Dosing Win 11 in low-cost tablet form
Although it runs Windows 11 and can be used with an optional keyboard, the Microsoft Surface Go 3 is a tablet designed to compete with Chromebooks and the Apple iPad, not traditional laptops. A compelling starting price of $399.99, coupled with the refined styling and high-quality construction we’ve come to expect from the Surface product family, make this the best inexpensive Windows-powered 2-in-1 tablet you can buy. But with few improvements over its predecessor and computing performance that remains lackluster, the Surface Go 3 is also a slightly disappointing third-generation revision to Microsoft’s most affordable tablet, given the advances we’re seeing on other platforms. Plus, our Core i3-based tester comes in at $629.99, and that’s without Microsoft’s compatible keyboard accessory, which adds at least another Benjamin. The Design: It’s Mostly a Go 2 The Surface Go 3 follows a familiar design formula. It’s a rectangular touch-screen tablet with an integrated kickstand. Weighing just 1.2 pounds and measuring 0.33 by 9.7 by 6.9 inches (HWD), it’s equally at home in your hands or propped up on a table. That distinguishes it from most other 2-in-1 convertible laptops, which typically weigh at least twice as much and have permanently-attached keyboards that make them less natural to use as true tablets. Like the more expensive Microsoft Surface Pro 8 tablet, the Surface Go 3’s functionality skyrockets when you magnetically attach the optional Surface Type Cover, which adds a keyboard and touchpad to transform the tablet into something that can pass for a laptop. While it’s true that Chromebook tablets and the iPad can also be attached to external keyboards, the Surface Go 3’s advantage is that it runs a full version of Windows 11, not the internet- and app-centric iPadOS or Chrome OS. This unique combination is what makes the Surface Pro 8 (and other premium tablets like it) such a compelling do-it-all device. But the Surface Go 3’s uninspired computing experience robs it of some of the advantages of the more expensive Pro 8 flagship. A CPU bump from an Intel Core m3 in the top-end Surface Go 2 to an Intel Core i3 in the uppermost Surface Go 3 configuration doesn’t help the Go 3 perform meaningfully better than its predecessor, let alone match the power of the Apple A14 silicon in the iPad Air. We’re reviewing the premium Go 3 here, which also comes with 8GB of memory and a 128GB SSD. The $399.99 base model uses an Intel Pentium processor with just 4GB of memory and a 64GB SSD—stay clear of that even-more-underpowered configuration if you can. We’ll look more in-depth at performance below, but suffice it to say that the Surface Go 3 isn’t for anyone who needs to run complex apps like Adobe Photoshop, and its day-to-day computing experience is a bit laggy compared not only with Windows laptops, but also with better-equipped Chromebooks and iPads. While it’s true that many Chromebooks and iPads come with just 4GB of RAM, iPadOS and Chrome OS have limited multitasking capabilities or other memory-hungry requirements. The Display: Brighter Than Your Average Budget Panel Besides more-pedestrian computing components than flagship tablets and laptops offer, the Go 3 also has a smaller, lower-resolution screen. The 10.5-inch display has a resolution of 1,920 by 1,280 pixels in a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is the equivalent of a full HD resolution. It’s fine for watching movies, but if you’re editing documents or scrolling through web pages, you’ll definitely notice some fuzzy text that is absent on the higher-resolution screens of the Pro 8 and the iPad Air. Still, the Surface Go 3’s screen is not only adequate for watching videos and participating in Zoom calls, it’s actually ideally suited for those types of tasks. The screen is brighter and offers more accurate colors than equivalent laptop screens in this price range. In our testing, the Go 3 managed to display the entire sRGB color gamut, and 77% of the P3 color gamut. Further helping image quality is the surprisingly bright backlight, which registered a maximum 424 nits of brightness on our display tests. (More about those later.) While rich color and bright backlights can also describe the iPad Air’s screen, you typically can’t find those traits on clamshell laptops or 2-in-1 convertibles in the Surface Go 3’s price range. Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5i 14, for instance, peaks at just 257 nits of brightness and can display only 64% of the sRGB color space.
