Well I just got back from the mall and actually handling one of these for the first time, and I must say I'm going to make a partial turn around on my opinion and am considering actually buying 3 of them in addition to the 2 surface pro's I already own. Pictures don't prepare you for how small these are, I had the impression that they were just a bit smaller than the pros and scoffed at the idea that it would fit into a purse. But in reality they are quite a bit smaller and will easily fit into a large or even medium sized purse. Now I don't carry a purse, my dream is a tablet that fits into a pocket similar to a 8" tablet such as the ones which used to be released with windows. It won't fit into a pocket, but it will be much easier to carry around than the pro.
So I'll address my prior sticking points and my updated thoughts:
Bezels: It's still huge for it being 2018, but in person it's not as onerous as it is in pictures. In reality it's about the same thickness as the Pro, but because of the smaller screen it's proportionately larger. I still think the bezel should have been smaller, but I understand there are limitations when you are in this price range. I still think it should at least have had smaller top/bottom bezels like the ipad, which manages to achieve this within the same approximate price range. The ipad pro with slim bezels is going to wow consumers, but that shouldn't affect the Go because they are different segments and I highly doubt the regular ipad will have all 4 bezels slimmed this year. But it will still be a factor in attracting consumers who look at the most dazzling product, but end up walking out with a less expensive model because they are already in store. The ipad pro's smaller bezels will create more headaches for the surface pro, but that's an entirely different post/debate.
Windows S: I still feel this will confuse your average consumer, but the upgrade process is seamless enough when you try to run a legacy program. I just feel that if the process is so seamless and it's free, they should have just put in full windows to begin with. I get what they are trying to do, streamline a small consumption device and most likely also continue with their quest to collect their fees from developers within their store ecosystem. For myself I could care less, but this was more of a commentary on possible pitfalls with consumers. But it's probably not a big deal, some consumers will never need legacy windows and the upgrade option will never pop up, and they will probably never know or care. The consumers that do need full windows will seamlessly upgrade and that's that. Although if full windows bogs down then that might be an issue. I'm curious to see benchmarks, and specifically benchmarks running both modes of windows. Does full windows bog it down even if not using legacy programs? I don't know, but I'm curious if full windows has any overhead that makes it slower.
Battery life: This is still a huge issue, but I will withhold judgement until I see official benchmarks, in particular with full windows installed.
Processor/specs: I only used it for about 10 minutes or so, but it seemed very snappy. Edge ran well with 7 or 8 tabs open, no slowdowns or anything. MS Office also ran perfectly. I still think the M3 proc would have been nicer, but I can't really base that on anything I experienced testing it out. At the end of the day I think you just have to accept this is a companion device which may or may not be the best tool out there to finish your huge photoshop project on, and at the price range I think that's ok.
Apps: This was never really an issue with me, as I've long espoused the ecosystem argument as dead. No one has really proffered any kind of non niche app on iOS that isn't represented in some form on windows. In some cases it may boil down to usability, but I've also never really agreed with iOS as being particularly easier to use on a touchscreen, and in some cases even find it more difficult to use. But certainly this boils down to preference and what you are used to. If this was windows S only then it would have been an issue.
So at the end of the day I am considering buying 3 of these. 1) My daughter has an ipad mini, she is 6 now and I worry about dumbing her down, but with the absence of windows 8" tablets I've resisted upgrading her to a full OS. She saw this and fell in love with it, in particular because she is reading at a 4th grade level and was highly interested in the keyboard. 2) My wife has resisted my attempts to buy her a surface pro for years, she's happy with her Dell infinity screen laptop I got her last year. But she also loved this and asked me to sell her laptop and get her one of these. She liked the portability aspect of it the most. 3) I wouldn't mind having one myself to have on the road, as the surface pro is a bit of a pain to carry around at times. I think my daughter and my wife would be fine with the base level one, but I would max mine out as much as I could and it would be a companion to my surface pro, which is a companion to my desktop at home. But in reality the beauty of these is that with a monitor/keyboard/mouse setup you don't need multiple PC's depending on how much computing power you need.
For myself if they had released a model with slim bezels, M3 or M5 proc and more battery life I'd easily pay $800-1000 for this with say 8GB RAM and 256GB HD. The advantages are HUGE, the kickstand is
ridiculously useful and I still opine that any tablet without a kickstand is crap. The keyboard was very impressive, nice key travel, trackpad was impeccable, and it served well simply protecting the screen when closed. Micro SD expansion is huge as well, especially with those 512GB cards on the horizon. USB-C charging is a big plus to me after seeing how small the power brick was, really about the size of a MacBook air brick. I've always hated having to carry the surface Pro's huge brick and cabling, and the small Go brick makes travel/portability that much nicer. I wish they had a legacy USB port on there to avoid dongles, but that's not their fault, just USB-C has to catch up. Mini displayport out is huge as well, I use the one on my Pro on a daily basis. Of course it has a headphone jack, I personally could care less, but I know many are going to complain when Apple nixes it on the ipad.
In terms of it being DOA, I'm mixed on this. Microsoft has these front and center, as soon as you approach the MS store (for me in one of the biggest state malls in a ritzy area) they have multiple tables all set up with the Go's on display, and tons of sales reps ready to talk to you. If you have any knowledge of the Pro's your first thought will be how they managed to shrink these down so much. I was honestly surprised at how much my daughter and wife liked these at first glance and feel that they represent non technical type of consumers who are bored with iOS. But I can see this being a decent seller and definitely see it as an ipad competitor. I think it will only be a fraction of ipad sales, but much of that is due to Apple's much stronger loyalty and that intangible pull their products have. Of course that depends on what Apple releases in September. It's certainly not DOA, it may not sell out but I think it will most likely sell enough to justify it's existence.
[doublepost=1533582982][/doublepost]Interesting review with benchmarks:
https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/microsoft-surface-go
Doesn't seem like there is much of a difference with the upgraded 8GB ram and 128GB SSD, makes me wonder if it's better to just save the money. I am highly disappointed in the battery life though, at almost 1/3 brightness (150nits) web browsing crapped out at 6 hours 6 minutes (1.5 hours less than the surface pro on same test) versus the ipads 10 hours 7 minutes. 150nits sucks IMO, maybe my eyes are just bad but the minimum brightness on my Pro is 50% to be usable in a normally lit room, 75% is optimal.
This is by far my biggest hesitancy in buying one of these. I just want a truly "all day" device, not another device I have to babysit with a power cord. Gahhhh, choices!!
