Microsoft just added a couple of key additions to its ever-growing lineup of Surface devices. There are a bunch of new accessories and an update to the Surface Pro X, which you can read about here. The biggest news of the morning, however, is the arrival of the Surface Laptop Go — an affordable take on the company’s well-received Surface Laptop.
The device borrows the naming convention from the Surface Go, a lightweight and cheap entry point into the line. At $549, the Laptop Go is $50 more than that tablet, but is still an extremely affordable take on the category — and if its predecessor is any precedent, you should be getting a pretty decent bang for your buck here.
The specs aren’t exactly exciting. The device ships with either 4 or 8GB of RAM, paired with an 10th-gen quad-core Intel i4 processor and 64, 128 or 256GB of storage. Most customers are going to want to pump things up from those base-level specs for all but the most basic applications, which is obviously going to start driving that price up a bit.
Image Credits: Microsoft
The display is an inch and half larger than the Surface Go 2 at 12 inches, and smaller than either the 13.5 or 15-inch you get on the standard Laptop. The screen generally is a pretty sizable downgrade from the Laptop, at 1536 x 1024 (148 PPI) to the flagship’s 2256 x 1504 (201 PPI). That’s to be expected, of course, for a product that runs around half the price.
Microsoft is quick to point out the inclusion of a full-size keyboard with 1.3mm of key travel. That’s no doubt designed to contrast it with tablet keyboard cases that are a kind of direct competitor here, not to mention all of the issues Apple has run into with its own laptop keyboards in recent years.
Image Credits: Microsoft
The device weighs 2.45 pounds — making it the lightest Surface Laptop thus far. The ports are, unsurprisingly, fairly limited. There’s a USB-A, USB-C and, of course, that proprietary Surface port the company just can’t quit, on account of all of the existing accessories. The on-board battery can be fast-charged and should get about 13 hours of life, per Microsoft’s numbers.
It goes up for pre-order today alongside the new Pro X, and will start shipping October 13. Microsoft is also bringing Surface devices to a number of new European countries, including, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.