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My work have taken me on as an employee after contracting for a few months. They will buy me a computer.
I mostly work from home but go to London on the train every couple of weeks, so need something small so I can work while travelling. I have a desktop I use at home and for mobile work I currently use a Surface 3. It's OK, but uses a mobile processor and is painfully slow.
The uses of the machine are using Office 365 applications and updating a website through a browser based CMS interface <- so nothing intense. My current Surface struggles though.
I know the Surface Pro would be fine, but I went to the shops to have a look and saw the Surface Go. its small size intrigued me, as space to work on the train is very limited especially if you don't get a table seat and have the silly little tray table. The higher spec model looks good from a performance point of view. I can plug it in to the screen and keyboard etc at home.
I guess my question is what are the ergonomics of it like in real life? Is it too small?
*Watches with interest.*
I have a personal Surface laptop and it's amazeballz (as da kidz say). Would really like to replace my old Dell work laptop with something much smaller and lighter for travel purposes. As you say, "I can plug it in to the screen and keyboard etc at home."
I brought a Surface Go about a month ago and really like it. I only use it at home, for surfing and email, sometimes Excel. I think, with a keyboard, it would work well for most things. I've got the one with the SSD, but there are a few videos on youtube that say the cheaper one is still very capable.
If you can handle the reduced size then I'd expect it to be good. The 3 as you say is a bit slow but the Go seems much better specced for the same price - and the requirements of Windows and Office have not gone up.
I have a Pro 4 and find it only just big enough but this might be because work gave me a 28" 4k monitor a few months back....
Tip for Surface users that many people don't see to be aware of: the keyboard has two positions, you can flip the top to the base of the screen to make a sloping keyboard, or you can leave it flat on the table. Typing with it flat on the table is much nicer:
Following this with interest, as I think the Suface Go 128Mb model would suit my g/f. I have a seen number of differing surface models in use (supporting them) but not used one in anger myself. I would not recommend the basic "Go", as I've seen one run like a dog, but the upper model looks very capable. The pro's are joyous, the price not so much..
Got my son a Surface Go last christmas for college work, he's given up on it as unreliable and gone back to using one of my old laptops.
3 times now it has got itself stuck in a bootloop and I've had to reinstall Windows on it. Nice to use when it works.
No experience of the Surface Go but a company I used to work for had a fleet of Surface Pro 4s - I was massively unimpressed with them, they were very expensive for the spec and incredibly slow compared to similar spec "normal" laptops. They constantly had issues with the docks working/not working and seemed to overheat on a regular basis. These were the top spec ones with the SSD and proper processors. In the end everyone with one moved to a regular laptop - the benefit of the portability lost out in the end to the speed whilst in use. Most people only used for basic office stuff - email / word processing / internet etc.
They were used as their only device, so maybe as a "stop gap" for just using whilst travelling they would be better?
Had a go on the Surfaces in John Lewis and more of a think about it and got a Dell XPS13 with an i7 and 16gb of RAM.
My work gets pretty frantic, and I loved how fast it was. Similar size to a Surface Pro but takes up less desk space without the kickstand. More ports and much better battery life.
For Xmas gift Surface Pro is what I want 😃
Not sure about Surface Go but if the specs is lower I would avoid since you need it for work.
I have borrowed Surface pro (previous version before the current version) from my colleagues before for work and they seem fine but not sure about the 4/5G model. (assuming the currently model but I have not checked)
I used it for online video calls, general Microsoft Office apps and browsing which work fine but I did not check the specs.
p/s: the one I borrowed has detachable keyboard.
pp/s: the most important thing for me is portability as the keyboard is detachable and while taking a dump I can surf net better ... not surfing erotic sites just in case you ask.
Surface Pro 4 can run Zwift, no idea how other models compare.
Watching too. Daughter is doing Computer Gaming Art (Digital Art) at college, and a Go with appropriate software, or indeed her current laptop with a colour display drawing tablet might be better.
Use a surface go for work, mainly office word, excel and outlook. On the move the screen is fine and the keyboard fairly useable. I do use a proper Bluetooth mouse with it though and not the keyboard one. When I get back into the office I plug it into a 27” monitor and use it as dual screen with outlook open on the surface screen and other apps on the big screen. I also plug a micro usb hub in which has printer cd drive and proper keyboard hooked up. It works fine with all this going on.
Slight tangent here.
I bought an Acer Switch about 3 years ago.
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/models/laptops/switch5
Its a very portable 12" tablet with keyboard. 128 SSD (looks like the #5 is 256 now). Only used for 'on the go', word, excel, e mail, pdf generation and mods.
It comes with a Smart Pen, which for me is very useful to circle or arrow highlight in the photographs in my site reports.
I looked at the surface models back then, but was far more impressed with this one.
Only downside is the charger. Its not USB but a full size PSU with a lead. Just adds a bit more weight and bulk.
Samsung also do similar devices.
Just to repeat my earlier post, I bought a Dell XPS13 laptop with an i7 and 16gb of RAM.
Obviously the OP has bought something else, but if anyone is looking for one.. the Ms Surface Go 8gb/128gb SSD is £400 on Amazon currently, not a bad saving if your looking for one