The Surface Laptop Go combines the best parts of the Surface Laptop and the Surface Go, culminating in one of the best devices in the Microsoft Surface lineup.
Microsoft Surface devices like the Surface Laptop Go and the Surface Pro line have traditionally been super high-end laptops and tablets, aimed at providing the best Windows 10 experience. However starting with the Surface Go back in 2018, Microsoft started targeting students and everyday users, and this is the segment where arguably Surface is head and shoulders above anything else on the market. What we’re getting here is a 12.4-inch laptop packed with an Intel Core i5 processor,8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. That’s definitely not a high-end spec, but when you consider the low asking price, the gorgeous display and build quality on offer, the Surface Laptop Go is far better than any other laptop you’re going to find at this price range. Microsoft sent us the absolute top-end version of the Surface Laptop Go, which retails at $899 (£899, AU$1,549) for the specs listed on the right, and even at this price, we’d consider it a bargain. Most other laptops in this size class and price range are going to be Chromebooks, which are way more restrictive in what you can do than Windows 10 in S Mode – which is what the Surface Laptop Go ships with. Bonus? You can easily switch out of that Mode these days, and the hardware on offer is more than capable of being a fully-functioning Windows 10 computer. So, if you’re a student that just needs an extremely solid Windows machine for classwork, or you just want a laptop that’s easy to cart around while doing everyday tasks, the Surface Laptop Go is a great choice, especially if you’re comfortable storing most of your extraneous files in OneDrive. The Surface Laptop Go is available now, starting at $549 (£549, AU$999). That entry-level configuration will get you an Intel Core i5-1065G1,4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage. This will be good for super lightweight work, but most people should probably go for the middle tier, which bumps the RAM up to 8GB and the storage up to a fully-fledged 128GB SSD for $699 (£699, AU$1,249). If you want to max out the device, you can bump the storage to 256GB to match the configuration we have for review, and that will set you back $899 (£899, AU$1,549). We wouldn’t recommend going for this version, however. An extra $200 for 128GB of SSD space is just silly, and is a massive rip-off. You’re better off buying an external SSD at that point, trust us. The only Windows laptop that even comes close to this is the HP Envy x360 13, which you can get for $799 (£799, AU$1,799) for a configuration that is remarkably close to the highest-end Surface Laptop Go. However, it’s $100/£100/AU$200 cheaper with the same amount of SSD storage, so that might be the better buy if you need that extra 128GB of space. Though, with OneDrive and services like Google Drive, we suspect many people using this kind of device don’t need an absolute ton of storage space. The Surface Laptop Go is one of the most adorable little laptops we have ever used here at TechRadar.
