Microsoft Surface Laptop Go Review – Appearance and Connections

In summary

The Laptop Go is the cheaper version of the Surface Laptop 3 and is a bit slower than its big brother. The screen has a low resolution, which is not disturbing when browsing the web, but it is when running image editing software or spreadsheets. The build quality is very good and except for the cheapest model, the laptops have a fingerprint scanner. The weight is low and the laptop is nice and compact. Together with the touchscreen and the 3: 2 aspect ratio, this makes a unique laptop. As far as connections are concerned, the Laptop Go is disappointing and a card reader is missing. The additional cost for the version with more storage is high and the battery life of 8.5 hours while browsing is decent, but under load it drops rapidly.

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When Microsoft introduced its first Surface tablets, it sold the Surface Pro for 900 euros, but also a cheaper variant, the Surface RT, for less than 500 euros. This cheaper option is designed to appeal to users with less money to spend and to entice educational institutions to opt not for laptops with Chrome OS, but Windows. The latest example in that ‘cheaper’ series is the Surface Laptop Go, a cheaper version of the Surface Laptop. From the outside, you can immediately see that it is smaller than the Surface Laptop 3, but there are many more differences. In this review we take a look at them and see whether the small Laptop Go is recommended.

Anyone familiar with Microsoft products will immediately notice that the Surface Laptop Go is a cheaper product than the regular Surface Laptop, while you still see the Microsoft signature in this product. To start with the first: the Surface Laptop Go is quite small. The screen has a diagonal of 12.4 “, but a 3: 2 ratio, making the entire laptop less than 28 centimeters wide, which is narrower than for example this one 11.6 “Chromebook. It is also clearly a Surface product, because you see the same design language back as with the Surface Laptop and Surface tablets. The housing is largely made of gray metal and has no superfluous buttons or stickers. The shape is similar to that of the Surface Laptop, but the bottom, or D cover, is made of plastic, which is the first time with a Surface product. The light gray plastic looks a bit cheaper than the full metal housing of a Surface Laptop, but it feels very sturdy. You can also feel this in the construction of the screen, for example, which does not bend or twist under pressure and whose hinge offers sufficient resistance. That’s nice, because the Suface Laptop Go is equipped with a touchscreen.

For a laptop of 630 euros, because that is how much the cheapest Laptop Go costs, the build quality is above average. With many laptops in this price category, we come across housings that feel cheaper and, above all, less sturdy. Another point where you can see that Microsoft has paid a lot of attention to the design is the placement of the speakers. Front-facing speakers generally give a clearer sound, but the housing offers little room for that. That is why they are pointed upwards under the keyboard, which leads to good intelligibility when conducting conversations.

The screen edges are nice and narrow, but there is still a camera in the top edge. It just doesn’t have facial recognition, like all other Surface devices. A fingerprint scanner is also not available if you choose the version of 630 euros, and that is a downside. The more expensive versions do have that, but then you pay at least 800 euros.

In addition, Microsoft is not generous with connections. This comes as no surprise; that was not the case on the Surface Laptop either, but in practice it is inconvenient. The right side only houses Microsoft’s own Surface connector, which you can use to charge the Laptop Go or hang it from a Microsoft accessory, such as a Surface Dock. On the left are a regular USB-A connection, headphone connection and USB-C. You can use the USB-C connection to charge the laptop, and you can also connect external screens by means of a dock. As mentioned, the number of connections is not very practical. We miss a card reader and if you plug a wide card reader on USB into the USB-A port, for example, you can no longer use the USB-C connection, because it is right next to it. An extra gate on the right would not have been a luxury.

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard of the Surface Laptop Go is not wrong for a laptop keyboard. The touch is clear, but every key press is neatly muted, giving the laptop a solid feel. With cheaper laptops, it is sometimes the case that an attack causes the housing to bounce, which therefore feels cheap. The keyboard travel is 1.3mm, according to Microsoft, and we took our keyboard test equipment to check that.

Because we were only able to measure the maximum travel with the Surface Laptop 3, the value for the actuation point is missing. As a result, the graph above looks crazy. For reference, the laptops with the most and least travel that we have measured so far, the MacBook Pro and the ThinkPad E490, are also included. The 1.3 millimeter key travel specified by Microsoft is accurate to the hundredth of a millimeter and is quite similar to that of other compact laptops, such as the Acer Swift 5 and the ASUS Zenbook 13.

It appears that the surface of the touchpad is made of plastic and while we prefer to see a glass surface, your finger slides over it easily and all multi-touch gestures are picked up without any problems. The mouse button that is incorporated under the touchpad provides a clear, muted click when pressed.

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