Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2: Same bugs again

The smaller and cheaper Surface Laptop Go should be an entry-level, particularly student-friendly choice of laptops in the Microsoft range. This may be true for the US and entry-level version, but Surface devices should always be chosen more at the top of the fan base for sufficient capacity and amounts of memory and disk, and European and especially Slovenian prices are much less competitive than those announced by the company in Presentations.

The Surface Laptop Go 2, while remaining unchanged on the outside, is still a very impressive laptop. Comfortable to use on your knees, with its 12.4-inch screen, it’s small enough to fit in any bag, but not so small that it compromises its usefulness. The quality of the materials (aluminum and plastic) and construction is better than most laptops of up to a thousand euros. From this point of view, the attachments are correct, but I still think that the designers did not go far enough. Looking at the interior, the laptop could definitely be thinner. I’m not quite sure this is the right laptop for students either. At perhaps 1.13kg, which qualifies as light enough, it’s certainly lighter than most, but about four hours of battery life, and maybe just five hours of texting – but who wouldn’t mind surfing the web, or hanging out in chats all day in the halls lectures, etc. . – Within the limits of what the fax user needs. The point is that this laptop is fairly light because it has a small screen and a small battery, not because it has gone to great lengths to make a very light (and thin) device the same size (say 13.3 or 14 inches) diagonally, as is the norm in the industry and as It is expected by customers. That’s why I find it hard to accept his concessions, because on the other hand, he doesn’t offer anything unique.

The screen quality is otherwise very good. The color gamut, uniformity, brightness and viewing angles are above average, they support touches, but the resolution should be higher. The jagged text is noticeable, not always, but it is perfectly visible in certain cases, and working with images is not the same as working with something with more pixels (and surfaces, too). For example, already 1800 x 1200 is sure to be much better than the current 1536 x 1024. Considering that the laptop is being promoted primarily as a work device, I wasn’t expecting much from the speakers, so I was positively surprised a bit. I still put headphones in or over my ears to watch a series, but for the occasional YouTube videos, it has clear and full sound.

A student laptop should first and foremost have a good, usable keyboard, and that’s where the Surface Laptop Go 2 fails. It’s very comfortable and accurate for typing, but I had a better option under my fingers, with more key travel and a stress-free finish. Nice, but of course there are also many worse. But I don’t see an excuse for not having keyboard lighting again, because it’s really hard to distinguish the keys in the best lighting. If in the first place they thought they could save a few euros in costs with this, and somehow get away with it, it’s likely that all the criticism told them clearly what they had to do in a second. However, this is again ignored and the switches remain unlit. The touchpad is accurate, but by today’s standards among the smallest, which is of course the result of a small laptop, it could hardly be otherwise. However, there may be more connections. On the left side there is USB-A and USB-C, where the laptop can also be charged, as well as an output for headphones, while on the right is just the Surface Connect, which I would not lose at all if it was finally sent to the waste register, and instead From that I provided some USB-C and HDMI, maybe a card reader, or whatever. For biometric login, there is a fingerprint reader in the power button, but it has an illuminated border. Fingerprint recognition isn’t quite as reliable, when it wasn’t satisfied on the first try I could have forgotten about this unlocking, but after a few failed attempts (for sure), I had to enter the code.

Fortunately, I did not see the basic configuration with only four GB of memory for sale in Slovenia. The top two are pretty cheap, as they come with an 8GB memory and 128GB or 256GB SSD. Many laptops not more expensive than this have a 16/512GB range, which is probably the bare minimum now, if you don’t want to worry about a slow computer and start looking for a suitable external drive soon after purchase. Microsoft really treats memory and SSDs as if they were gold and should cost a fortune. The choice of the processor of the previous generation from Intel is not wrong, especially with regard to the battery, because according to our experience, the 12th generation already brings better performance, but also higher consumption. The i5-1135G7 used here is mostly adequate for the tasks a user of this laptop can impose on them, certainly for use in a lecture hall, but not suitable for video editing or any kind of graphic design. For these two devices, not even the screen fit. The fan is often idle, but when it spins, it hums a little, but it’s not too loud or annoying.

Technical information:

It’s not hard to see why Microsoft’s Surface line, even after more than a decade of trying, hasn’t found much success. The prices are too high and the configurations are expensive. Practically on the spot, you should offer attractive discounts until you reach a similar price level, which competitors get from the start, even before they attack with their discounts. So the only reasonable (for power) version of the Surface Laptop Go 2, the one with a 256GB SSD, is on sale for 900 instead of €1,000 initially. It’s really hard to get a lighter laptop for that kind of money, and this one has five minutes of fame. It’s also well made and fun to use, but…

… Microsoft is very stubborn about changes to Surface products. The design is updated every five to seven years, even if in the meantime it is no longer modern according to all trends and standards. However, he does not want to make minor adjustments that do not require any major intervention at all. Years ago, it was the same with the USB-C connector and, in a particular case, with the keyboard lighting and screen size and resolution. For the first time in the company, since sales of the previous Laptop Go began, they recognized that it’s the primary comment of residents and buyers, and placing LEDs under the switches often shouldn’t really be a problem, after all, almost every other laptop, especially a premium class, has it. . It is also possible to customize the screen in the same case, after all, even Microsoft itself did it with the Surface Go 2. Therefore, it is difficult for me to forgive him for the main mistakes of the Surface Laptop Go 2, because they are exactly the same as with the first generation .

song:

• Small and light
• quality cover
• Comfortable keyboard
• Nice touch screen

We refuse:

• Unlit keyboard!
• Small laptop also means small screen
• Low screen resolution
• (very) small battery
• Modest set of connectors
• very expensive