Microsoft Surface Laptop Go

Price: £899 (inc VAT) from fave.co/3ll5NPj ★★★★☆

The Surface Laptop Go is Microsoft’s second try at an affordable Surface, and it hits the mark better than the original Surface Go tablet did. It still offers compromises, with strategic cuts to keep the price competitive with a Chromebook. Still, they’re mostly smart decisions – even a sub-1080p display and Windows 10 in S Mode didn’t turn us off. Although the Surface Laptop Go lacks the easy expansion of some competing laptops, it’s otherwise a solid budget offering.

Still, be picky in what you consider buying. We wouldn’t recommend the Surface Laptop Go’s minimum £549 configuration, but the middle £699 option (which we didn’t test) seems like

the best bang for the buck. At £899, the 12.5in Surface Laptop Go review unit we tested bobs up to the very top of the ‘budget’ category, though it shows off this new product at its best.

PRICE

£549: Core i5/4GB RAM/64GB SSD £699: Core i5/8GB RAM/128GB SSD £899: Core i5/8GB RAM/256GB SSD

While that £549 starting price is appealing, the basic Core i5/4GB RAM/64GB configuration should probably be passed over in favour of more powerful options. The £699 Core i5/8GB RAM/128GB SSD (which we haven’t tested) appears to offer the most value of all the Surface Laptop Go configuration, especially when paired with Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage.

It’s a better deal than our review unit, given the £200 premium Microsoft charges for an additional 128GB worth of storage. Unlike the Surface Pro X or Surface Laptop 3, the SSD does not appear to be user-accessible, leaving upgrades out of the picture.

SOLID BUILD QUALITY

Our Surface Laptop Go review unit was the new Ice Blue configuration, which looks a lot less blue than Microsoft’s imagery would suggest. In fact, the chassis looks almost like the Sandstone colour under the right light, but with a deeper blue paint coating the keyboard. The lid is made of anodized aluminium, but the keyboard deck and base are made of plastic resin, with 40 per cent

glass fibre and 30 per cent post-consumer resin. It’s all designed to reduce weight while maintaining rigidity.

If it matters, Microsoft is using a different paint on top of the plastic resin of the keyboard, which gives it a different feel. (More on that in a bit.) The Laptop Go reclines to about the same angle as the other Surface Laptops, or a comfortable 50 degrees off of the horizontal. At 1.1kg, it feels light and comfortable in the hand.

The Surface Laptop Go isn’t afraid to spin up its fan, which is noticeable though not annoying, even in a quiet room. Other Surface Laptops pulled air in and then pushed it out through a hidden exhaust port in the hinge. Microsoft’s tweaked that, so that both the intake and the exhaust are hidden inside the hinge. I favour a brutalist approach – who cares what the bottom of a laptop looks like? – but perhaps Microsoft was worried about crumbs or dust. The Go doesn’t get hot, but it does stay warm for long periods.

One flaw Microsoft may want to take a look at: it uses a new, 39-watt charger for the Surface Laptop Go,

which charges the laptop via the Surface Connector, as before. On my review unit, the connection was never loose, and there didn’t seem to be any grime inside the Surface Connector slot. However, the charger sometimes, even frequently, wouldn’t charge unless carefully inserted. (Fortunately there’s a charging LED on the connector itself to let you know something’s up.)

I reported the problem to Microsoft, then set the charger aside and used an older Surface charger instead once our benchmark testing completed. You can also charge the Laptop Go directly through the USB-C port, or via a hub.

Two specific features distinguish the Surface Laptop Go from other Microsoft Surfaces, and from other laptops: the new fingerprint reader, and the lower-res display. Let’s look at each.

FINGERPRINT READER

Microsoft helped usher in biometric identification with Windows Hello, and specifically its outstanding depth camera, which can recognize you and unlock your PC almost immediately.

Some rival laptops have chosen Hello-certified fingerprint readers instead, either broad circular ones hidden under the power button (like the Huawei MateBook X Pro) or ‘strip’ readers placed elsewhere on the device.

The Surface Laptop Go combines the two, with the fingerprint reader hidden within the rectangular power button. When the laptop is locked, a somewhat gaudy LED ring outlines the power button, illuminating the landing pad. The reader worked very well, about as quick and accurate as a newly calibrated depth camera. It even asked me to move my finger when it wasn’t aligned correctly. The fingerprint reader

stores your fingerprint long enough that you can depress the power button with your finger, remove it and you’ll still be logged in once the Surface Laptop Go completes its short boot cycle.

Fingerprint readers can accumulate grime over time, just as depth cameras don’t recognize changes in my facial hair after I pull them from the shelf. On one occasion, the reader didn’t grant me access until I dried my hands. Still, Microsoft’s fingerprint experiment may turn out to be a smart play.

1024P DISPLAY

In our original report on the Surface Laptop Go, we immediately noted that its display resolution fell beneath the 1080p threshold that we consider acceptable for laptops with 14in or wider displays. The Laptop Go’s screen is a little smaller than that, so we wondered whether its resolution of 1,536x1,024 (148ppi) would appear deficient to the naked eye.

The answer is yes... and no. Working on a 720p laptop is an unquestionably poor experience, but 1,536x1,024 (1,572,864 total pixels) is closer to 1,920x1,080 (2,073,600 pixels) than 1,280x720 (921,600 pixels). Consider, too, that the Surface Laptop Go’s pixels-per-inch count is comparable to that of a budget 15in 1080p notebook, such as an Asus VivoBook.

In this section you’ll see photos of the Surface Laptop Go’s display, captured with the Samsung Galaxy S20+ camera in its 4:3 64Mp mode. The images were captured at a distance of five inches, far less than a typical viewing distance of

about two feet. Because of the different display sizes and scaling settings, the portion of the screen the camera captured doesn’t match up perfectly. Still, this should help provide some insight as to what it’s like working on the Surface Laptop Go.

While my eyes could never discern an individual pixel, there’s a palpable sense that you’re looking at a cloud of individual elements, like fog. The lower resolution slightly contradicts the smoothed curves of anti-aliased fonts, exposing their jagged edges. The downgrade is most apparent if you compare the display to that of a Surface Laptop or Surface Book.

Still, the Surface Laptop Go’s resolution is close enough to 1080p that the differences never became annoying, especially when interacting with text. It’s when you start throwing more pixels at the display – higher-resolution images, say, or 1080p video – that the deficiencies become more pronounced. (The Surface Laptop Go’s display is rated at 330 nits, which is somewhat above the brightness level we consider comfortable for working on a laptop and a mark in its favour.) In part, that may be because a Surface display is typically colourful and vibrant; it’s colour-calibrated at the factory. Our 4K/60fps YouTube test video looked good – though YouTube was only sending down a 1,536x864 viewport because of the Surface Laptop Go’s smaller, lower-res display.

Weirdly, I was most conscious of the Surface Laptop Go’s display when I connected to my home’s 4K monitor, and not because the Laptop Go had any technical issues. Microsoft’s low-res Surface Laptop Go

wallpaper – a fever dream of cottoncandy shag carpet and sand – looked even worse in 4K.

The display options are an area of compromise. You can use the USB-C port to connect to a single external 1080p display without issue, but if you need an HDMI port you’ll probably need to attach a USB-C hub that includes it. If you want to get fancier – I like to have two displays attached to my laptop – My Surface Laptop Go connected easily to my 4K display and a separate 1080p monitor at full resolution, but only thanks to the first-generation £165 Surface Dock I happened to have on hand, along

with a pair of mini DP-to-HDMI cables. Via a USB-C hub, the Surface Laptop Go limited my 4K display to a subpar 24Hz refresh rate. I had to manually force it to 30Hz, still far inferior to the preferred 60Hz frequency.

KEYBOARD

If you’ve ever used a Surface keyboard, there’s a resilient springiness that tends to carry over from one Surface device to another. The Surface Laptop Go feels somewhat like a traditional Surface keyboard, and Microsoft says it retains the 1.3mm of key travel of the Surface Laptop 3 and Surface Laptop 2. I perceived a very plasticky feel to the keys, but Microsoft says the only change is the paint atop the keyboard resin. They’re certainly very comfortable to use. Unfortunately, there’s no keyboard backlighting, however.

Microsoft included a Precision touchpad in the Surface Laptop Go, and it, too has its quirks. I’ve never felt a touchpad so slick, to the point that I’m not sure it always registered my fingers when they slid across the surface. It’s clickable all the way to the top, though with more pressure required as you move upward.

We’ve seen Microsoft Surface devices yield unexpectedly powerful audio from their internal speakers, and the Surface Laptop Go aspires to that standard. While Dell’s Latitude 9510 and recent XPS notebooks produce astoundingly rich, resonant audio, the Surface Laptop Go falls neatly in the category of ‘good’ – a solid mix of midrange and high-end, and even adequate bass. Some Surface devices, like the Surface Book line, ship with Dolby

Atmos audio enhancement. The Laptop Go does not, though the dual Omnisonic speakers are Dolby-enhanced. Headphones are still advised, but if you or your child has to play back video, listen to Spotify, or some other audio file on the Laptop Go’s internal speakers, no one will complain.

The Surface Laptop Go includes a 720p user-facing camera, a step down from the excellent 1080p cameras built into other Surface devices. To be fair, a 720p camera is par for the course in the laptop space, and Microsoft’s cameras (RIP, Lumia) still produce a decent, colour-accurate image. Your Zoom calls should look fine. Like other Surfaces, however, Microsoft left out a sliding camera shield or dedicated button to turn off the laptop’s microphone. Two far-field mics help pick up your voice.

Perhaps because of the default Windows 10 in S Mode operating system, the Surface Laptop Go is spectacularly bloat-free: no pre-installed Candy Crush or any of that nonsense. Spotify is perhaps the only third-party app on the machine. Microsoft includes a 30-day trial of Microsoft 365 Family.

Microsoft has a new app for you, too: the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit. While this appears to be a utility for ferreting out potential problems with your Surface, it also sums up the Surface Laptop Go’s

general features and provides a link to support and warranty information. It even has a neat little battery utility that can track how many charge cycles your battery has gone through, along with other basic information.

WHAT WINDOWS 10 IN S MODE MEANS FOR YOU

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go ships with Windows 10 in S Mode (aka Windows 10 S), a signal that Microsoft wants the Surface Laptop Go to compete with Chromebooks as simple, managed devices. S Mode’s inherent trade-off is that to prevent an unauthorized application or malware from attacking your PC, the operating system limits app downloads only to those found within the Microsoft Store. Even some Windows apps like the Command Shell are prohibited. (An ‘app’ that is also available as a web page, like Facebook, can also be saved to the Start menu.) This also prevents services like antivirus software from running, which is somewhat less of a concern given that Microsoft only allows Microsoft-approved apps on your PC.

The inherent frustration with Windows 10 S is the same as when working with Windows on ARM: chances are there will be some small, necessary app that you’ll absolutely need, and won’t be able to use.

Equally infuriating is Microsoft’s inability to put basic filtering on the Store itself. When you launch the Microsoft Store app, you’ll see every app available to Windows 10 PCs. But the Surface Laptop Go isn’t a full-fledged Windows 10 PC. Many apps you might want have a greyed-out ‘Install’ button,

and a tiny note explaining that the app isn’t compatible with Windows 10 in S Mode. We don’t understand why Microsoft can’t only show you apps your PC can download.

That said, there’s a decent amount of apps and games that are available for the Surface Laptop Go: the Office suite, certainly, as well as popular apps like Spotify. But even games are hit-andmiss: Minecraft for Windows 10 is Windows 10 S-capable. Minecraft Dungeons is not. Halo? Nope – even though all three are Microsoftowned games. Meanwhile, third-party games like

World of Tanks: Blitz are ready to rock.

As you may be aware, however, there is a way out. Within the Windows 10 Settings menu (Update & Security > Activation) lies the Switch to Windows 10 Home option. Switching out of Windows 10 in S mode to Windows 10 Home is a one-way street, and you’ll lose the protective embrace of Windows 10 S. Doing so, however, opens the door to all the freedom you’d expect with a PC.

Battery life is one slightly brighter spot for Windows 10 in S Mode. We’ve noticed longer life from prior Surface Laptops tested in S mode, although the margin seems to have narrowed over time. The Surface Laptop Go’s battery lasted a little longer in S mode than in it did when we switched to Windows 10 Home, but not enough to justify sticking with the more limited operating system.

PERFORMANCE: WINDOWS 10 IN S MODE

Because the Store restrictions prevented us from running our traditional suite of benchmarks in Windows 10 S, we used browser-based benchmarks for comparison. We ran several tests comparing various products, mostly from Microsoft. (Skip ahead for our tests running Windows 10 Home on a broader suite of devices.) From a real-world perspective, the WebXPRT tests are meaningful, both the current WebXPRT 3 as well as the older WebXPRT 2015. Both perform similar tasks: graphing data, manipulating and tagging photos, and similar, relatively modern web-based activities. We have a large database of WebXPRT scores, though the developer, Principled Technologies, has also published a Chromebookspecific version. Unfortunately, it requires ChromeOS to run. The Surface Laptop Go posted a good upper-middle score against the competition.

The JetStream benchmark measures a browser’s performance on JavaScript and WebAssembly and “rewards browsers that start up quickly, execute code quickly and run smoothly”, according to the developers. We’re testing hardware, not browsers, here, and there’s some variation – some of these tests were performed under Chrome and the legacy Edge browser, both of which have evolved over time. Still, it’s a decent measure of Web performance – and if you consider these as Chromebook competitors, they’re an important benchmark, too. Here, the Surface Laptop Go landed right in the middle.

The Speedometer benchmarks measure the responsiveness of Web applications, using demo web applications to simulate user actions such as adding to-do items. The Surface

Laptop Go posted one of the highest scores in this test.

I played the pair of games mentioned earlier to get a sense of how the Surface Laptop Go will run outside of web browsing and Office apps. Goat Simulator, a playful ‘destroy everything’ simulator, was playable with all detail turned down to minimal levels. World of Tanks Blitz, a simple tank simulation also available for Android tablets, ran at a smooth 60fps at Medium settings.

(Weirdly, neither game allowed you to set the resolution.)

PERFORMANCE: WINDOWS 10 HOME

In the real world, the Surface Laptop Go is absolutely suitable as a classroom/ study-from-home PC. I used it for several days as an ordinary work laptop, with Zoom and Teams calls, streaming video, messaging co-workers, and the like. It was a pleasure to use.

After I switched out of S Mode, the door opened to our normal collection of benchmarks. We use UL’s PCMark 8 tests as an older benchmark showing off the Surface Laptop Go’s ability to perform tasks like word processing, data manipulation within spreadsheets,

and so on. These tests are measured by the PCMark 8 Work suite. We also use the Creative test suite to add in light and mainstream gaming, and more intensive photo and video manipulation. The Surface Laptop Go landed in the middle among its competition.

Maxon’s Cinebench stresses all four cores and eight instruction threads of the Surface Laptop Go’s Core i5 processor, assigning each thread a small portion of a complex 2D image that the software renders. We use this as a test to measure short, bursty workloads. The Laptop Go stumbled in this test, registering one of the lowest scores of the bunch.

The HandBrake benchmark is the opposite of the Cinebench sprint. The

process of transcoding a Hollywood movie executes over time – more than an hour, in this case – providing a view of how the laptop handles prolonged loads. Processing power matters here, but also how cool the laptop remains while it’s working. Our score is the time, in seconds, the conversion needs to complete and shorter is better.

The Surface Laptop Go brought up the rear of the middle, adequate but not outstanding.

Numerous 3DMark benchmarks exist to test the graphics capabilities of laptops and their (in this case) integrated GPUs. We use the Sky Diver benchmark, specifically designed for integrated graphics. The Surface Laptop Go’s UHD

graphics isn’t up for much, so the midrange score is actually good.

Finally, there’s battery life. We loop a 4K video over and over until the laptop’s battery expires. It should be noted that Microsoft’s own battery-life tests assume a screen brightness of 150 nits, far lower than what we consider to be adequate brightness levels.

For its size, the Surface Laptop Go performs competently, at 495 minutes (8 hours, 15 minutes) in Windows 10 Home. We tested battery in Windows 10 S mode before we switched, and it was a little better at 521 minutes (8 hours, 41 minutes). If that doesn’t cut it, the Surface Laptop Go includes quick charging, which Microsoft says will charge the battery to about 80 per cent in an hour. Windows’ battery meter showed the Laptop Go charging from 4 per cent to 54 per cent in about an hour, and from 4 per cent to 82 per cent in about 90 minutes.

VERDICT

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go is a solid budget laptop reaching for good rather than great. Until Intel and its partners manage to push its 11th-gen Tiger Lake notebooks out the door, this really is the time of AMD’s mobile Ryzen.

Microsoft touts the Surface Laptop Go as the “everyday, everywhere” laptop, implying that you would be better off buying the Laptop Go than a Chromebook. I still believe that Microsoft has it in them to develop the “everyday, everywhere, everyone” laptop. With the Surface Laptop Go, Microsoft is headed in the right direction. Mark Hachman

SPECIFICATIONS

• 12.4in (1,536x1,024; 148ppi) PixelSense Display

• Windows 10 Home in S mode

• 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processor – 1035G1

• 8GB RAM

• 256GB SSD

• 720p HD f2.0 camera

• Dual far-field Studio Mics

• Omnisonic Speakers with Dolby Audio

• 1x Surface Connect port

• 1x USB-A

• 1x USB-C

• Headphone jack

• Fingerprint reader

• Wi-Fi 6: 802.11ax compatible

• Bluetooth 5.0

•278.18x205.67x5.69mm

• 1.11kg

The Surface Laptop Go, nestled into the lap of the 15in Surface Laptop 3.

The Surface Laptop Go holds no surprises in terms of port layout: there’s a Surface Connector port on tie right side of the laptop...

...and on the left, there’s a USB-A port, a USB-C port, and the headphone jack.

If the Surface Laptop Go is locked, the LED ring will light to guide your finger in for a landing. Maybe Microsoft’s Surface engineers took a cue from Flight Simulator?

We shot high-resolution photos at a fixed distance of five inches of the Surface Laptop Go to offer some evidence of how its display compares visually. (Ignore the colour anomalies and moire, as they don’t show up in the real world.) We’ve used Microsoft’s recommended scaling settings. This is the 12.45in Surface Laptop Go (1,536x1,024) at scaling of 100 per cent.

Microsoft’s 10.5in Surface Go 2 at the default resolution of 1,800x1,200 at 150 per cent scaling.

This is an image captured from the 14in HP Pavilion x360 Convertible 14, with a 14in, 1080p display.

This is the same image captured on the display of the Laptop Go.

A large, slick trackpad dominates the Surface Laptop Go’s keyboard.

Microsoft’s cameras still produce a decent, colour-accurate image.

Microsoft’s Surface Diagnostic Toolkit app appears to have replaced the Surface app, and provides a summary of the Surface Laptop Go’s specs, along with diagnostic tests.

You can switch out of Windows 10 in S Mode in favour of Windows 10 Home, for free. The process takes literally just a few seconds.

Part of the frustration of working with Windows 10 S is Microsoft’s refusal to filter out apps that won’t run on its operating system. See the tiny note to the lower right?

By this measure, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go does decently, proving that it should be perfectly capable in Web apps.

As in many of these benchmarks, the Surface Laptop Go performs adequately.

By this measure, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go does decently, proving that it should be perfectly capable in Web apps.

CrystalDiskMark measures how well the Surface Laptop Go SSD performs: surprisingly, pretty well, especially in sequential reads. Unfortunately, the Surface Laptop Go’s SSD does not appear to be user-accessible at all.

In the typical office and light gaming applications measured by PCMark, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go holds its own.

The Surface Laptop Go finishes surprisingly far down in this basic measure of CPU performance.

Again, this test proves that the Surface Laptop Go is not a computing powerhouse.

In terms of graphics, the Surface Laptop Go finishes in the middle of the pack.

Battery life of eight hours and fifteen minutes isn’t bad, especially if you’ll mostly use the Surface Laptop Go at home.