The Microsoft Surface Go LTE Review: Unmatched Mobility
by Brett Howse on January 17, 2019 8:00 AM ESTWireless
Microsoft has relied on the Marvell AVASTAR wireless card for pretty much the entirety of their Surface lineup, so it was a bit surprising to see the Surface Go LTE come with a Qualcomm wireless solution in the QCA6174A product. This is a 2x2:2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac chip, with integrated Bluetooth 4.2. Likely the Qualcomm Wi-Fi is being used because Microsoft has also incorporated the Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem in this product.
If the Surface lineup had a particular fault, it would be on the wireless performance, and despite the Surface Go offering a different Wi-Fi solution than the typical Marvell we see in Surface devices, the Surface Go still has the same mediocre wireless performance as the rest of the lineup. It is really something the company needs to address.
As far as the cellular, we won’t do bandwidth testing on this for the same reason we don’t do it on phones. The disparity in cellular connection speeds and supported standards is just too varied to provide an accurate result.
The addition to cellular in this device is pretty interesting though, and really opens it up to a much wider audience. Microsoft is clearly targeting business with the Surface Go LTE, although there’s definitely going to be consumer interest as well in having a device that is always connected. Not only will remote workers have a more reliable connection to the corporate network, but it will make it easier for IT to manage as well. It’s nice to see Microsoft pushing the Always Connected PC with their own products. For those that need more performance, the Surface Pro can be had with LTE, but for those that need mobility, Microsoft now offers a product in that category as well, since it’s been a few years since the Surface 3 LTE was made available.
Audio
The Surface Go continues with the design tricks of the Pro by hiding the speaker grilles in the black part of the display bezel. This makes them almost hidden, but provides the benefit of firing the drivers forwards, and providing good stereo separation.
The speakers in the Surface Go sound like a typical small PC though, with not much low end, but these ones are even quieter than most devices, averaging around 71 dB(A) measured an inch over the trackpad.
Thermals
If only all other devices were able to run as cool and quiet as a Surface Go, but alas, they are after performance. With just a 6-Watt TDP, and a 4.8-Watt SDP, the Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y can be easily cooled in a fanless design, so despite trying to see if the meager 1.6 GHz frequency would droop over time, it does not, and the Surface Go never gets very warm. This is the dream. We just need to tie some performance to it.
Software
The Surface Go comes with Windows 10 Home in S Mode, although businesses can also purchase it with Pro if they don’t have an Enterprise agreement. The S Mode is something Microsoft has been hoping would take off for some time, but if you do need to install apps that are not in the store, you can turn it off, although it must be noted that is a one-way switch. To go back to S Mode you would have to recover the device.
As with all Surface models, there’s a clean image to work with. The only real addition is a couple of apps, such as the Surface App where you can configure the pen, check the battery life of Microsoft accessories, or go for support. Most Surface devices tend to ship with a few other additions like Sketchable for use with the pen, and a couple of others, but nothing that can’t be removed with a couple of clicks.
Overall, it’s a clean image, and it needs to be since the base model ships with just 64 GB of storage.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
79 Comments
View All Comments
Zeratul56 - Sunday, January 20, 2019 - link
Not everyone can afford multiple devices or even want maintain more than one. While the Go is worse in several areas compared to the ipad(battery, performance) it makes up for it in capabilities.At least in my perspective, the iPad doesn’t do enough to justify its purchase. I had one a few years ago and it was nice but it doesn’t do anything more than an iPhone can.
gglaw - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
I honestly can't see why anyone would buy this other than for business with strict requirement for LTE which cost-wise is well out of the budget market for the LTE models. I travel light with an aging Lenovo Miix 510 which is a convertible 12" and it is small *enough* without being severely crippled. Unless that little bit of extra size is just a complete deal breaker, it goes for $500-$550 range for the base i5-7200U and 128GB SSD model and I couldn't tolerate anything weaker than this. It is 1.6mm thicker and 0.8 lbs heavier than the Surface Go which I'm fine with.Going with Intel/Win10 platforms, the hit you take going from 15W CPU's to 6W is not worth it IMO. Comparing with current gen tech you can get up to 4 Ghz with turbo on a 15W Kaby compared to performance more similar to Atom CPU's on these trash Surface Go's. Any business job that requires traveling with access to Windows productivity/office apps should be running a 15W CPU, and if all they need is email, browsing, streaming they should just get an Ipad or Qualcomm based device.
HStewart - Saturday, January 19, 2019 - link
Not if you need real PC applicationssonny73n - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
Additional 64GB of SSD storage for $100? And this thing’s battery will last about 5 hours of moderate usage at best. Unmatched mobility for suckers, maybe.ianmills - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
You are going to laugh but thats a bargain! For the SP6 to go from 128gb to 256gb is CDN$350I think its because they are a cloud company now. The storage price makes their cloud services seem like a bargain. ;P
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
I am...disappointed. For how much of a dog this thing is, it should deliver amazing battery life, yet gets crushed by the 7390, which is a full proper laptop with a far more powerful chip.I used one in a best buy, and found the experience less then positive. The UI opening new windows, or opening chrome, you could really feel that eMMC storage chugging.
I dont understand how apple can make an ipad with NVMe storage, a way faster SoC, and still get far superior battery life at a lower cost then the Go. I was hoping MS would learn their lessons from the surface 3, but they are making the same mistakes. Sadly nobody else is making a small windows tablet that is any better then the Go.
PeachNCream - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
Aside from the iPad there aren't many tablets out there at this point. Microsoft is stubbornly sticking to the Surface line, but I think that's more wishful thinking and an on-going corporate seizure that harkens back to the ill-fated Windows 8 UI changes driving by the attempt to make Windows into a touch-based OS. The bottom line is that tablets are languishing in a tiny niche now that the big fad splash is over. The Surface attempts to recoup all that money tossed into developing user interface paradigms that nobody wanted in the first place.Bausfight - Friday, January 18, 2019 - link
I wouldn't say MS is being stubborn with the Surface line. It's seen strong growth over the years.GreenReaper - Saturday, January 19, 2019 - link
The Surface Go LTE is 1.7lbs while the Latitude 7390 two-in-one is 2.9lbs. If the Go had another pound of battery I'm sure it could crush as well, but it'd be less good for Go-ing places (as long as you expect to be able to charge in those places).dragosmp - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
I'm not going to restate what many have already said, but I do have an observation.My 5.5" phone has a 4Ah battery - near enough to 15Wh. This 10" tablet, 4x times the volume, barely has 40% more battery at 24Wh. How does this work? PCB design and packaging technology for PC-compatible bits must be totally backwards compared to mobile. Sure a Core-Y is bigger than a SD660, but dam'. 4x the volume and only 40% more battery, unbelievable.