Microsoft reveals their £379 Surface Go

  

On the hardware side, Microsoft has opted to use an Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y processor, offering users two cores and four threads with a base frequency of 1.6GHz and a TDP of 6W.

This processor only supports LPDDR3 and DDR3L memory, which means that the device cannot take advantage of the efficiency offered by DDR4 or LPDDR4 DRAM memory, a disadvantage of using a low-power processor from mid-2017.

Another problem worth considering is that Microsoft does not ship this unit with a “Type Cover”, a keyboard accessory that will be considered mandatory by most of this tablet’s userbase, with the device’s one year warranty also proving too short for most consumers.     

While the form factor of Microsoft’s new Surface Go tablet is impressive, the device itself will be undesirable outside of the “I need a small, portable device to use Microsoft Office on” crowd. The Surface Go offers a price tag that will be too high for budget users (considering the device’s lack of a keyboard at stock) and is underpowered when compared to most modern laptops, making the device undesirable for a large number of potential users. 

While this is an admirable effort from Microsoft, their device is difficult to recommend outside of niche use cases. Would you buy a Windows PC that lacks a full-sized USB port? 

You can join the discussion on Microsoft’s Surface Go tablet PC on the OC3D Forums.