Surface Go - A new low cost Surface Pro - Starts at only 399$

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4 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

How exactly do you update this thing? ._.

You just run updates, it works fine

If you're talking about major feature updates, I'm glad you asked - there's a feature that I noticed (not sure when it was added but it works on 1709 and later at least) that lets you "assist" using an external drive to hold the majority of the stuff so you only need like 1 - 1.5 GB free on C:\ itself.  It's pretty nice imo, since without that devices like this would struggle to do it.

[Trixanity]

4 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

probably a lot more than you think.  I have 32 GB on my 2 in 1 with the following "extra" apps (things that don't come with Windows that I added) installed to C:\

• Office 356
• Firefox
• MPC-HC
• Spotify
• WinRAR

And my drive looks like this:

 

And it's not like I've gone out of my way to slim it down at all, this is relatively stock.  I still have a pagefile, for example (kinda needed on 4 GB of RAM lol), and I have other apps installed too (to another location) so while the bulk of their data goes elsewhere, they still do put some on C:\.  Not to mention all relevant drivers and stuff which can add to a GB or two.

 

And in fact this is a little more full than usual... I recall it normally sitting around 10 GB free so I should probably run disk cleanup again.

 

I think Windows 10 automatically runs the Compact feature when the system partition is small or maybe it's the OEM using it on their system image out of the box.

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59 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

I think Windows 10 automatically runs the Compact feature when the system partition is small or maybe it's the OEM using it on their system image out of the box.

I always do a fresh install from a stock image so no OEM stuff going on here.  As for if it's compressed or not, we have another computer with a 120 GB SSD and a similarly close to stock install and it's also about 20 GB

[Trixanity]

14 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I always do a fresh install from a stock image so no OEM stuff going on here.  As for if it's compressed or not, we have another computer with a 120 GB SSD and a similarly close to stock install and it's also about 20 GB

Well, then you can run the Compact feature yourself if you want more space :-) it's a simple powershell command.

 

Can also either limit or remove hibernation file (limit meaning no hibernation but hybrid boot still works for faster startup). Also powershell.

 

That's some tips for everyone with limited space.

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5 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

Well, then you can run the Compact feature yourself if you want more space :-) it's a simple powershell command.

 

Can also either limit or remove hibernation file (limit meaning no hibernation but hybrid boot still works for faster startup). Also powershell.

 

That's some tips for everyone with limited space.

I do have hibernation turned off as I never use it on that device (or really anything anymore... used to when I booted from a HDD, and when I dual booted, but not anymore)

[Heesleemer]

On 7/9/2018 at 8:47 PM, Ryan_Vickers said:

Good idea.  I've always liked the idea of these but thought they were rather overpriced, and additionally felt like a device like this should be passive anyway which isn't going to work with too hot of a chip.

the pro line are passive up to the i7

[Heesleemer]

I like my surface pro - when the LTE version comes out - I will buy that in a heart beat to replace my ipad. 

Now I kind of wish I got the Surface Book

[captain_to_fire]

8 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

probably a lot more than you think.  I have 32 GB on my 2 in 1 with the following "extra" apps (things that don't come with Windows that I added) installed to C:\

• Office 356
• Firefox
• MPC-HC
• Spotify
• WinRAR

And my drive looks like this:

 

And it's not like I've gone out of my way to slim it down at all, this is relatively stock.  I still have a pagefile, for example (kinda needed on 4 GB of RAM lol), and I have other apps installed too (to another location) so while the bulk of their data goes elsewhere, they still do put some on C:\.  Not to mention all relevant drivers and stuff which can add to a GB or two.

 

And in fact this is a little more full than usual... I recall it normally sitting around 10 GB free so I should probably run disk cleanup again.

 

Even if Windows 10 automatically compresses itself when installed on a 32/64GB storage, I don’t think even Windows 10S will provide enough storage for the user especially movies and music. That’s why personally I still prefer iOS when it comes to tablets. 

 

 

[Sauron]

9 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

there's a feature that I noticed (not sure when it was added but it works on 1709 and later at least) that lets you "assist" using an external drive to hold the majority of the stuff so you only need like 1 - 1.5 GB free on C:\ itself.  It's pretty nice imo, since without that devices like this would struggle to do it.

If only windows updates weren't so monolythic... sigh.

[vanished]

8 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

Even if Windows 10 automatically compresses itself when installed on a 32/64GB storage, I don’t think even Windows 10S will provide enough storage for the user especially movies and music. That’s why personally I still prefer iOS when it comes to tablets.

That difference in image size isn't going to make a huge impact on what you can store.  What's 15 GB?  a movie or two maybe?  If you're going to bring a collection with you it would be on another drive with a lot more space anyway.

 

And speaking of iOS and the iPad/tablet comparison in general, I know there's two "camps" on this.  There will be the people who don't care about the difference to the point of not even seeming to recognize that there's any benefit to having a real OS at all (and I think these might be the majority actually), and then there's people like me who will take the real OS option, even if it means paying more or getting lesser hardware because it's that significant of a benefit.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

That difference in image size isn't going to make a huge impact on what you can store.  What's 15 GB?  a movie or two maybe?  If you're going to bring a collection with you it would be on another drive with a lot more space anyway.

 

And speaking of iOS and the iPad/tablet comparison in general, I know there's two "camps" on this.  There will be the people who don't care about the difference to the point of not even seeming to recognize that there's any benefit to having a real OS at all (and I think these might be the majority actually), and then there's people like me who will take the real OS option, even if it means paying more or getting lesser hardware because it's that significant of a benefit.

I don't like the arbitrary "real OS" split.  Windows is more flexible, but iOS and Android are both real platforms.

 

And it's not that people don't recognize a benefit to a desktop OS; it's that they don't have much reason to care.  If you're typing in Office, checking email, browsing the web and streaming Netflix, why do you need the complexity of Windows?  Some people will definitely need or prefer it, but the concern for the Surface Go is that it may be targeting an audience that doesn't need a file system or multiple app windows.

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8 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I don't like the arbitrary "real OS" split.  Windows is more flexible, but iOS and Android are both real platforms.

 

And it's not that people don't recognize a benefit to a desktop OS; it's that they don't have much reason to care.  If you're typing in Office, checking email, browsing the web and streaming Netflix, why do you need the complexity of Windows?  Some people will definitely need or prefer it, but the concern for the Surface Go is that it may be targeting an audience that doesn't need a file system or multiple app windows.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say they don't recognize the benefit.  Yes, absolutely some (seemingly most) people don't need all that, and that's fine of course.  But to anyone who does, my post will have made intuitive sense. That's all I'm trying to get at.

[Commodus]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say they don't recognize the benefit.  Yes, absolutely some (seemingly most) people don't need all that, and that's fine of course.  But to anyone who does, my post will have made intuitive sense. That's all I'm trying to get at.

Got it -- sorry if I read too much into it.  I'm just having flashbacks to the initial Surface and the 'it's a PC!" ad campaign, with Microsoft forgetting that those three words could actually be a negative for some people.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Commodus said:

Got it -- sorry if I read too much into it.  I'm just having flashbacks to the initial Surface and the 'it's a PC!" ad campaign, with Microsoft forgetting that those three words could actually be a negative for some people.

For sure, different things for different people.  You're either one of those people like me that can't stand limited platforms, or you're someone who doesn't mind them at all and doesn't care about or need anything extra.  I've learned it doesn't make sense to bother trying to convert or even explain the rational behind one or the other to someone of the other mindset because the use case(s) that lead someone to one or the other are so instinctive and deeply ingrained.

[PocketNerd]

I'm never going to understand why manufacturers use non-standard screen resolutions. 1080p is going to look like crap and it's not high enough for 4K.

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1 minute ago, PocketNerd said:

I'm never going to understand why manufacturers use non-standard screen resolutions. 1080p is going to look like crap and it's not high enough for 4K.

I think the 3:2 aspect lends itself better to some content (though tbh I'm not sure what... certainly not video), but it would have been nice to see something higher so it can at least handle those common ones (1920 x 1080) natively (1920 x 1280 anyone?)

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I think the 3:2 aspect lends itself better to some content (though tbh I'm not sure what... certainly not video), but it would have been nice to see something higher so it can at least handle those common ones (1920 x 1080) natively (1920 x 1280 anyone?)

I was always under the impression that scaling resolutions wasnt an issue if they are multiples of either, but I think it was @Glenwing who said that it doesn't really work that way and regardless of whether its an integer multiple it's still going to have a negative impact.

 

Although, I personally never had an issues viewing 1080p content on a QHD~ display

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I was always under the impression that scaling resolutions wasnt an issue if they are multiples of either, but I think it was @Glenwing who said that it doesn't really work that way and regardless of whether its an integer multiple it's still going to have a negative impact.

 

Although, I personally never had an issues viewing 1080p content on a QHD~ display

Yeah, apparently it will still interpolate even though there's no reason to and that only makes it look worse.  Additionally it wouldn't make sense to have a 4K display on something like this because the hardware would really struggle with that.  That, and 4K at 10" would be insane

[GoodBytes]

27 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

I'm never going to understand why manufacturers use non-standard screen resolutions. 1080p is going to look like crap and it's not high enough for 4K.

When you do work, the height of a screen will outweigh the black bars at the top and bottom on a 1080p on movies, which you'll, in any case, especially for movies watched in their original format which are 21:9 or some other aspect ration, depending on the art direction of the director. The Surface Go is not marketed as a movie watching inexpensive tablet. Else it would not have a pen, let alone a trackpad on tits cover. It is for productivity. Oh and the black bars will just blend with the screen bezels in any case. Not to ignore the fact that this device is powered by an IPS panel and not a TN panel, so no backlight bleeding at the top and/or bottom giving this blue or yellow gradient on the black bars in a video.

 

To me, I can't stand my work display as it is 1080p, way to narrow. At home I have a 16:10, which is nice, but you can get I would buy a 3:2 if that was available.

[RotoCoreOne]

So close... I wish the base model came with the ssd by default instead of emmc. Like cmoooooooon. Also 100 dollars for the keyboard D: this isn't feeling so cheap anymore.

[PocketNerd]

59 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

When you do work, the height of a screen will outweigh the black bars at the top and bottom on a 1080p on movies, which you'll, in any case, especially for movies watched in their original format which are 21:9 or some other aspect ration, depending on the art direction of the director. The Surface Go is not marketed as a movie watching inexpensive tablet. Else it would not have a pen, let alone a trackpad on tits cover. It is for productivity. Oh and the black bars will just blend with the screen bezels in any case. Not to ignore the fact that this device is powered by an IPS panel and not a TN panel, so no backlight bleeding at the top and/or bottom giving this blue or yellow gradient on the black bars in a video.

 

To me, I can't stand my work display as it is 1080p, way to narrow. At home I have a 16:10, which is nice, but you can get I would buy a 3:2 if that was available.

But wouldn't that create a skewed viewing experience for those who are looking at your content who don't have a 3:2 screen?

[Trixanity]

11 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

But wouldn't that create a skewed viewing experience for those who are looking at your content who don't have a 3:2 screen?

Not necessarily. If you work on photo/video I'd assume you can manage aspect ratios and resolutions yourself and if need be: connect an external monitor. You'd have to have a lot of monitors if you needed to test your content for most or all scenarios.

Color space and accuracy is more difficult than aspect ratio if you ask me.

[GoodBytes]

12 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

But wouldn't that create a skewed viewing experience for those who are looking at your content who don't have a 3:2 screen?

I am sadly not sure I understand what you are asking.

You can work on 16:9 content on any aspect ratio, even a 4:3 (non-wide screen) monitor.

Aspect Ratio is not scaling or resolution, it is just width compared to height.

 

Sorry, can you clarify?

[maartendc]

On 7/9/2018 at 10:13 PM, RorzNZ said:

This looks really nice I will 100% not be buying this and instead using my phone and laptop. Call me old fashioned but I really do not have a use for a tablet like this. It's a great product but no use that I haven't already got something for. 

We have a surface pro at my office, and I think it is a TERRIBLE device.

 

- The kick stand principle is just flimsy and the thing falls over all the time

- The keyboard and trackpad are just terrible to use for more than 30 seconds.

- The battery life is not very good even on light workloads.

- The screen is so reflective and a fingerprint magnet.

- I hate the way Windows 10 operates in this device, with their "tablet like" interface.

- The fabric on the keyboard side wears poorly, not durable, and just kind of gross on a shared device.

 

In my opinion, you are better off with a tablet, and if you really need to be productive, get a real laptop. These kinds of things don't do anything particularly well. It is too heavy and cumbersome to be a tablet, and too flimsy and awkward to be a laptop replacement.

 

[Teddy07]

I am confused.

Can I use the surface go like an iPad with a pencil?

 

Because I wanted to buy an iPad with the pencil for school (taking notes, homework....)