Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBrilliant but not quite perfect!
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2019
There is a lot to love about this but it falls just short of perfect.
Let me be upfront - I am a dyed in the wool Apple man and have been ever since Microsoft brought out widows 8 which I hated with a passion. At that point I already had an iPhone and iPad so going the whole hog with a MacBook seemed a no brainier. I still think it is the best integrated system there is but recently, the fact that iPad iOS is so limited has begun to annoy me. I still have to use a pc for work. This meant I was carrying around a notebook and pen (my iPad didn’t support the pencil) an iPad to be able to use all my productivity apps that my workplace wouldn’t allow me install or more likely didn’t exist on pc.
I was about to update my iPad with a new one that used the pencil but I still needed a mobile platform for a full version of excel, not the iOS cut down version. So I looked at the Go.
What’s to like? Well windows 10 is a breath of fresh air and is what Windows 8 should have been. I love the fact that on such a tiny gadget, I get full versions of office 365 which is perfect as I move from location to location and spend a hell of a lot of time on trains.
To my utter amazement, when I set up my one drive, it recognised I had a work OneDrive account and gave me access without any todo which I fully expected from my super security conscious employer.
I have chosen to break the mould and keep it in S mode. I find it largely fine. There are a few things I would love to put on it but I have realised I don’t actually need them. One is my cycling fitness training app the Sufferfest. (It’s on my old iPad) I would have to come out of S mode to be able to Download that because it’s not on the windows store. Also the kindle app isn’t on the Microsoft store!! What?!! That is a real shame actually and was nearly a deal breaker. I read a lot of technical books which I like to note in OneNote. I’ve got over it by having to use my kindle device which is far from ideal as still annoying.
The reason for keeping it in s mode is I still don’t trust windows. Apples ecosystm just works. Windows does too but in my experience you need to know how too change the oil and spark plugs when you lift the bonnet. Not so with Apple. Windows S provides a nice safe environment which doesnt allow apps to mess with your settings and I love that. My old home PC take about 5 minutes to boot up because of all the garbage in my start up. I haven’t worked out how to get rid of it but then I use my MacBook all the time now.
As a result, the fact this comes with an old and supposedly slow processor, I dont find it noticeably sluggish at all. I am sure 8gb and 120gb of solid state memory really helps but I also don’t do anything that hammers the processor like photo of film editing.I will use my Mac for that. I also don’t play games (life’s too short and there is a whole world to play in outside). I do use spreadsheets a lot. I say that but as a senior manager, I have many minions who do the heavy lifting but I do need to review their stuff. Some of the financial models we use can be fairly large and they seem to work just fine on the surface go. Similarly PowerPoint t and word seem fine and I have yet to find any presentations that are sluggish but then I haven’t had any yet with more than about 30 slides.
I mainly use it for OneNote anyway, especially in meetings. With the pen it’s brilliant. I don’t need my notebook and pen anymore. The only bummer and I don’t know if it is the processor or not (I guess it probably is) I find the hand writing recognition software is slow, probably too slow for my needs. But, the accuracy of the recognition is seriously impressive.
Another thing to like is the USBc port. I bought a little Lenovo adaptor that gives me a VGA type adaptor as well as HDMI and a USB port. To the usb port I have an old usb expansion port plugged in which means I can run it on a big screen as well as use external keyboard and mouse. Mind you, I don’t bother doing that much as the track pad and keyboard are fine, as is the screen (bar the gripes below).
So what’s not to like. Well a few things bug me a little.
Firstly, as an (ahem!) older gentleman, I like things big so I do t need my reading glasses all the time. Annoyingly, Microsoft have shrunk the icons to match the screen size. I am sure there is a setting that would enable them to be bigger and therefore probably fewer of them but I haven’t found it yet. Apple iOS icons are a decent size. When you’ve filled the desktop, they give you another page to swipe through. Don’t think this puppy does that. Shame.
The second thing that is really annoying is that there doesn’t appear to be any anti glare. This is really annoying when i’m Commuting.
Finally battery life sucks. The quoted 7 hours is laughable. I dont seem to get much more than 4 maybe 5 hours which is appalling. The good thing is i’m not often that far from a power plug so it’s not been a problem yet. Also, you can carve it with a USBc cable but it takes forever and doesn’t seem to work with the IPad uk usb charger unit. The charger that comes with it isn’t too bulky and the US one is nice and small.
I don’t rate the Edge browser nor Bing as a search engine. I can’t seem to set another search engine such as DuckDuckGo or god forbid google as my default browser. However saving one as a favourite works but it’s an extra step to get onto the web.
I have had a few problems with accessing one of my web enabled IOS productivity apps - Toodledo which I have using for years. It seems the version of java or whatever gizmo needed to get the full benefit isn’t up to date enough and working out how to do updates in S mode was a complete pain, thankfully sorted for me by the flagship Microsoft store on Oxford Street, London. As it happens, I discovered Microsoft ToDO which does what I want really well.
Finally the Microsoft store is pants really! There’s not a busting amount on it given the huge quantity of software available for download from vendor sites. Ok, you can always come out of S mode but for someone with no interest in knowing how to tinker under the bonnet, I want a device which just works. Windows has never been that OS. I think windows 10 S has the potential but I am probably the only review that likes the idea and reality of S mode (to a point).
Overall, I am really happy with this and it does what I need. I’d still prefer to use an iPad at the end of the day but that is probs it because I am used to them. But until they introduce a Mac OS like windows 10 that can work on their iPads and therefore do all I need with MS office, I will stick happily to my surface go. I think Microsoft are onto a winner and maybe if they clear some of my minor niggles for the Go version 2, it really will become a fantastic go to tablet that is an iPad killer. Just no cigar yet Microsoft!
