4 performance was around 35 percent lower than we saw on a Samsung Galaxy Book S using a Snapdragon 8xc processor, which makes sense when you consider the 8xc is intended to be the mobile architecture equivalent of a 10th-gen Intel Core i5.

It’s hard to imagine a use case for this device without the need for the Surface Go Signature Type Cover, so you’ll have to plan for that extra $199.95 outlay, but the typing experience is good and the trackpad is silky and generously sized.

The 26.8Wh battery lasts five hours and five minutes in PCMark 8 Home battery and around eight hours in 1080p media playback.

A powerful, affordable and lightweight computing device that’s perfect for students and professionals that only need light document processing and web browsing.