" Pen started registering before touching the screen" Correct! MPP 2.0 adopts similar tech as Wacom. It's a near magnetic field tech called EMR. Amazing tech, really. Artist's love this, as we can see our brush size and location prior to input. It can be a little alarming if you never used tech like this before. Just know that it is, indeed, working as intended!
@@sihilius I have a Wacom MobileStudio 16 and a Asus Flip s13, and while the wacom is better for feel and precision, the Asus feels great to sketch and take notes on. Great tool for students too!
As a Surface Laptop 2 user, I have noticed surprising performance within games that it has no business running, but I can definitely say that the Surface Go 3 impressed me with how well it can run games, even if it really struggles compared to the Surface Laptop 2.
I had a surface go 3 and it could barely run anything without overheating and turning off, it also crapped itself whenever I had more than one program open, idk maybe mine was a lemon or smt but I could barely do anything on it without having it overheat or run slow, I swapped it for a Surface Pro 7+ which is so much more powerful and can play just about anything.
2 cores 4 threads for a new(-ish) device in the 2020s is just wild. And GTA V crashing right after Dawid said "but it's running!" was just peak comedic timing. Also, HL2 being the go-to "even a potato can run it" game for this channel really makes me feel my years since I still remember vividly when all the PC and gaming-related media in the early 2000s were hailing it as the era-introducing, must-upgrade new hotness game.
At least it has boost. The surface go 2 model came with a 4425y which ran at the 1.7ghz base clock and no higher. They managed to make a proper core series cpu run worse single-threaded results than atoms of the same age.
however, for $400, it probably can’t get any cheaper given that it comes with an excellent touchscreen display and full metal build. an equivalent laptop would have better specs sure, but probably a much worse display and build. they should’ve made it $500 and thrown in a decent amount of memory and storage.
@@bandombeviews6035 this comes with a stylus which apple charges you $100 for, so there’s the difference i guess. don’t get me wrong. the ipad 9 is great at $329 and i’m actually considering picking one up, but they’re not in the same product category.
I worked for surface support for a couple years until they outsourced the support to overseas. The device is basically a laptop replacement. Also fun fact when the surface studio first came out we had a couple of them in our cubicles (1 per team). We would just sit there and play games on it all the time :P
Not just that, but the storage in this thing is eMMC which is a much slower type of flash and slows as something like a hard drive. I'd be curious to see how the Core i3 version of this little Surface would run these games, as it has the i3, 8gb of RAM and a proper SSD(I think NVME, actually).
@@DyoKasparov Official requirement is 2GB. For 32-bit version it was only 1GB, but it was later changed also to 2GB. I have Trekstor 7 tablet with 32bit Win10 home 1GB RAM / 16GB drive & intel Atom CPU. Back in 2016 it cost in Germany like 1/2 of Win10 box.
@@DyoKasparovI’ve seen Windows 10 run with less than 100MB of RAM (if memory serves, it was 42MB). It wasn’t good, in fact it was immensely painful to witness, but it worked.
I got one of these for testing at work along with a surface 5 , I could run 7 days to die at 30fps on medium on the 5 which I call "full stack corporate environment testing " on my notes
I definitely wanna see you play games on the top tier Tablet, Dawid. I've always considered a Microsoft Surface as a genuine laptop contender for me to buy, and I wanna see you make that video.
I have the i5 varient with an 80 eu iris xe. The igpu is let held back the low wattage. I can get about 35fps in gta v 1080 normal settings. I don't think the 96 eu in the i7 varient will give much better performance because it's only running at 15 watts. The sq3 varrient is a no go for gaming. I haven't tried it but considering the state of windows for arm I would imagine most games would not even run.
I've started at Geek Squad recently and getting to see Dawid play with some of the "PCs" I see everyday with people wondering why it can't run Ultra Maxed graphics at 60fps is a real pleasure.
Yes! Get the more expensive one and test it. Would love to know if this could be used on vacation...and maybe test GeForce now to see how well that works!
I have the 128ssd/8gb ram/6500y model .. pre 2009-2010 games run reasonably well.. anything newer (not AAA titles) is a hit and miss ..I've tested coral island (similar to animal crossing I guess but not really) it's from October ish 2022 and runs on medium settings smoothly
@@wolsel9726 Yeah I know but not the best port for that, USBC is still better when it comes to IO flexibility. The magnetic connection is what makes it special to me.
I loved my first-gen Go 8/128GB. It was great for retro gaming. Re: the pen, that's just the "hover" feature which was a thing on most tablets long before iPad made a big fuss about it. I keep hoping the Go will shift to ARM as the form factor is ideal. The x86 battery life just isn't good enough.
Prior to Apple bringing out the pencil, most tablets and 2-in-1s didn't have active stylus support. The only big name options that existed for consumers were Samsung's Galaxy Note line, the Microsoft Surface line, and a very small smattering of obscure Surface like devices like the Viao Z Canvas. Apple didn't do anything innovative with their stylus, but manufacturers will happily copy something once Apple does it because they want to be seen as trendy or whatever.
Reminds me of the time I bought an ASUS x86 tablet, the cheapest I could find in Amazon, and slapped a controller on it to "play on the go". Turns out the puny processor on that thing only ran games at seconds per frame (no you're not reading it wrong) and worse, it came from a batch with battery issues so yeah, right now it's a nice brick I have
Only here can I get a decent comparison between different brand's box smells. Please keep hitting us hard with this content, it's just impossible to get anywhere else.
great video! been seriously thinking about getting a cheap Surface for gaming on the go and always wondered about performance on the Surface Go. Rather than plug a keyboard into it immediately, maybe you could also review games that are well optimized for a pen + tablet setup, maybe some kind of turn based type game.
While I don't recommend for teh gamers, if your into light illustration or music production these are killer for getting rough drafts going on the go. I got the 5th gen for my kid at the start of "Lockdowns" for school. I5, 8gb ram, teeny weeny SSD (Microsd saves the day.) for around $500 these days. Really productive form factor if your moving around a lot.
I actually recommended one of those to my friend when he went to college. The first thing we did was set up TeamViewer between it and his 5800X & 3070ti PC. All the battery life he could want and he has a decent bit of power on tap if he needs to run something heavier for engineering classes.
For everyone thinking this thing is garbage, it's not meant to do anything but browsing in the web and taking notes, maybe a bit of Word, that's it. And the pen is amazing! I have one and I love it. The type cover is impressive too, SO MUCH key travel for this thiccness.
My Surface Go 2 can't run Portal 1, but it runs Portal 2 very reasonably at 720p 30fps. Pretty amazing for something with passive cooling! I do have the 8gb ram version though Answer that proprietary charging port, the usb c port also works for charging, so it's not necessary. There's also a microSD card slot under the kickstand for easy storage expansion! They actually removed this from the more expensive Surfaces now
please use the high-end surface device. The prices of the top end at microsoft is unbelievably high and I would never imagine its ever going to be worth
Got my surface go 1 in 2018 and still use it almost daily for internetting and document viewing. Sure its slow, but i never expected it to do anything else. I do game the elder scrolls Oblivion occasionally! Recently i’ve started using parsec to stream from my rendering rig at home, and it is just sooo convenient in this small form factor!
I own one of those things, except it's the middle of the road model (8GB RAM, 128GB SSD) and yes, the SSD makes a *world* of difference. Though even with twice the RAM, it can't cut it. I think the crashes are because of thermals since this is passively cooled.
the cool thing is that that connector makes it so that when you tug on the the power cord or just trip over it the magnets detach the device will not go with it
I have a Cube iWork10 10.1 inch Intel Atom Cherry Trail Z8300 Dual OS Windows 10 + Android 5.1 4GB RAM 64GB HDD 2in1 Ultrabook Tablet Quad Core 1.44GHz that I've recently been using during blackouts - it's quite surprising how powerful it can be with the right games and settings, hitting up all my oldschool nostalgic games that I didnt end up finishing back in the day.
I got a Surface 7 Pro earlier this year with the Core i5-1035G4 and 8GB of RAM. Was like $600. Replaced my dying 2016 Kindle Fire and I use the crap out of it. Good for old games like Star Wars KotOR, Borderlands 1 and modern side scrollers. Didn't think I'd like it as much as I do, but it goes everywhere with me now.
If the best version of the Microsoft Surface has Thunderbolt 3 or 4, I absolutely want to see you connect a 4090 to the surface and play games at 4k if you have, or can get one of those stand alone GPU enclosures with their own power supply and connections and airflow and all that. Thunderbolt 4 has the bandwidth to do it. It might be interesting to see if you can max out the refresh rate on the 4k 42 inch or 48 inch "Gaming Monitor". This is why I love this channel. Everyone else is trying to make up reasons to buy the 7900XTX over the 4080, and Dawid is over here trying to run full windows 11 and GTA5 on an actual potato. This CPU and igpu are so bad, lol. It was so bad in fact, that the igpu was being bottlenecked by the crappy cpu! I think its time Intel stopped making chips named "Pentium", because its apparently the same chip they originally designed and made in 2003.
Interesting seeing these things run games like that at all. 3:20 the newest iPads are now also defaulted to landscape mode now, they've got a camera on the long side. 5:25 it's completely normal with art tablets that the pen registers hovering, it helps with the accuracy of painting.
@Dawid I'm kind of a surface gamer myself and have already been testing the Surface Pro 9 i5 and i7 with and without egpu :) by the way the Surface go 3 does not have a fan inside and if you put a fan on the back you'll get way better results! Thanks for testing this and happy holidays!
Hell yeah! I honestly rather appreciate your not inundating us with 7900 XTX stuff since flagship GPUs are going to be out of my price point (at least for a few generations after launch), and the trademark humour always makes for a grand time after a long day. Genuine thanks for the upload
Dawid has by far some of the best tech content on TH-cam, although still criminally underrated in my opinion. If you're reading this Dawid, I've been watching your videos for the last 3 years, and I love how your content has evolved. Keep it up, you're my favorite youtuber. Also, I also wanted to ask you this: Why don't you ever change what games you use for testing? (GTA V, BFV, CP2077...)
Using the same games across each device makes the comparison fairer. If you chop and change games and devices, how do you know whether the performance change is device or game related?
Definitely time to compare it to a refurb surface pro of about the same price. Been using a pro 4 and 5 for when I travel and they're perfect for that. Wouldn't want to game on them either due to the old intel igpu, but the more ram should help out a lot with not just randomly crashing.
@11:20 the Surface GO can output to HDMI 4k @ 60Hz (I own the 1st Gen from 2018) when using a proper USB-C to HDMI cable or an HBR2 gen USB-C Dock that assigns all 4 high speed lanes for DP traffic (rare and obviously not the dock you used). Your screenshot shows a limitation when using native HDMI output which is a completely different signal path and not available on the surface Go in the first place.
HDMI alt mode was never really supported and i think most usbc to hdmi use dp alt mode and convert it to hdmi and theres plenty of adapters that claim 4k60
Dawid, your content is so relevant to those without the budget of an owner of a premiership football club....everyone then! Thanks for the brilliant content in 2022. Looking forward to this channels 2023 content and beyond! P.s. please in one of your next videos when looking at thermal paste application, please make reference to bukkake 🤣
I have the previous Surface Go, the 8gb/128gb version though. Quite a nice little hybrid device which I use for most of my throw-in-a-bag computing as well as live digital monitor mixing. Take it camping for watching films and light gaming as it charges over USB C if you have a beefy enough power bank, runs most of the indie or older titles I want to play and is a nice reading device as well. I also have a GPD Win Max but sometimes the Surface is more convenient and they're very cheap to replace so I don't care about breaking it. Had Android tablets and an iPad Mini before but just end up missing having the capability of a proper PC.
Surprised Dawid wasn't aware that modern active styluses behave how they do. It's been that way on Surface devices since at least the Surface 3, but maybe from the beginning, as hover detection is considered the standard for active (and even some passive ie Galaxy Note) styluses for a long time now
Galaxy Note styluses are active. They just don't require a power source in the pen for tracking, as they're using Wacom's digitizer tech that powers the pen on top of tracking. Passive styluses are those rubber domes on sticks that work on any modern touchscreen.
@@reaperreaper5098 The early Galaxy Note stylii used the "passive" Wacom tech. For example on the Note 2. On these older devices the stylus is not only tracked but also energized through the via a coil around the screen (or something similar).
@@oldguy9051 That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Older Note phones have active styluses, they’re just powered passively. Newer Notes and the S Ultra series have batteries for the remote functions, but pen tracking is still passively powered.
I was a little disappointed you never took it apart or even tried to upgraded it. But, for $400cad (about £50😋), its not bad. I wonder if Linux would work on it.
Upgrading a Surface is almost an impossible task. Fun fact the store I worked at repairing computers had a policy that damaged Surfaces almost always got replaced because how difficult it was to open/repair.
@@stewartphillips Pretty much same here. We would replace ports and the kickstand piece, but nothing else. Bad motherboard? New surface. Bad screen? New surface.
Not sure what they're like nowadays, but the first couple of generations of Surface I used to work on professionally; and let me assure you that if you got inside one of those you're not getting it back together without hot glue and prayers.
I have read there is heating issue in some versions of SG2 and SG3. Would you pls specify about it? I am planning to buy either SG2 (Refurbished) or SG3 (New) for basic use like word/excel/you tube viewing as a secondary option but don’t want a roaster. Which version should I opt for basic use? 4GB/64 or 8GB/128? M3 or Pentium? Will appreciate your input. Thanks..
@@YashThakur-nw4ly Recommend as much RAM as possible as internet browsers just get more and more resource intensive! I had M3 version and had no issues with internet browsing and older (10+ year old) games. Never noticed any heating issues over the two years I had it!
I have one that I never really intended to use for gaming. But in a pinch, there is a lot that you can play on it, especially sticking with indie games, emulators and older games. There are dedicated channels on TH-cam showing the performance on many popular games.
absolutely interested in seeing that! they have some pretty decent igpus in those higher end models, but i'm curious how the cramped cooling would affect things.
I've got a feeling that a higher end surface won't be much better, but it would definitely be interesting to see how it compares. Will you make it past the first intersection in GTA V? Will Cyberpunk actually not flatline prior to loading the menu?
You think a 10c 12t processor with Iris based graphics better than on the fastest Intel desktop processors, using P and E up to 3.5GHz (4.7GHz for efficiency cores) will struggle as badly as a 2c 4t using an ancient iGPU, 20x less lv2 cache, 3x less lv3 cache, nearly 10 times less lv1 cache, and 3 times lower TDP . . . . . .
@@wyterabitt2149 Integrated graphics are NOT desirable for good reasons. The best of them really can't compete with lower end discrete graphics from previous generations. And when placed inside a tablet (effectively what a surface is) airflow is too constrained to allow even a powerful CPU/iGPU to perform as well as it could in a less airflow constrained device. This is why Intel has both TDP-up and TDP-down specs for manufacturers. Tablet-type devices tend to go with TDP-down designs for more battery life and lower heat generation. Even if they go with a TDP-up design, the CPU/iGPU won't be able to avoid thermal throttling in a fairly short period of time.
@@Dave5281968 I have used a Surface that was more powerful than the one in the video a few times, and it ran fine with no real massive issues and was very fast all round. Of course it won't be able to get it's full potential in the more powerful configurations, but that wasn't the question I asked. I asked do you think it's going to perform as badly as the terrible mess of a processor in the Surface that is in the video. I didn't ask "do you think the more powerful processor will hit the total potential performance it is capable of" and I didn't say "Intel iGPUs are the best option for gaming especially in tiny form factors". The Surface Pro 9 does have a fan as far as I am aware, still won't be perfect but the idea it would be as bad as in the video just seems silly. Even the massive increase in bandwidth would make a difference alone. And the difference between eMMC memory used here, and the real SSD in the Surface Pro 9. And you could have looked it up as well. I have seen very good extended Cinebench R23 results, which will generate far more heat than gaming would typically do, by the Surface Pro 9. And some gaming tests show it generally runs well enough and doesn't have crazy slowdown, but obviously will have limitations in spite of this.
I've setup a Surface machine for the CEO of a medium-sized company once. He wanted a dual monitor laptop but didn't want to carry around a Lenovo Brickpad all the time so he got a higher model Surface Pro and we wired up a usb-c to hdmi monitor to run with the tablet screen for him, it worked fine but the sometimes both screens would loss comm and the tablet would crash. Not certain on what he did after that, I think he eventually switched back to a laptop because I seen him working on a MacBook.
I have had several Surface tablets. The outgoing models usually go on nice sales when new models come out (saw the lowest spec i5 Surface Pro 8 for 590 euros on Black Friday, Surface Go 2 been a bit over 200 but not a lot left now), and unlike with laptops there's no annoying QWERTZ/AZERTY keyboard layouts to worry about ordering from central Europe to Finland. These can do tablet things but also basically anything a PC does, most of them are fanless and therefore quiet, and with Logitech Flow mine just turns into a third monitor with a touchscreen when I go on my desktop. That said, not recommended as your only computer, repairability and upgradability are zero, and buying the Windows-on-ARM ones means you're basically signing up for beta testing (although the battery life is great on those). That pen is like 100 usd extra btw so it kinda better be nice.
as a go 3 user I confirm, that its NOT! It will mostly struggle to load due the first minutes after starting the device, not even roblox will play at more than bout 36 FPS
Thanks for the video, it makes me feel better about the laptop I am currently using that my parents bought for my online classes. i3 10th gen with 8GB RAM 256 GB SSD is a monster compared to this, though the CPU still bottlenecks the iGPU LOL.
Try the Surface with Windows ARM next, it even uses a Microsoft branded ARM CPU called SQ3 (specific model is "Surface Pro 9 with 5G", the non-5G model has an Intel CPU)
For my first year of PC use and PC gaming, I used a, $1800 Surface Pro, and could not play anything older than Payday 2... My current $1000 Desktop that I built smashes the Surface in every single thing, even out of gaming! Oh how I will remember the pain, and forever cherish my desktop haha!
6:30 Funnily enough, I play this specific game. It's basically on the "it will run on a toasted potato" tier and it runs on a mesozoic era dual core laptop on 2GB single channel RAM equivalent to a low power Chromebook. There definitely are stress-test level games on the platform though.
I have the i3-10100y, 8gb RAM, 128gb SSD version, and it does fine for things like programming, drawing, music producing, schoolwork, light gaming, etc.
I have the highest surface go 3 that has a core i3 10100Y, 8gigs LPDDR3, and 128 gig SSD. I wonder what you what you would see with those small improvements.
Years ago I sold a friend a Dell latitude with a 2nd gen i5. A year later she brings over a new laptop and I said what happened to the dell? She said her brother bought her a gift card so she bought this sh1tty $300 laptop with a pentium... She was wondering why it was slow and I had to show her benchmarks showing that the 6 year old laptop I sold her that she gave away was way more powerful than this new one! 😆
@@volvo09 even worse than the surface go were the Surface Pro X, explaining why their favourite software wouldnt run on the ARM chip was a great hassle.
I owned the 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM version towards the beginning of this year for a couple weeks before returning to BestBuy. Can confirm that it will *start* a good number of games, even from an SD card (thanks SteamDeck for giving me that idea). The issue is thermals. The whole aluminum backplate is the heatsink, and doesn't have the density or dissipation to not thermal throttle quickly. In some games, I even had issues with it crashing with the backplate hot enough mildly burn my fingers if I picked it up right away. Wanted it for art and light gaming (Disco Elysium) but found I preferred a digital pen tablet with my regular laptop much better. Also, both the OEM keyboard and two third party keyboards I tried had so much flex that they would lose the ability to type on certain keys for a while just from being picked up and moved around while open. Terribly thin and flexible.
while other people test 7900xtx we get this, truly godsent content
Amen
amen
Amen
Amen.🙌
amen
" Pen started registering before touching the screen" Correct! MPP 2.0 adopts similar tech as Wacom. It's a near magnetic field tech called EMR. Amazing tech, really. Artist's love this, as we can see our brush size and location prior to input. It can be a little alarming if you never used tech like this before. Just know that it is, indeed, working as intended!
@@sihilius I have a Wacom MobileStudio 16 and a Asus Flip s13, and while the wacom is better for feel and precision, the Asus feels great to sketch and take notes on. Great tool for students too!
also helps a ton with palm rejection. makes it way easier not to put a blob on the other side of the canvas LOL i would die without it.
yeah, samsung note use it ages ago... on Samsung galaxy S5, they can detect your finger hovering on the screen which is mind boggling
@@sihilius or just the surface pro
Yes. I still use a galaxy tab s4, with wacom tech and detects input a fair bit above the screen
As a Surface Laptop 2 user, I have noticed surprising performance within games that it has no business running, but I can definitely say that the Surface Go 3 impressed me with how well it can run games, even if it really struggles compared to the Surface Laptop 2.
I guess it's just the difference between expectations and reality. Not gonna lie - expectations for the device were quite low
I also have a surface go 2 and I play minecraft on it and this looks worse than my surface go 2
Bro what games can your surface laptop 2 run
I had a surface go 3 and it could barely run anything without overheating and turning off, it also crapped itself whenever I had more than one program open, idk maybe mine was a lemon or smt but I could barely do anything on it without having it overheat or run slow, I swapped it for a Surface Pro 7+ which is so much more powerful and can play just about anything.
What games are you playing? FeelCell and Minesweeper?
2 cores 4 threads for a new(-ish) device in the 2020s is just wild. And GTA V crashing right after Dawid said "but it's running!" was just peak comedic timing.
Also, HL2 being the go-to "even a potato can run it" game for this channel really makes me feel my years since I still remember vividly when all the PC and gaming-related media in the early 2000s were hailing it as the era-introducing, must-upgrade new hotness game.
At least it has boost. The surface go 2 model came with a 4425y which ran at the 1.7ghz base clock and no higher. They managed to make a proper core series cpu run worse single-threaded results than atoms of the same age.
however, for $400, it probably can’t get any cheaper given that it comes with an excellent touchscreen display and full metal build.
an equivalent laptop would have better specs sure, but probably a much worse display and build.
they should’ve made it $500 and thrown in a decent amount of memory and storage.
"running on an easy-bake oven..."
@@alexkwan3 An iPad will destroy this in every metric besides software compatibility, is similarly well built, and is about $100 less.
@@bandombeviews6035 this comes with a stylus which apple charges you $100 for, so there’s the difference i guess.
don’t get me wrong. the ipad 9 is great at $329 and i’m actually considering picking one up, but they’re not in the same product category.
I worked for surface support for a couple years until they outsourced the support to overseas. The device is basically a laptop replacement. Also fun fact when the surface studio first came out we had a couple of them in our cubicles (1 per team). We would just sit there and play games on it all the time :P
damn bro you lost your job
Yoh, 4GB LPDDR3 RAM doesn't give me much hope for this little guy. Gotta say I was pretty impressed by the end of it!
Surprising Win11 runs on it, knowing 10 needs 8gb min clean install
@@DyoKasparov Win 10 doesn't NEED 8gb, it runs fine with 4gb
Not just that, but the storage in this thing is eMMC which is a much slower type of flash and slows as something like a hard drive. I'd be curious to see how the Core i3 version of this little Surface would run these games, as it has the i3, 8gb of RAM and a proper SSD(I think NVME, actually).
@@DyoKasparov Official requirement is 2GB. For 32-bit version it was only 1GB, but it was later changed also to 2GB.
I have Trekstor 7 tablet with 32bit Win10 home 1GB RAM / 16GB drive & intel Atom CPU. Back in 2016 it cost in Germany like 1/2 of Win10 box.
@@DyoKasparovI’ve seen Windows 10 run with less than 100MB of RAM (if memory serves, it was 42MB). It wasn’t good, in fact it was immensely painful to witness, but it worked.
I got one of these for testing at work along with a surface 5 , I could run 7 days to die at 30fps on medium on the 5 which I call "full stack corporate environment testing " on my notes
I definitely wanna see you play games on the top tier Tablet, Dawid.
I've always considered a Microsoft Surface as a genuine laptop contender for me to buy, and I wanna see you make that video.
HE WILL NOT
@@electronforce611 😂🤣
I have the i5 varient with an 80 eu iris xe. The igpu is let held back the low wattage. I can get about 35fps in gta v 1080 normal settings. I don't think the 96 eu in the i7 varient will give much better performance because it's only running at 15 watts. The sq3 varrient is a no go for gaming. I haven't tried it but considering the state of windows for arm I would imagine most games would not even run.
@@iameric5790 Oh. OK. That's disappointing. But thanks for the info.
@@iameric5790 15 Watts? My Surface Pro 5 i5 can go up to 35W.
I've started at Geek Squad recently and getting to see Dawid play with some of the "PCs" I see everyday with people wondering why it can't run Ultra Maxed graphics at 60fps is a real pleasure.
"Here, bake this potato with this disposable bic lighter... see? You should've bought an oven if you wanted to cook potatoes."
You'll see it all working for GS. some of the wildest interactions I've had at the 4 years working as an ARA
Yes! Get the more expensive one and test it. Would love to know if this could be used on vacation...and maybe test GeForce now to see how well that works!
I have the 128ssd/8gb ram/6500y model .. pre 2009-2010 games run reasonably well.. anything newer (not AAA titles) is a hit and miss ..I've tested coral island (similar to animal crossing I guess but not really) it's from October ish 2022 and runs on medium settings smoothly
may be core i3 option with go3 is enough
But a steam deck it would destroy most things these days
@@randomkhan1896yeah.. with a 3 inch screen.
i have the same surface go 3 model as in the video. geforce now runs great on it, i game on it sometimes, when i don't have my laptop
When Dawid says he didn't do any research, that's when you know you're going to have a good time.
Very nice to watch :)
Yup. But, honestly, it feels a bit like he could narrate anything and be amusing - "gaming on an Easy-bake oven" .. lol!
The main reason I like the surface connect port (the proprietary charge port) is that it is magnetic and is sort of Microsoft’s take on MagSafe.
There is also a 'dock' version with more IO too.
@@wolsel9726 Yeah I know but not the best port for that, USBC is still better when it comes to IO flexibility. The magnetic connection is what makes it special to
me.
@@SEVENTEENPOINT1I'm pretty sure you can push a ton more data through the proprietary link than usb could do.
@@benjamindover4337 Depends on the bandwidth it has.
microsoft had like a patent or something for magnetic charging
I loved my first-gen Go 8/128GB. It was great for retro gaming.
Re: the pen, that's just the "hover" feature which was a thing on most tablets long before iPad made a big fuss about it.
I keep hoping the Go will shift to ARM as the form factor is ideal. The x86 battery life just isn't good enough.
Prior to Apple bringing out the pencil, most tablets and 2-in-1s didn't have active stylus support. The only big name options that existed for consumers were Samsung's Galaxy Note line, the Microsoft Surface line, and a very small smattering of obscure Surface like devices like the Viao Z Canvas.
Apple didn't do anything innovative with their stylus, but manufacturers will happily copy something once Apple does it because they want to be seen as trendy or whatever.
*game crashes at 1080p*
Dave: Yeah I think 4k is probably going fix this issue.
Reminds me of the time I bought an ASUS x86 tablet, the cheapest I could find in Amazon, and slapped a controller on it to "play on the go". Turns out the puny processor on that thing only ran games at seconds per frame (no you're not reading it wrong) and worse, it came from a batch with battery issues so yeah, right now it's a nice brick I have
or me with ideapad duet3 i was still expecting without games ut having issues on facebook and you tube is crime
seconds per frame 💀💀💀💀
Selling a Windows 11 laptop with only 4 GB of ram should be a crime, it normally is the absolute bare minimum to run Windows 11.
1:38 - lol, what did you expect it to be made of?
I've seen games running, now I have also seen them walking !
Only here can I get a decent comparison between different brand's box smells.
Please keep hitting us hard with this content, it's just impossible to get anywhere else.
great video! been seriously thinking about getting a cheap Surface for gaming on the go and always wondered about performance on the Surface Go. Rather than plug a keyboard into it immediately, maybe you could also review games that are well optimized for a pen + tablet setup, maybe some kind of turn based type game.
6:20 that’s not the surface’s fault, it’s just roblox having server issues as always.
While I don't recommend for teh gamers, if your into light illustration or music production these are killer for getting rough drafts going on the go. I got the 5th gen for my kid at the start of "Lockdowns" for school. I5, 8gb ram, teeny weeny SSD (Microsd saves the day.) for around $500 these days. Really productive form factor if your moving around a lot.
In a pinch, you could totally use this for light video editing, too. It'll take a whole hell of a lot longer, but it'll still work.
I actually recommended one of those to my friend when he went to college. The first thing we did was set up TeamViewer between it and his 5800X & 3070ti PC. All the battery life he could want and he has a decent bit of power on tap if he needs to run something heavier for engineering classes.
For everyone thinking this thing is garbage, it's not meant to do anything but browsing in the web and taking notes, maybe a bit of Word, that's it. And the pen is amazing! I have one and I love it. The type cover is impressive too, SO MUCH key travel for this thiccness.
My Surface Go 2 can't run Portal 1, but it runs Portal 2 very reasonably at 720p 30fps. Pretty amazing for something with passive cooling! I do have the 8gb ram version though
Answer that proprietary charging port, the usb c port also works for charging, so it's not necessary.
There's also a microSD card slot under the kickstand for easy storage expansion! They actually removed this from the more expensive Surfaces now
please use the high-end surface device. The prices of the top end at microsoft is unbelievably high and I would never imagine its ever going to be worth
Ah yes the Intel Pentium Gold 6500Why... The ultimate powerhouse.
For that price though not bad.
*FPS comparisons* :
Other tech YT channels : Can it run Crysis ? / Can it run Cyberpunk ?
Dawid Does Tech Stuff : Could it run Quake II ?
Got my surface go 1 in 2018 and still use it almost daily for internetting and document viewing. Sure its slow, but i never expected it to do anything else. I do game the elder scrolls Oblivion occasionally! Recently i’ve started using parsec to stream from my rendering rig at home, and it is just sooo convenient in this small form factor!
Nice what resolution and settings are you playing oblivion? I played Skyrim on the go 1 8gb for sure
Now you gotta do one with the most expensive surface
I own one of those things, except it's the middle of the road model (8GB RAM, 128GB SSD) and yes, the SSD makes a *world* of difference. Though even with twice the RAM, it can't cut it. I think the crashes are because of thermals since this is passively cooled.
the cool thing is that that connector makes it so that when you tug on the the power cord or just trip over it the magnets detach the device will not go with it
I would love this testing on the newest and fastest Surface Tab . As it's quite impressive in performance.
I have a Cube iWork10 10.1 inch Intel Atom Cherry Trail Z8300 Dual OS Windows 10 + Android 5.1 4GB RAM 64GB HDD 2in1 Ultrabook Tablet Quad Core 1.44GHz that I've recently been using during blackouts - it's quite surprising how powerful it can be with the right games and settings, hitting up all my oldschool nostalgic games that I didnt end up finishing back in the day.
I got a Surface 7 Pro earlier this year with the Core i5-1035G4 and 8GB of RAM. Was like $600. Replaced my dying 2016 Kindle Fire and I use the crap out of it. Good for old games like Star Wars KotOR, Borderlands 1 and modern side scrollers. Didn't think I'd like it as much as I do, but it goes everywhere with me now.
so as someone that owned a gen 1 surface and it was my 'gaming' laptop, it was nice to see that they are still okay at running some games.
If the best version of the Microsoft Surface has Thunderbolt 3 or 4, I absolutely want to see you connect a 4090 to the surface and play games at 4k if you have, or can get one of those stand alone GPU enclosures with their own power supply and connections and airflow and all that. Thunderbolt 4 has the bandwidth to do it. It might be interesting to see if you can max out the refresh rate on the 4k 42 inch or 48 inch "Gaming Monitor". This is why I love this channel. Everyone else is trying to make up reasons to buy the 7900XTX over the 4080, and Dawid is over here trying to run full windows 11 and GTA5 on an actual potato. This CPU and igpu are so bad, lol. It was so bad in fact, that the igpu was being bottlenecked by the crappy cpu! I think its time Intel stopped making chips named "Pentium", because its apparently the same chip they originally designed and made in 2003.
Interesting seeing these things run games like that at all.
3:20 the newest iPads are now also defaulted to landscape mode now, they've got a camera on the long side.
5:25 it's completely normal with art tablets that the pen registers hovering, it helps with the accuracy of painting.
@Dawid I'm kind of a surface gamer myself and have already been testing the Surface Pro 9 i5 and i7 with and without egpu :) by the way the Surface go 3 does not have a fan inside and if you put a fan on the back you'll get way better results! Thanks for testing this and happy holidays!
For my work this is our primary computer. We travel the U.S. drawing and rendering designs on these. It's not bad for work at least lol
Hell yeah! I honestly rather appreciate your not inundating us with 7900 XTX stuff since flagship GPUs are going to be out of my price point (at least for a few generations after launch), and the trademark humour always makes for a grand time after a long day. Genuine thanks for the upload
"I did not do any research going into this video" you have my full trust
highest end non-dedicated GPU surface sounds neat. Would especially wonder how the thermals are handled. Does the surface have any vents??
Minecraft was played on my pro 7. I have the 9 coming in the mail so would definitely like to see that!
0:49 MAIIIIIICRO CEEEENTEERR!
Dawid has by far some of the best tech content on TH-cam, although still criminally underrated in my opinion. If you're reading this Dawid, I've been watching your videos for the last 3 years, and I love how your content has evolved. Keep it up, you're my favorite youtuber. Also, I also wanted to ask you this: Why don't you ever change what games you use for testing? (GTA V, BFV, CP2077...)
Using the same games across each device makes the comparison fairer. If you chop and change games and devices, how do you know whether the performance change is device or game related?
@@RikAindow I dont know how I haven’t thought of that. Makes a lot of sense, thanks
Definitely time to compare it to a refurb surface pro of about the same price. Been using a pro 4 and 5 for when I travel and they're perfect for that. Wouldn't want to game on them either due to the old intel igpu, but the more ram should help out a lot with not just randomly crashing.
@11:20 the Surface GO can output to HDMI 4k @ 60Hz (I own the 1st Gen from 2018) when using a proper USB-C to HDMI cable or an HBR2 gen USB-C Dock that assigns all 4 high speed lanes for DP traffic (rare and obviously not the dock you used). Your screenshot shows a limitation when using native HDMI output which is a completely different signal path and not available on the surface Go in the first place.
HDMI alt mode was never really supported and i think most usbc to hdmi use dp alt mode and convert it to hdmi and theres plenty of adapters that claim 4k60
Definitely try gaming on the most expensive one as well!
I'll lend my PC, i9 13900k, 4090, etc.
Dawid, your content is so relevant to those without the budget of an owner of a premiership football club....everyone then! Thanks for the brilliant content in 2022. Looking forward to this channels 2023 content and beyond!
P.s. please in one of your next videos when looking at thermal paste application, please make reference to bukkake 🤣
I have the previous Surface Go, the 8gb/128gb version though. Quite a nice little hybrid device which I use for most of my throw-in-a-bag computing as well as live digital monitor mixing. Take it camping for watching films and light gaming as it charges over USB C if you have a beefy enough power bank, runs most of the indie or older titles I want to play and is a nice reading device as well.
I also have a GPD Win Max but sometimes the Surface is more convenient and they're very cheap to replace so I don't care about breaking it. Had Android tablets and an iPad Mini before but just end up missing having the capability of a proper PC.
you really should try the high end version we need to see more low end computer gaming tests
Surprised Dawid wasn't aware that modern active styluses behave how they do. It's been that way on Surface devices since at least the Surface 3, but maybe from the beginning, as hover detection is considered the standard for active (and even some passive ie Galaxy Note) styluses for a long time now
Galaxy Note styluses are active. They just don't require a power source in the pen for tracking, as they're using Wacom's digitizer tech that powers the pen on top of tracking.
Passive styluses are those rubber domes on sticks that work on any modern touchscreen.
@@reaperreaper5098 The early Galaxy Note stylii used the "passive" Wacom tech. For example on the Note 2.
On these older devices the stylus is not only tracked but also energized through the via a coil around the screen (or something similar).
@@oldguy9051 That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Older Note phones have active styluses, they’re just powered passively. Newer Notes and the S Ultra series have batteries for the remote functions, but pen tracking is still passively powered.
@@reaperreaper5098 "active styluses, they’re just powered passively"
OK - I can agree to that, even if it sounds somewhat funny ;-)
2:04 whole video summarized in a short question.
I was a little disappointed you never took it apart or even tried to upgraded it. But, for $400cad (about £50😋), its not bad. I wonder if Linux would work on it.
Upgrading a Surface is almost an impossible task. Fun fact the store I worked at repairing computers had a policy that damaged Surfaces almost always got replaced because how difficult it was to open/repair.
everything is soldered
@@stewartphillips Thanks. That's worth knowing. Maybe I won't get one as I do love tinkering with PC's.
@@stewartphillips Pretty much same here. We would replace ports and the kickstand piece, but nothing else. Bad motherboard? New surface. Bad screen? New surface.
Not sure what they're like nowadays, but the first couple of generations of Surface I used to work on professionally; and let me assure you that if you got inside one of those you're not getting it back together without hot glue and prayers.
I had a Surface Go 2 until recently (sold it because I stopped travelling) and I LOVED it. Really capable machines, recommend them a whole bunch.
I have read there is heating issue in some versions of SG2 and SG3. Would you pls specify about it? I am planning to buy either SG2 (Refurbished) or SG3 (New) for basic use like word/excel/you tube viewing as a secondary option but don’t want a roaster. Which version should I opt for basic use?
4GB/64 or 8GB/128?
M3 or Pentium?
Will appreciate your input. Thanks..
@@YashThakur-nw4ly Recommend as much RAM as possible as internet browsers just get more and more resource intensive! I had M3 version and had no issues with internet browsing and older (10+ year old) games. Never noticed any heating issues over the two years I had it!
I definitely would like to see what a high end Microsoft surface looks like. Would be helpful when considering it for my next tablet
I have one that I never really intended to use for gaming. But in a pinch, there is a lot that you can play on it, especially sticking with indie games, emulators and older games. There are dedicated channels on TH-cam showing the performance on many popular games.
@@wolsel9726 why yes there is 🤠
@@josher14 😉
absolutely interested in seeing that! they have some pretty decent igpus in those higher end models, but i'm curious how the cramped cooling would affect things.
3:14 they literally just copied the black bar from the iPad 3
0:15 for a sec i thought it would say dawid does dumb s*it
😂😂😂😂😂
Your singing of “Micro Center” more clearly conveys your pure joy and appreciation of the company than all those other scripted ads.
I've got a feeling that a higher end surface won't be much better, but it would definitely be interesting to see how it compares. Will you make it past the first intersection in GTA V? Will Cyberpunk actually not flatline prior to loading the menu?
You think a 10c 12t processor with Iris based graphics better than on the fastest Intel desktop processors, using P and E up to 3.5GHz (4.7GHz for efficiency cores) will struggle as badly as a 2c 4t using an ancient iGPU, 20x less lv2 cache, 3x less lv3 cache, nearly 10 times less lv1 cache, and 3 times lower TDP . . . . . .
@@wyterabitt2149 Integrated graphics are NOT desirable for good reasons. The best of them really can't compete with lower end discrete graphics from previous generations. And when placed inside a tablet (effectively what a surface is) airflow is too constrained to allow even a powerful CPU/iGPU to perform as well as it could in a less airflow constrained device. This is why Intel has both TDP-up and TDP-down specs for manufacturers. Tablet-type devices tend to go with TDP-down designs for more battery life and lower heat generation. Even if they go with a TDP-up design, the CPU/iGPU won't be able to avoid thermal throttling in a fairly short period of time.
@@Dave5281968 I have used a Surface that was more powerful than the one in the video a few times, and it ran fine with no real massive issues and was very fast all round.
Of course it won't be able to get it's full potential in the more powerful configurations, but that wasn't the question I asked. I asked do you think it's going to perform as badly as the terrible mess of a processor in the Surface that is in the video. I didn't ask "do you think the more powerful processor will hit the total potential performance it is capable of" and I didn't say "Intel iGPUs are the best option for gaming especially in tiny form factors".
The Surface Pro 9 does have a fan as far as I am aware, still won't be perfect but the idea it would be as bad as in the video just seems silly. Even the massive increase in bandwidth would make a difference alone. And the difference between eMMC memory used here, and the real SSD in the Surface Pro 9.
And you could have looked it up as well. I have seen very good extended Cinebench R23 results, which will generate far more heat than gaming would typically do, by the Surface Pro 9. And some gaming tests show it generally runs well enough and doesn't have crazy slowdown, but obviously will have limitations in spite of this.
LOVE this kinda stuff!!! YES please do the high end one with Iris Xe!!!
I've setup a Surface machine for the CEO of a medium-sized company once. He wanted a dual monitor laptop but didn't want to carry around a Lenovo Brickpad all the time so he got a higher model Surface Pro and we wired up a usb-c to hdmi monitor to run with the tablet screen for him, it worked fine but the sometimes both screens would loss comm and the tablet would crash. Not certain on what he did after that, I think he eventually switched back to a laptop because I seen him working on a MacBook.
I have had several Surface tablets. The outgoing models usually go on nice sales when new models come out (saw the lowest spec i5 Surface Pro 8 for 590 euros on Black Friday, Surface Go 2 been a bit over 200 but not a lot left now), and unlike with laptops there's no annoying QWERTZ/AZERTY keyboard layouts to worry about ordering from central Europe to Finland. These can do tablet things but also basically anything a PC does, most of them are fanless and therefore quiet, and with Logitech Flow mine just turns into a third monitor with a touchscreen when I go on my desktop. That said, not recommended as your only computer, repairability and upgradability are zero, and buying the Windows-on-ARM ones means you're basically signing up for beta testing (although the battery life is great on those).
That pen is like 100 usd extra btw so it kinda better be nice.
as a go 3 user I confirm, that its NOT! It will mostly struggle to load due the first minutes after starting the device, not even roblox will play at more than bout 36 FPS
What about running Cloud Gaming such as Shadow service on it?
@@commentarytalk1446 whats dat?
Thanks for the video, it makes me feel better about the laptop I am currently using that my parents bought for my online classes. i3 10th gen with 8GB RAM 256 GB SSD is a monster compared to this, though the CPU still bottlenecks the iGPU LOL.
There is no way the CPU is bottlenecking the GPU in an i3 unless you're running something incredibly CPU intensive
Is it a lenovo ideapad?
@@jbritain I am running Asphalt 9 also it's an HP with bloatware😅. I hesitate to clean install I have lots of schoolwork and old games I'll lose.
i have an surface go 3... i tried an 5 yo sim on low and got 15fps. have u touched it? this thing gets pretty damn hot. i burnt myself :)
Don't say its cheap In Philippines its too expensive
You realize the majority of the audience watching is US/Canada based right?
This tab gives me 2013 vibes idk why
One of these costs the same as a gaming laptop with a rtx3050 here lol
Normally you have to go to the deep web to watch snuff films, but here you are uploading this content to youtube.
The Surface Connect port has been used on every surface. You can charge via USB-C though.
I'm pretty sure my refrigerator has a more powerful computer than this thing. Charging $400 for it is borderline criminal.
Oh helll yeah we wanna see you try gaming on a high end Surface 😂😂 killer vid as always brotha! ❤
Love your Content Dawid . Love your humor. nice job!
2:10 BOOKIES LOL! That took my day to the top floor!
Try the Surface with Windows ARM next, it even uses a Microsoft branded ARM CPU called SQ3 (specific model is "Surface Pro 9 with 5G", the non-5G model has an Intel CPU)
YES!! Keep playing roblox for budget computers. Im currenty seeing if celerons, pentium, i3's can play roblox.
For my first year of PC use and PC gaming, I used a, $1800 Surface Pro, and could not play anything older than Payday 2... My current $1000 Desktop that I built smashes the Surface in every single thing, even out of gaming! Oh how I will remember the pain, and forever cherish my desktop haha!
This feels like the sort of device that should do as much as possible with a wireless connection.
Could you test an old high end laptop from craigslist and try to watercool the laptop with like wish or ali things
5:39 enough about my girlfriend dawid tell me about the laptop
Him: Proprietary charging plug! Me: Hell nah I’m using USB C charging lol (I‘m watching this Video on that thing, really like it)
I love that you try to game on anything you can get your hands on XD
Dawid what application do you use for the Cpu and GPU overlayed over the game?
You made my snowy day.... well snowy! Yeah!
dawid upload makes a good morning
gaming thing aside but actually this is still way better than most android tablets.
6:30 Funnily enough, I play this specific game. It's basically on the "it will run on a toasted potato" tier and it runs on a mesozoic era dual core laptop on 2GB single channel RAM equivalent to a low power Chromebook. There definitely are stress-test level games on the platform though.
I have a Surface Go 2, and I use it to play older and indie games like Peglin, Into the Breach, Heroes 3, Disciples 2, etc.
I have the i3-10100y, 8gb RAM, 128gb SSD version, and it does fine for things like programming, drawing, music producing, schoolwork, light gaming, etc.
Franklin after walking out of his house and getting in his car for Dawid's 1000th benchmark: JUST LET ME DIE
i watched your videos for month but finally subscribed to you
I have the highest surface go 3 that has a core i3 10100Y, 8gigs LPDDR3, and 128 gig SSD. I wonder what you what you would see with those small improvements.
I would like to see gaming on a high end surface.
Curious if that can handle older gems like Skyrim or Fallout.
I've tested Skyrim on the pro 9 i5 and have tested fallout 4 on the pro 8 and precious models I've got game playlists for all the pros
Different type of product I know, but it's even more surprising how good of a deal a Steam Deck is when you see this vid.
I always hated configuring these for customers at work.
Years ago I sold a friend a Dell latitude with a 2nd gen i5. A year later she brings over a new laptop and I said what happened to the dell? She said her brother bought her a gift card so she bought this sh1tty $300 laptop with a pentium... She was wondering why it was slow and I had to show her benchmarks showing that the 6 year old laptop I sold her that she gave away was way more powerful than this new one!
😆
@@volvo09 even worse than the surface go were the Surface Pro X, explaining why their favourite software wouldnt run on the ARM chip was a great hassle.
Gaming on Maxed setup is, well obvious.. Dawid answers The questions someone might have asked. 🔥
That power connector is magsafe so it pops out instead of pulling your tablet on the floor when you trip on power cable.
I owned the 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM version towards the beginning of this year for a couple weeks before returning to BestBuy. Can confirm that it will *start* a good number of games, even from an SD card (thanks SteamDeck for giving me that idea). The issue is thermals. The whole aluminum backplate is the heatsink, and doesn't have the density or dissipation to not thermal throttle quickly. In some games, I even had issues with it crashing with the backplate hot enough mildly burn my fingers if I picked it up right away. Wanted it for art and light gaming (Disco Elysium) but found I preferred a digital pen tablet with my regular laptop much better.
Also, both the OEM keyboard and two third party keyboards I tried had so much flex that they would lose the ability to type on certain keys for a while just from being picked up and moved around while open. Terribly thin and flexible.