A couple of months ago when I was leaving my job, I decided I needed a new laptop for my new business. Having used the Microsoft Surface Pro at work, I decided to go ahead and buy the Surface Go. It was lighter, had the same full Microsoft features and the amazing Surface detachable keyboard cover. Boy, was I wrong!
The Surface Go is technically a tablet so I when I bought it thinking I could use it as a laptop, my initial premise was flawed. However, I had been using the Surface Pro which functioned perfectly as a laptop and this was just a slightly smaller version. So I thought to myself, how much different can it be. I painfully realized that the “slightly smaller” made all the difference.
Here’s why the Surface Go doesn’t work as a Laptop even though it’s bigger version does:
1) The keyboard is too small: The keys are cramped and even though I have slender fingers, I had a hard time typing for long periods of time. The trackpad is far too big for the size of the keyboard and my palms would keep sliding across it disrupting operation. The trackpad doesn’t work very well either which is similar to the Surface Pro. Nothing beats Apple when it comes to trackpads.
2) It doesn’t balance on your lap: The Pro may not be very sturdy either but, the go is just too small and possibly light to balance on your lap. So as I typed, there was too much bobbing which, coupled with the smaller keys led to complete disaster.
3) It wasn’t as fast as I expected: Larger presentations and excel files still experienced quite a time lag in operations. This was so unexpected because the Pro worked brilliantly for me. I think in the two years I used it at work, I may have to restart it 3 or 4 times, at most.
4) The mouse and pen had connectivity issues: Again something I never faced with Pro but with the Surface Go for some reason, the mouse would constantly lose connection, the pen had a delay and sometimes the keyboard would stop working if I tried to have all three connected.
I haven’t used the Surface Go in the last two months and I’m seriously considering selling it. I’ve gone back to using my very old MacBook Air. It’s serving me well for now and I am not gong to spend money again for upgrade until I absolutely have to.
How can Microsoft make one version of a product so great and the other so poor?
I really am very disappointed with the Surface Go!
For a good comparison on the actual tech features visit Windows Central
Looking through a frosty window... 