Microsoft: New Surface Go with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD

[Redaktion]

Microsoft has released a new version of the Surface Go in the USA without prior notice. You are now able to get a Surface Go with 4 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD for 499 US dollars.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Microsoft-New-Surface-Go-with-4-GB-RAM-and-128-GB-SSD.355171.0.html

[Vance]

$730 + taxes for a barely usable PC with zero servicability. Enough said.

[Digitalguy]

No, 600, you don't need the pen, nor the alcantara...
This is about small and light, not for everyone. Name a pc that is as compact and light (with a decent keyboard) and is more powerful

[Vance]

@Digitalguy:
Refurbished Latitude 5290 2-in-1 with 8th gen U-CPU or even Envy x2 with Intel Y chip. Microsoft should have gone with i3 Whiskey-Lake for this price. Not related but same goes to the new 2018 MacBook Air.

[Digitalguy]

@Vance
This is comparing apples to oranges.
First you are compared used/refurbished to new. Do this with a used surface go in 1-2 years and you will find it at half the price or less. I too often buy used, but you don't have the same warranty and service if it breaks, let alone battery wear.
Second, those are bigger machines, surface go is ipad like, these are machines of almost double the weight with the keyboard (1.362 kg  = 48.04 oz / 3 pounds according to notebookcheck for the 5290).
While I too would have liked a core M3 in the Go, that would have made it probably 100$ more expensive (which in my opinion would have been worth it, but people would have complained even more...)

[Vance]

@Digitalguy:
Well frankly I wouldn't even pay $400 for the top spec SG because it feels slow now, and can imagine getting one in a year even for free.

They're all within the category of detachable PCs which is what consumers mostly care about when considering so my comparison is actually spot on. For practically weighing the same, a slightly bigger screen estate is an advantage so far as they're all portable. And Dell and Lenovo's refurbished PCs can be purchased with equal warranties as their new laptops, which far surpasses anything MS or anyone else has to offer.

For a $700 tablet that barely has any productive function due to glaring hardware limitations, I'd expect not core M, Y, Pentium "Gold" but at least an i3-8145U, so that I can actually use it for at least some multitasking and media consumption which I presume is the targeted use case.

Essentially the SG shares the same number of flaws as the current influx of WoS devies with QC850, the most critical one being that it struggles to run x86/64 programs. Because then people can just look over to much cheaper Android tablets or iPads that are still light-years ahead in terms of mobile productivity experience.