After months of rumors and speculation, Microsoft has finally revealed the latest evolution of their Surface laptop: the Surface Go. This Surface will be essentially a smaller and cheaper version of the Surface Pro. Some are expecting the Go to become Microsoft’s rival to Apple iPad. Here’s everything we know so far about the Surface Go:
The Surface Go will consist of a 10-inch tablet, which similarly to the Surface Pro can be combined with an attachable keyboard called the Type Cover. The Go can also be used with a wireless mouse and a stylus. Internally, the Go will have 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of eMMC memory, and an Intel Pentium Gold processor. The battery will reportedly hold a charge lasting over 9 hours.
The base Surface Go will be available for $399. It’s not a terrible price, but people that intend to upgrade their Go with a Type Cover, more RAM, faster SSD, and other add-ons should expect the price to rise to as much as $600 or more.
Although the Surface Go is designed to function as smaller Surface Pro, the Go will include a few new features that are new to Surface devices. The Go will include a USB-C port, which will be used to charge the device. A number of the traditional features of Surface devices, including the various Office apps and Cortana, will be fine-tuned and upgraded for the Go.
Although the Surface Go will have many of the same characteristics as a laptop, including a mouse and keyboard, it will mainly be marketed as a tablet version of the Surface Pro. This will put it in direct competition with Apple’s iPad. So how do the two compare? The base price of an iPad is $329, which is a decent amount less than the Go’s $399. That’s not even including the price of the Go’s add-ons, including the Type Cover keyboard, additional RAM, etc. But those add-ons give the Go an edge over the iPad. While the iPad is pure tablet, the Go will essentially be tablet-laptop hybrid. This will allow it to serve as both an entertainment and work/business tool. The Surface Go would be much more comfortable in an office setting than an iPad.
The Surface Go is an interesting step for Microsoft, seeming ready to corner a new market with tablet-laptop hybrids. While this may be the best of both worlds, it is entirely possible that the Go will be stuck between not being efficient enough for an office or simple enough for personal use. Only time will tell, when the Surface Go is released on August 2nd in the US.