Microsoft Surface Go 3 review
Our Verdict
Despite a colorful brandish and solid design, The Microsoft Surface Become iii is difficult to recommend, due to misreckoning functioning and battery issues. We'd opt for a Surface Go 2 over this new model.
For
- Colorful display
- Solid design and durability
- Splendid webcam
Confronting
- Bombardment life is much shorter than the Become 2
- Performance is no amend than the Become ii
- Optional Type Embrace keyboard is cramped
- Heavier than competing tablets
Tom's Guide Verdict
Despite a colorful brandish and solid design, The Microsoft Surface Go iii is difficult to recommend, due to confounding performance and battery issues. We'd opt for a Surface Go two over this new model.
Pros
- +
Colorful display
- +
Solid design and durability
- +
Excellent webcam
Cons
- -
Battery life is much shorter than the Go ii
- -
Performance is no better than the Go ii
- -
Optional Type Cover keyboard is cramped
- -
Heavier than competing tablets
The Microsoft Surface Go 3 may modify your listen well-nigh the conventional wisdom that almost updates are adept updates. This is Microsoft's Surface for kids (or at least those with smaller hands), as evidenced by the tablet's smaller size and keyboard. Its $399 starting price too suggests that this is the Surface you lot requite to a less enervating user. And having tested the Surface Go 3, users without very stringent demands are likely to be the only ones satisfied by this tablet.
Microsoft Surface Go three Specs
Starting price: $399
Tested price: $629
Type Comprehend keyboard: Not included, $99 to $129 extra
CPU: Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y | Intel Core i3-10100Y
Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 615
Display: 10.5-inches (1920 x 1280 pixels)
Retention: 4GB | 8GB
Storage: 64GB eMMC | 128GB SSD
Size: nine.7 10 half dozen.nine 10 0.3 inches
Weight: 1.2 pounds
The Surface Go iii's best selling points are its strong build quality, as Microsoft keeps it feeling as durable as a regular Surface. Merely once you try and really go things done on it, you meet a few walls. Its slow operation will examination your power to multitask, and often train you to just focus on one thing at one time.
The bigger news is that the new tablet's endurance has flopped this time around, ditching the nifty battery life of the Surface Go two for a time much closer to the original Surface Go. While I'd recommend near people stick with the Surface Get 2, allow'due south dive into this Microsoft Surface Go 3 review to meet why information technology's non one of the all-time tablets available today.
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Microsoft Surface Go iii review: Price and configurations
The entry-level Surface Get 3 launches on Oct 5 at a starting price of $399. That system has only 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC (read: slow) storage and an Intel Pentium 6500Y processor. Oh, and you lot don't become a keyboard for that $399 price.
If y'all want to get with Microsoft-made keyboard, you lot'd buy a Microsoft Surface Go Type Cover, for an extra $99 to $129. Microsoft's Surface Pen costs $99. I'll cover this in greater detail below, simply the Surface Go Type Cover is not meant for those with adult-sized hands, so an external Bluetooth keyboard may be your all-time bet. Cheque out our best keyboards guide for recommendations.
Need more memory and desire improve storage? For an extra $150, you lot can opt for a Surface Become with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, bringing your total cost to $549.
We tested a $629 configuration that features a 10th Gen Intel Cadre i3-10100Y processor, also as 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD.
Microsoft Surface Get 3 review: Pattern and ports
Aesthetically at to the lowest degree, the Surface Become 3 is a clone of the Microsoft Surface Become two. Its silvery magnesium beat out feels rock-solid and durable (and where most of that $399 price you're paying for goes), while its 10.5-inch screen is surrounded by relatively thin bezels.
And so the Surface Become iii remains a smaller, and more affordable, Microsoft Surface Pro 8. Its back features a kickstand that you can rotate, moving from nearly flat to a smaller angle for display and laptop-like positions. That kickstand is easily deployed cheers to a groove you can open with a single finger.
At 9.7 x 6.9 x 0.3 inches and i.2 pounds, the Surface Become 3 is identical to the Surface Get 2 in terms of its size and heft. It'south also got the aforementioned bezels, and the aforementioned three ports: headphone jack, power-drawing USB-C and Surface Connector.
The thirteen-inch Surface Pro 8, the Get iii'southward big brother, measures 11.3 10 eight.2 x 0.4 inches, and weighs twice every bit much, at 2 pounds. While y'all might not think to compare the two, their operation differences are so pronounced that we've decided to include it as a comparison.
The iPad Air 2020 (nine.seven ten 7 x 0.ii inches, ane pound) is lighter and thinner, while the Lenovo Chromebook Duet (9.4 10 6.3 10 0.3 inches, 1 pound) is lighter and smaller.
All of the Surface Go three'due south ports are plant on its right side. Its power and volume buttons sit on the top edge, while its microSD reader is still hidden behind the kickstand.
I appreciate that there's a headphone jack, as the iPad Air doesn't have one. I'd beloved a USB-A port, but the Surface Become 3 doesn't have i (and neither do any of the tablets we're comparing information technology to).
Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: Display
As I watched the Spider-Human: No Way Habitation trailer on the Surface Become 3, I was able to appreciate the output quality of its panel. The Surface Become 3 reproduces color well, including the Spidey suit's reds and blues, the greens in the goblin grenade and the fire in Doctor Foreign's wintery apartment. The many glowing characters in the spells produced past the master of the occult likewise looked well-baked on the panel. The Matrix: Resurrections trailer also looked pretty nice, allowing me to appreciate Neo's John Wick-similar look.
The Surface Go iii's 10.5-inch PixelSense display measures 1920 ten 1280 pixels. It's
nearly the aforementioned console nosotros saw in the Surface Go 2 (as its scores below suggest). Its bezels are pretty slim, similar to those of the iPad Air four.
Producing 105% of the sRGB spectrum, the Surface Go three'due south console got a similar score as the Get 2 (107%), and a hair above the 104% from the Surface Pro 8. The iPad Air 4 (103%) was a hair below and the Chromebook Duet (106%) is a hair above.
Co-ordinate to our low-cal gun, the Surface Become 3 maxes out at an average of 402 nits (nearly the same 408-nit charge per unit as the Go two). The Surface Pro eight (453 nits) and iPad Air (440 nits) get even brighter, while the 372-nit Chromebook Duet maxes out at a dimmer score.
Microsoft Surface Go iii review: Keyboard and stylus
The story remains the same for the Surface Get 3's beginning-party accessories. The Type Cover (which costs betwixt $99 to $129) we tested came in the Ice Blueish hue and is covered in the soft Alcantara material, which makes a combination that'south pleasing to wait at and touch. It'south also got three degrees of backlighting, and then it can exist equally slight or brilliant as you prefer.
That said, if your easily aren't on the smaller side, you might dislike typing on the Type Cover as much as I did. The whole keyboard feels a chip cramped. That's a natural effect of making a keyboard fit a tablet with a x.5-inch screen, simply the letter keys on the 10.9-inch iPad Air's Magic Keyboard are just ever so slightly larger (nearly 0.05 inches wider on each side), which may be why I don't feel this pain over there.
While I tried my all-time on the 10fastfingers typing exam, I striking a rate of lx words per minute and 86% accurateness on the Surface Go Type Cover. That'south a scrap of a drop-off from the 70wpm and 92% rates I got when I tried the same examination with the same Surface Go 3 with the Logitech MX Keys (my standard Bluetooth keyboard).
The Surface Go Type Cover's touchpad isn't as problematic. At 3.8 10 2.two inches it's large-plenty, and it speedily responds to all of Windows 11'south navigation gestures; it besides offers smooth scrolling.
The Surface Go iii as well supports the Microsoft Surface Pen, which costs $99 and has corking programmable shortcuts to Windows x'due south inking features. I drew with it a picayune in the included Microsoft Whiteboard app, and plant that it had very little lag in its response fourth dimension.
Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: Cameras
The Surface Go 3'southward five-megapixel front end-facing webcam is just equally impressive every bit the Surface Become ii'south (which makes sense because it's the aforementioned sensor). When I took a Teams call with Tom'southward Guide's computing editor Alex Wawro, he was impressed by the clarity he could run into me at.
This may accept been because he was talking to me from the Surface Laptop Studio, which has a less-sharp 1080p webcam. The Surface Pro 8 has the same high-res web cam that'south bully for video calls, and the iPad Air 4's is fifty-fifty sharper at 2MP. The Chromebook Duet's 2MP webcam is fuzzier.
Selfies I shot on the front end-facing photographic camera pack a ton of particular, assuasive me to zoom into my stubble to run across how imprecise my morning shave was. Those images also accurately reproduced my pare tones.
The 8-MP rear cam took decent shots of my plants and action figures, though I did notice that the brighter an area of a photo is, the more likely information technology could get washed out. Trying tap to refocus helped, but not in all circumstances.
Microsoft Surface Go iii review: Sound
The Surface Go 3 offers okay audio for its size, which I noticed as the TV on The Radio song "Young Liars" pumped from its speakers. The crisp pulsate cymbals crashed conspicuously in the groundwork as the band's multiple vocalists came through accurately.
Similarly, a modest amount of bass hitting when I listened to OutKast's "So Fresh, So Clean." Not every bit much bass as I'd have liked, merely I didn't expect more.
Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: Performance
I tested the Surface Get 3's fastest model — one with a 10th Gen Intel Cadre i3-10100Y processor and 8GB of RAM — and I nonetheless found the tablet as well ho-hum. Maybe this machine is meant to test junior's patience, simply I was hit its limits trying to write this review with multiple applications and windows open.
I saw delays and pauses as I moved betwixt the 11 Chrome tabs open on one of the screen, while a 1080p YouTube video played on the other side of the screen. And I noticed multi-2d pauses when I was opening different channels in Slack. Microsoft would probably want me to test this in Teams and Border (Slack and Chrome may not exist fully optimized for Windows 11 yet), but we apply Chrome extensions at Tom's Guide, and we use Slack and not Teams.
I want to blame the more than abrasive Chrome fails -- such equally a link non opening afterwards I clicked it in the bookmarks bar — on a lack of optimization. I hope it's not just the price of a poor processor.
On the Geekbench 5 full general functioning benchmark, the Surface Get three posted a rather mediocre one,571. For comparison the likewise-maxed-out Surface Get 2 (Core m3-8100Y CPU, 8GB RAM) narrowly beats that score with a ane,617.
These scores are so low because they're from systems running on fanless Y-series processors. The U-serial Intel Core i7-1185G7 chip in the Surface Pro 8 kicked out a 5,347, while the A14 Bionic-based iPad Air 2020 also blasted information technology out of the water, with a 4,262. The Chromebook Duet wouldn't even run Geekbench five, though.
The Surface Become 3 did take a win over the Go 2 on our file transfer test, with a transfer rate of 234MBps (the Get 2 hit 180 MBps). The Surface Pro eight'due south 256GB SSD beat up its niggling sibling's score with a 415MBps charge per unit.
Don't wait to practice much gaming on that Y-serial scrap, every bit Civ VI ran at an unplayable 6 frames per second (at 1080p). The Surface Pro eight ran that at a smooth 37 fps. I was able to practice a little cloud-based gaming with the Xbox app on Windows 11, only Control didn't wait that crisp, with tons of pixelation as I fought off a few of The Hiss.
Microsoft Surface Go three review: Windows 11
If you want a great first impression of Windows 11, I would not recommend using the Surface Go 3 to go acquainted with Microsoft'due south updated software. The Surface Go's10.five-inch screen is a tad too small-scale to brand use of the snap spacing, and its processor is a bit likewise slow to make you lot think Windows 11 may be serious.
So far, I don't know what to think of Windows xi. I figure I'll go used to it when I put information technology on the PC I utilise for Twitch streaming, but for at present cypher seems all that great. My favorite feature is the new interface themes (which I hope Apple copies ASAP). Just for now the new curved corners are just "neat," while the centered apps and Start menu but don't actually practise much for me — when I notice them, it's because they're doing something wrong (such every bit giving the Bing search results for Spotify as the Best Match over the actual app I installed).
Also — and I should have expected this — Windows 11 makes it a pain in the butt to alter your default spider web browser from Bing. And, sure, people say Bing isn't bad anymore. But as I noted earlier, we use Chrome extensions for work, and (bluntly) Microsoft needs to terminate pushing Bing and then damn hard.
Microsoft Surface Go three review: Battery life
I recollect writing that "The Surface Become ii has solved its predecessor's battery life problem," and I'm unhappy to say that Microsoft has forgotten whatsoever lessons it had learned when information technology came time to build the Surface Go 3.
The Surface Get 3 but lasted 6 hours and 50 minutes on our web surfing-based battery test (with the display at 150 nits of brightness). This is much closer to the Surface Go's vi:06 than it is to the Surface Go 2'due south 11:39. The Surface Pro 8 lasted longer, with a fourth dimension of 9:06. But the iPad Air 2020 (ten:29) and Chromebook Duet (12:47) held out for even longer on our examination, which involves web surfing over Wi-Fi until the battery is tuckered.
And it's non just our test that Microsoft seems to be failing. I've heard from other reviewers that the Surface Go 3 posted similar times on their battery tests too.
Microsoft Surface Go iii review: Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Go 3 makes the Surface Go 2 await like a fluke. Merely similar the original Surface Go, the new model'due south battery life disappoints. Its performance is also troublesome, and will exist a let-downwardly for multitaskers.
As this Microsoft Surface Get 3 review has shown, you lot might want to check out the Surface Become 2 if yous want a tablet that tin can get a laptop with attachable keyboard. Its performance is just as good in general every-solar day stuff, and its bombardment life is much longer. The Surface Go 2 is bachelor at the aforementioned toll as the Surface Get three, and information technology also supports Windows 11 (I just checked in the PC Wellness Cheque app).
Want faster performance and longer bombardment life? If you're not tied to the wide globe of Windows, the iPad Air with its Magic Keyboard for $898. Admittedly, that's most $140 more than the i3 Surface Go 3 with the Alcantara keyboard.
Want to save a lot, just however get a tablet that can get a laptop, with dandy battery life? The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is just $299, and its keyboard comes standard. The big drawbacks are a lackluster webcam, slower performance and the more-express ChromeOS.
Hopefully, we'll exist talking nigh a fantastic new Microsoft Surface Go some day. That day, though, is not today.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-go-3
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