Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: left behind

From what I can tell, Microsoft intends to sell the Surface Go 3 to two types of customers: kids and IT pros who need a small computer when they’re out in the field. . I belong to the third category of potential customers: people who like small computers. For all three groups, the Surface Go 3 is a disappointment.

The Surface Go 3 is Microsoft’s smaller Surface tablet. It has a 10.5-inch screen and a smaller port than its big brother Pro, but otherwise it looks a lot alike. This means it offers the same excellent build quality and the same premium overall design as full-size Surface tablets. It’s a gorgeous device that is often a pleasure to use, as long as you don’t use it to overdo it or need it to last a very long time.

Once upon a time, if you could only spend a limited amount of money on a computer, you had to accept that it would be slow. Those times are behind us: You can get a Chromebook, iPad, and even Windows laptops for under $ 500 that’ll be spinning around the Surface Go 3, even the top-performing model I’m testing with a Core i3 processor that costs $ 759.98 with the chicest Alcantara Type Cover.

The GB 3 starts at $ 399.99 with a Y-series processor and a paltry 64GB of slower eMMC storage and 4GB of RAM. I can’t imagine anyone using this edition for anything other than light web browsing.

I’ve always said the Surface Go is a good little computer if you understand its limitations and are up for the job. But in the third generation, you would think Microsoft would have found a way to remove more of these limits or provide them with better compromises. Unfortunately, none of those things happened this year.

The long and (especially) short of this review is simply this: four and a half hours. This is the longest I’ve been able to keep the Surface Go 3 in active operation. One of the apps I was running was power hungry (it would be Slack), but the only other app was the Edge browser with about a dozen tabs. That’s it. When I took out the Go 3 and needed to crank up the brightness, the battery life dropped to three. I don’t know where Microsoft gets its 11 o’clock estimate, but that’s far from the truth.

If the battery life was better, my old advice on working within the limits of this computer would still apply. It has Windows 11 by default – read Tom Warren’s full review here – and while the edges are rough, the interface is overall very nice and usable on that smaller 10.5-inch touchscreen. Snap Assist for tiled windows is especially useful with this smaller screen, as it’s harder to get windows to the layout I’m used to on larger screens.

Windows 11 has an advantage over iPadOS in that it supports multiple users. And compared to ChromeOS, it can run a lot of more useful apps (but not Android apps yet). But it’s possible to get all of these benefits of Windows without making all of the compromises that Go 3 demands.

The overall physical design is unchanged – a bummer since the Surface Pro 8 received such a big update this year. It still works with the old Surface Pen if you have one, but it doesn’t support the haptics of the newer pen. The Type Cover still has a nice keyboard but a fragile keyboard. It’s so fragile that I often accidentally click the mouse just by resting my hands on the palm rests when it’s on my lap.

Perhaps the most puzzling part of the Surface Go 3 is that it doesn’t use an Arm-based processor like the Surface Pro X. If it did, I have to imagine it would benefit from battery life. longer without taking too long. all of a sudden (even the Core i3 version cannot be called “fast”). Maybe the aforementioned IT pros wouldn’t be able to run the apps they need on Arm – or maybe Microsoft just didn’t want to spend the R&D budget needed to redesign the Surface Go. 3 around a new chip.

Last year, I said the Surface Go 2 was easy to love and hard to live with. And even so, there are times when I really like using the Surface Go 3. There’s something wonderful about having such a small and light device that can theoretically do everything a bigger Windows computer can do. , although more slowly.

Unless a small Windows tablet is an absolute necessity, there are better options. If you don’t need Windows, ChromeOS and iPad devices can be this small and last longer on a charge. If you need Windows, there are plenty of computers that are slightly larger but are much better value for money. In fact, at this price point, I would recommend looking for a used or refurbished Surface Pro.

The Surface Go 3 is always a pleasure to carry and often a pleasure to use, but I wish I could use it for longer.