Microsoft Surface Go 2

Ready, steady… buy!

Tablet for taking Windows 10 with you

Considering the price rises in computing over the past few years, and the divergence of products between desktop-based and mobile, it’s notable that the maker of Windows still offers a high-quality tablet that runs its full version for under 400 quid. As before, this new model runs Windows Home in S mode, meaning you can only install software from the Microsoft Store, but you can opt to switch this to regular Windows Home.

The design remains the same as 2018’s Surface Go, which replaced the plain Surface as the most basic option below the larger Surface Pro (from £755, see our review, Issue 569, page 23), but with some significant changes inside and out. Narrower borders accommodate a larger screen, up from 10.1 to 10.5in, with 1920x1280 pixels – slightly more than Full HD instead of slightly less. Brightness and contrast are very good, and colour has been improved to cover more than 97 per cent of SRGB, according to our meter, with near-perfect accuracy.

That would suit tasks like photo and video editing, but other aspects don’t. For £399, you get a dual- core Intel Pentium Gold 4425Y processor that’s barely more powerful than the previous 4415Y, ranking the Go well below Intel i3 laptops or the basic ipad (£349 from Apple www. snipca.com/35094, see Issue 566, page 23). Windows 10 still feels quite usable for basic tasks like web browsing, word processing and email, but creative work is a stretch, especially with just 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage. Doubling both adds £130, with the bonus that the latter is upgraded from cheap EMMC to a proper SSD, although its decent read speed of 1,281 megabytes per second (MB/S) in our tests was let down by a write speed of just 302MB/S.

For another £90 on top of that (£619), you can get an Intel Core m3-8100y chip – but when we tested this we found it only slightly faster. Battery life was good, at 8 hours 30 minutes in our videoplayback test. 802.11ax, aka Wi-fi 6, is now built in, and dual microphones complement the sharp webcam, with Windows Hello face recognition.

There’s still just one USB-C port, plus a separate charging port, headphone jack and microsd card slot. Considering the almost essential Type Cover keyboard and the Surface Pen aren’t included, adding £125 and £100 respectively, the Go 2 is an even better budget Windows tablet but maybe not quite the bargain it looks.

SPECIFICATIONS

1.7GHZ Intel Pentium Gold 4425Y dual-core processor • 4GB memory • 64GB SSD • 10.5in 1920x1280-pixel touchscreen • 8-megapixel rear camera • 5-megapixel front camera • Microsd slot • USB-C port • 802.11ac Wi-fi • Bluetooth 4.1 • Windows 10 Home • 245x175x8.3mm (HXWXD) • 544g • One-year warranty www.snipca.com/35095

Great screen and copes well with basic Windows 10 tasks