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Microsoft Surface Spring Lineup Announced: Surface Go 2, Surface Book 3, Surface Headphones 2, and Surface Earbuds

RainbowIslands

RainbowIslands

Member
Oct 25, 2017
718
Somewhere...
I have the surface go 1 and I'm happy to see they made the screen bigger/removed some of the bezel. Inclusion of Wifi 6 and Bluetooth 5 is also great.

Not upgrading or anything since it already does what I need it to anyway.
 
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PeterVenkman

PeterVenkman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,771
I use my Surface Book 1 professionally, and overall it's been just alright. I'd be interested in the book 3 but only if the pen has actually gotten better - as it is now, the pen is a jittery nightmare that absolutely won't allow you to draw a straight line in any software.

The tradeoff of being able to run full windows, adobe, unity, etc while having a tablet is great, don't get me wrong. But man they gotta fix that pen.
 
THEVOID

THEVOID

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 27, 2017
22,866
captive said:
i love it. it works well. Battery life is pretty good.
combined with the surface dock im pushing 3 monitors right now. One vertical in 1920 res, one super wide 34" and one 27" in 4k and it handles it fine.

I also use it for light room and photoshop and it handles that fine as well.
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My kids doc had one and it's a beauty.
 
Zeta Ori

Zeta Ori

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,102
NY
All I want is them is to update the surface pen so it's on the level of the apple pen when it comes to digital art. The surface pen is great for writing/taking notes but I consistently have issues with diagonal lines causing noticeable jittering in the line and unpredictable palm rejection resulting in random lines jutting out from where I'm drawing. Surface Pro design and ecosystem with Apple's pen tech would be a dream come true.
 
Green

Green

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,411
Hopefully Surface Go is better this time around. Many of my users opted for this variant for use as "thin clients", and they can barely even handle that.
 
PeterVenkman

PeterVenkman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,771
Zeta Ori said:
All I want is them is to update the surface pen so it's on the level of the apple pen when it comes to digital art. The surface pen is great for writing/taking notes but I consistently have issues with diagonal lines causing noticeable jittering in the line and unpredictable palm rejection resulting in random lines jutting out from where I'm drawing. Surface Pro design and ecosystem with Apple's pen tech would be a dream come true.
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Exactly. I'll have to literally bring my current Book1 into a microsoft store and test it out side-by-side to know if it's even worth it at this point. If they fixed that, then my only real remaining issue will be the discrepancy in performance between mac/windows in adobe products but I don't see that gap closing anytime soon.
 
Skel1ingt0n

Skel1ingt0n

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,752
I have a Pro X and a Go Gen 1, and the former has exceptional hardware. The Pen 2 that charges in the keyboard is ... *chef's kiss.* It's got a great display. It feels wonderful in the hand. I don't like the lop-sided bezels, but otherwise it's about as good as hardware gets outside of Apple nowadays. But yeah, Windows on ARM is limiting for a lot of people - and emulating a vast majority of the software out there means the benefits of battery life are then gone.

The Go is spectacular as a "have a computer everywhere I go" device. Mine has LTE and it's truly small enough you can carry it around about everywhere. It's got plenty of power for Word, light Excel, displaying a PPT, or communicating over Teams and Outlook - which is enough for most people at most jobs. I think the new M3 model may be a suprise killer - though I worry that the price will be too much for a lot. $630 + $100 KB + $100 dock (to say nothing of pen or other accessories) is a far cry from the "cheap" that the Go originally sold itself on.
 
Skel1ingt0n

Skel1ingt0n

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,752
Green said:
Hopefully Surface Go is better this time around. Many of my users opted for this variant for use as "thin clients", and they can barely even handle that.
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What kind of security are they using? Just curious. I know some companies using things like Carbon Black that runs heavy on the Go, and kills performance. Defender ATP is a lot lighter and tends to make the Go sing as a thin client (or, at least, work better). But that's not a change that will happen overnight.
 
GarthLordOfTheSith

GarthLordOfTheSith

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,006
jelly said:
AMD still not getting a sniff, too early to design one, maybe next year?

An iPad can't compare to a PC but I would honestly rather use a full laptop or iPad over a Surface Go.

Why are they still using Surface charging ports instead of USB C?
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The surface charging ports are so fucking shitty. I've had 7 in the last two months that, out of the box, would not charge.
 
jeelybeans

jeelybeans

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,948
Glad I went with a Book 2 a few months ago. Book 3 isn't really innovating, as much as I'd like the better specs.

Trying to decide between the buds or the headphones.
 
Tathanen

Tathanen

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,038
Was really hoping for some form factor updates for the surface book 3, better specs isn't really enough to get me to upgrade from the 2, I have no real complaints with its performance.
 
dock

dock

Game Designer
Verified
Nov 5, 2017
1,370
I really don't like the hinge in the Surface series, but if money was no object I'd definitely buy a Surface Book 3 for daily use. Right now I'm using a Surface Pro 6 which works pretty well, but doesn't have a lot of horsepower.

I use the Surface Dock 1 and I really like the magnetic connector. It's a shame the Surface Dock 2 is still so expensive, but I'm glad to see USBC ports made available to users of older Surface hardware.
 
Tregard

Tregard

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,221
It's astonishing how quickly I'd buy a Surface Book if they'd include Thunderbolt.
 
sangreal

sangreal

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
WillyFive said:
Sure, but it is considerably faster and easier to use; and the stuff iPadOS is limited on, the Go can't do well either.
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I have an iPad Pro (2018) and constantly run into limitations that make me wish I bought a laptop instead. Simple things, like coding anything local other than python. Or uploading firmware to an external device over usb (granted not necessarily an iPad OS limitation but good luck getting an 'app' from whatever manufacturer to do it)
 
WillyFive

WillyFive

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
6,979
sangreal said:
I have an iPad Pro (2018) and constantly run into limitations that make me wish I bought a laptop instead. Simple things, like coding anything local other than python. Or uploading firmware to an external device over usb (granted not necessarily an iPad OS limitation but good luck getting an 'app' from whatever manufacturer to do it)
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You are doing coding. Neither the iPads or the Surface Go were designed for work like that.
 

Deleted member 29249

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
3,634
I use and iPad Pro and a $900 laptop with a 1660ti in it for gaming. I would love a surface book but $3k is to much.
 
Futureman

Futureman

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,404
Go 2 would be awesome and compete with the low end iPads if the $400 model had the m3/8 GB RAM.

Seems so long ago I got the SB2 and the SB3 announced in May 2020 is barely different, just a spec bump.
 
lenovox1

lenovox1

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,995
kami_sama said:
Boooooo
No ryzen 4000 on any of those.
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?

Has Microsoft ever used AMD hardware? It's all Qualcomm or Intel for nearly everything PC. They should probably look into it, though, because it would make the hardware cheaper.

If you need an AMD convertible, you're probably waiting on Lenovo, HP, or Asus.
 
Futureman

Futureman

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,404
lenovox1 said:
?

Has Microsoft ever used AMD hardware? It's all Qualcomm or Intel for nearly everything PC. They should probably look into it, though, because it would make the hardware cheaper.

If you need an AMD convertible, you're probably waiting on Lenovo, HP, or Asus.
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The Surface Laptop 3 launched in two variants... you could get either an Intel version or AMD version. From what I can tell they only sell the Intel version now.
 
neoak

neoak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,264
I missed my Surface Pro 2 after dropping it by mistake and now it can't display anything on the screen.

Got a Surface Pro (5) LTE for cheap on /hardwareswap, and thought about the Go 2 with LTE as a nice replacement but honestly, I barely use it these days and it is more powerful than the Go 2 LTE will be.

Also got that Pro cheaper than the $829 Go 2 with the same RAM and SSD capacity. And it has the same X16 modem lol.
 
Escaflow

Escaflow

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
1,317
sangreal said:
I have an iPad Pro (2018) and constantly run into limitations that make me wish I bought a laptop instead. Simple things, like coding anything local other than python. Or uploading firmware to an external device over usb (granted not necessarily an iPad OS limitation but good luck getting an 'app' from whatever manufacturer to do it)
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Like WillyFive had pointed out , you're not going to code and compile anything like on a VsCode with a core M chip . The limitation is the same as what you had on iPad pro , but similarly priced , the ipad can do media consumption and graphics illustration way better .
 
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Irminsul

Irminsul

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,040
Escaflow said:
Like WillyFive had pointed out , you're not going to code and compile anything like on a VsCode with an ARM processor . The limitation is the same as what you had on iPad pro , but similarly priced , the ipad can do media consumption and graphics illustration way better .
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What? The Surface Go has a bog-standard Intel x86 processor.
 

Deleted member 5876

Big Seller
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,559
I think the Surface Laptop 3 is a way better value than the Surface Book 3.
It's actually kind of disappointing how underwhelming this new Book is.
 

Deleted member 39374

Banned
Feb 1, 2018
5,083
Tukarrs said:
Not seemless at all. The Xbox One doesn't have bluetooth so you had to connect it to the controller with a cable.

I would expect the Xbox Series X to have better support, but who knows.
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I'll look out for the SX specs to see if it supports it. Weird how Microsoft isn't making their 2 flagship hardware lines blend into an ecosystem with each other.
 
Spinluck

Spinluck

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
28,480
Chicago
PeterVenkman said:
I use my Surface Book 1 professionally, and overall it's been just alright. I'd be interested in the book 3 but only if the pen has actually gotten better - as it is now, the pen is a jittery nightmare that absolutely won't allow you to draw a straight line in any software.

The tradeoff of being able to run full windows, adobe, unity, etc while having a tablet is great, don't get me wrong. But man they gotta fix that pen.
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If they can get it working as good as an Apple Pencil/iPad combo I would pay whatever they want to have that as an all-in-one device.
 
Replicant

Replicant

Attempted to circumvent a ban with an alt
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,380
MN
Kthulhu said:
After the Pro X got trashed in reviews I'm not surprised they're sticking with Intel.
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They will continue to develop for ARM. They should have never released the Surface Pro X. That's design should have been the new Surface Pro.
ARM will take over all mobile devices in the next decade.
 
twentytwo22

twentytwo22

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,529
Feels a bit too-little-too-late on the Book 3. I probably would have bought one last year, but it just isn't doing anything for me now.
 
Tregard

Tregard

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,221
Wrexis said:
Aside from the 4x transfer speed, what are the advantages? I don't transfer data over cable that often so maybe I'm missing something.
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Being able to use an External GPU would make me more confident of future proofing it for PC gaming. I prefer just having one machine, and the portability of a laptop is better for work :)
 
Haloid1177

Haloid1177

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,533
Real annoyed they fixed the bezels on the Go but didn't change a thing about the Book. Guess I'll go but that Asus G14 after all.
 
Kthulhu

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,670
Replicant said:
They will continue to develop for ARM. They should have never released the Surface Pro X. That's design should have been the new Surface Pro.
ARM will take over all mobile devices in the next decade.
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At this stage there hasn't really been anything to suggest that. x86 emulation still isn't good enough and laptops that need to be able to video edit and do other power hungry tasks won't be able to do those things as effectively with ARM vs x86.
 

Chakoo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,842
Toronto, Canada
I'm happy the Go is getting a refresh. I had a suspicion that was going to happen since I see less and less of them around for sale. I really want to get one for digital note taking and light work. I use to do that with my Surface Pro 4 but I found it too bulky sometimes to always take to meeting with my MBP. While I could go with a iPad Pro and was considering it, I still like the flexibility I can have with the Go. I already have a surface pen (I had to buy a new one recently since the one that came with my Pro 4 stop working after so many years).
 
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