Surface 2 Go Review

I was in the market for a new machine as I wanted a small device that I could do notes on, write script for videos, draw and some colouring and have enough power to do some light editing of photos. As I do some of this while in Coffee Shops connectivity is also important. The size of the over all package has to be light and small so I can chuck it into my backpack. Importantly it had to have a keyboard as well as a good touch screen.

Reason why I went with Surface 2 Go

So I really had to options, an iPad with Keyboard or a Surface 2 Go. I went for the Surface 2 Go. Here are the 2 main reasons why.

• The storage is expandable. It has a Micro SD card slot that expands the storage on the device.
• It runs full fat Windows 10. Yes it comes installed with Windows 10 S but with a click of a button you get Windows 10 Home.

The reason why Windows 10 is important is I use 2 apps for my photo editing needs that are not available on iOS. They are Corel Aftershot Pro and Skylum PhotoLemur 3, both run fine on the Surface 2 Go. As it runs Full Fat Windows I can also install Affinity Photo on it if I wish.

The app I use for note taking and scripting my videos is OneNote. I like OneNote as it doesn't matter what device I use OneNote works with it, so for instance it is on the Surface 2 Go, my Main PC, My Android Tablet and Pixel 5.

The Surface Go 2 I got from a mobile phone company here in the UK also included a Keyboard with the device as well as a year of Microsoft 365 Personal.

Specs

The specs of the Surface 2 Go I have is as follows

• Core M3-8100Y
• 8Gb 1866Mhz DDR4 Ram
• 128Gb SSD
• LTE

The keyboard on the Surface 2 Go is a very good keyboard for its size. Yes it is a bit cramped but that's expected since the device itself is small. Its the same size as the original Surface Go. The keys have a decent amount of travel on them and it is backlit. You could easily get used to it. This blog was mostly written on it. If you have a keyboard cover from the original Surface Go then it will work with the Surface 2 Go.

I did get a pen, but not the surface pen as it is expensive, I got pen from Renaisser, the Raphael 520. It does attached to the side of the Surface 2 Go like the Surface Pen does and it as 2 buttons on it. Battery life for the pen is about 1 month and is rechargeable.

As for the battery life on the Surface, as long as you don't push it (so doing Office Tasks, Browsing the web ETC) it can last 6-7 hours on a charge. Obviously if you push it the battery will drain a lot faster.

The screen is a very nice screen, its a 10.5 Pixelscence screen thats  in the 3:2 Apsect ratio, which is very good for office work etc. The Resolution is 1920x1280, so 220PPI. I have found it bright enough when working outside. The colour accuracy is very good.

The ports on it are not many, with a single full service USB C (Supports up to 10Gbs transfer speed), a Surface Connector, Headphone Jack and the all important MicroSD card slot. The Keyboard has a magnetic connector running down the bottom of the device. If you had a Surface Go keyboard from the last generation than that will work with this version as well. Thanks to the USB C port being full service you can use the many 3rd party docks that are available or you can get the expensive Surface Dock that uses the Surface Connector. The Charger that comes with the device is magnetic, which is always nice. It is a fast charger as well.

The 2 speakers on the device are forward facing but at only 2 watts are quiet. They do sound good for what they are though.

The webcam is one of the best I have seen on a laptop, with a 5MP camera and 1080p 30fps video. The back camera is a 8MP device with also 1080p 30FPS video. 

The Microphones are very good,  it as 2 "studio" quality mics that are either side of the front facing webcam. While I wouldn't say they are studio quality they are some of the best I have seen on any device.

It supports Wi-Fi all the way up to Wi-Fi 6. It also has GPS built into the device so at a pinch can be used with Microsoft Maps and works with the "find my device" feature that can be found on your Microsoft account page.

It has Bluetooth 5 built in as well.

It has a TPM built in for security and out of the box the internal SSD is encrypted by Bitlocker. It also supports Windows Hello for extra security.

Performance

I did a speed test with my Video Editor of choice, Wondershare Filmora X on both my PC and Surface 2 Go. The video has some colour grading on it, some titles and some basic transitions.

The results are as follows :-

• Test video Length : 6:23
• Surface 2 Go : 7:26
• Main PC : 1:35

So it is not ideal for Video Editing but its not designed for it. Scrubbing the timeline was smooth though, and that is more important than the render time of the end product.

As for Photo Editing, it is fast at doing this with no noticeable stutters.

For taking notes and general office use the Surface is a very good device. In fact for note taking it is the best device I have used.

For drawing/colouring the pen is very responsive, smooth and good palm rejection. Corel Painter boots up in about 15 seconds and runs very smooth.

First week of use.

I have had the Surface for a few days now. Out of the box it took over 6 hours to install all the updates that was out for it and when it was finished it only had 50Gb of space left on the internal SSD. After doing some disk clean up (the "old windows installations" used up 30Gb of space even though I had not even used the device yet) I had 81Gb of space for apps, although Office did come pre-installed.

After all my apps that I wanted installed on this machine was installed I had 73.1Gb of space left, which is fine as you can install a Micro SD card for extra storage (like all your data). This included the Filmora Video Editor that I left installed for emergencies and Corel Painter 2019/Aftershot Pro. 

Using it in a Coffee Shop

I did a few trips into town this week and took my Surface with me instead of my Galaxy Tab A 2019 Tablet.  The Surface worked really well, I love the design of the Kickstand which Microsoft introduced in the first Surface. In my opinion it is still the best stand on any Tablet/Hybrid 2-1 device.

I did write most of this blog post on the Surface in the coffeeshop and the keyboard is a delight to work on. The trackpad while small is accurate and the click part of it is ok, its better on the bottom than on the top thanks to its hinge design.

In tablet mode I used it to read a book from the Kobo app that you can get on the Microsoft Store and its just as good as the Galaxy Tab.

I did have to use the Mobile Network while in a Coffee Shop to find out why a video hadn't published and the connection was stable when using Microsoft Edge and it was fast, even though it only had 2 bars on the signal. I would recommend using Edge over Chrome as Edge is lighter on the battery.

Conclusion

Overall I am very pleased with the Surface 2 Go. Is it worth the money? Well that depends on your use case. If all you want to do is note taking, basic office tasks, basic photo editing, reading Ebooks, Drawing and watching YouTube/Netflix than this is  for you. If you wanted a Game Demon or a Video Editing Station then look else where