Speaker 1: It's a tough time to buy a budget laptop right now. There's a lot of reasons for that, but it's also a tough time to build a budget laptop, which is why something like this. The Microsoft surface laptop go to can be kind of a confusing product. There are different configurations. There are different things you gain and give up getting the more expensive, less expensive configurations. Then you have to compare to other products in roughly the same price band and what you get with different configurations, different prices. For those either way. There's a lot of math [00:00:30] involved and you may not come to a satisfactory answer at all. Recently, I started thinking a lot about what a budget laptop means, especially because a lot of us are looking to spend less on new technology going forward, especially because going into the bank of the school season inexpensive, but good laptops.
Speaker 1: That's a real premium thing that you wanna make sure that you get. If you're going to high school, if you're going to college. So having done some thinking about this, I pretty recently decided that the definition of a budget laptop had [00:01:00] to change a little bit. We usually considered something that's about $500, maybe a little bit more to be a budget laptop, frankly, with inflation and with supply chain issues. And with people simply demanding more from their machines. And we're really closer to $700 right now is kind of the top end of the budget laptop spectrum. Now this all goes back to 2020. That's when Microsoft said we have this product, the surface laptop, it's a nice premium laptop, frankly. I like it a lot. Let's make a less expensive version of it. It was called [00:01:30] the surface laptop go after the surface go, which again was a cheaper version of the surface tablet itself.
Speaker 1: And it was a pretty decent looking machine. It started at $550. And for that, you got nice aluminum body, a three, two aspect ratio screen that frankly seen pretty generous, uh, nice keyboard, touchpad, touchscreen, you know, a lot of good features in there. However, there were some compromises. The first compromise was this thing only had four gigs of Ram, which seemed crazy for a window system. Even in 2020. [00:02:00] It also had, uh, 64 gigs of storage again, very little. So now here in 2022, the surface laptop go to also starts with that same four gigs of Ram. It's $600. Now the starting price is a little bit more, uh, I can a good conscience say you should get a windows 11 laptop with four gigs of Ram. Uh, it does have a 1 28 gig hard drive. So at least that's, that's better. And they've jumped up from a 10th gen qu five in Intel chip to an 11th gen you know, regular [00:02:30] CPU performance is fine.
Speaker 1: It's not spectacular. The 600 bucks. It's pretty good. The problem is you're not gonna be buying the $600 version of this. You're gonna be buying the $700 version or the $800 version. And that's because that's where you get bumped up to eight gigs of Ram, which is really the minimum that you should get to run a windows 11 system effectively. So if 700 bucks you get the 1 28 gig hard drive and you get eight gigs around 800 bucks, you get eight gigs and a 2 56, [00:03:00] uh, hard drive, okay. But once you're spending $800, then you're in a whole nother category because the cheapest surface laptop for the big brother premium version of this, once you hit 800 bucks, it's a much wider field to choose from. And then the surface laptop go to may not be the right pick if you're spending that much money.
Speaker 1: That said, I found a happy medium looking over all the specs, that $700 version eight gigs around 1 28 gig storage, which is not huge, but I feel [00:03:30] like we all kind of live on the cloud. Anyway. Uh, local storage is less important at least to me than it used to be same CPU, same screen, same body, which again is really nice and premium filling for a budget ish laptop. That seems to be the sweet spot. If this is a device you were in the market for, that's probably the one you should get. So there's a lot I'd like about the surface laptop go to, first of all, it's a pretty sharp looking laptop. It's got a nice aluminum body feels like a much more expensive product than it is, especially considering [00:04:00] it starts at 600 bucks. And whichever version you get, you get basically the same body.
Speaker 1: Uh, it's got a decent fingerprint reader built in right into the power button, but that's only on the higher two configurations, not on the least expensive one. Just keep that in mind. Uh, it's got a nice 12.4 inch screen. It's a three, two aspect ratio. So it's a little bit taller, which is actually great for reading documents and doing work. And I find that a lot of laptops are moving to this, uh, less wide screen aspect ratio. And I think it's a net plus for most people, it's a pretty decent screen. [00:04:30] It's a touch screen, which is something you don't often find in budget laptops. Although the resolution is a little lower than full HD. I didn't really notice it that much. I think the screen is overall a net plus now in an era when a lot of laptops are cutting down on the number of ports, maybe just one or two USBC ports for everything, power connectivity, at least here you get one SBC, one full size us B a, which is getting harder to find, but still pretty useful for a lot of people and a [00:05:00] headphone Jack, uh, and also a surface power connector.
Speaker 1: On the other side. Now you can charge this through USBC, but Microsoft also has something called the surface power connector, which is sort of their version of if you took the Mac safe connector, uh, from a MacBook and you said, how can we make this worse in every way possible. I only plug this thing in through SBC and I bet that's what you're gonna do. Also now inside, you're gonna find an 11th generation basic Intel core I five. [00:05:30] The problem is newer laptops are up to 12 generation ships. So this is already a generation behind. So it wasn't a particularly speedy laptop, especially because you're getting the same chip at the most expensive model that you get with the least expensive model. But for everyday use, I found it fine web surfing, writing, watching videos now, because this is a small thin laptop, just a 12.4 screen.
Speaker 1: You'd think of it as being very travel friendly. So I put it to the ultimate test because right after I got it, I had to take a cross country trip, a six hour airplane ride. And I said, [00:06:00] I'm gonna take the surface laptop, go to with me. Uh, and I did. And even on that tiny little, uh, airline tray thing that, that folds out, I put it on there. The footprint was actually a great match for the, uh, airline tray table. Uh, the screen it's a little bit tall that makes it a little difficult, but by pulling off the train a little bit, I actually thought this was one of the better airplane laptop combinations that I've ever tried. So, you know, kudos for that. Now there's something else interesting about the new model of the surface laptop [00:06:30] go to, and that is, is available in a very interesting, or at least interesting to me color previously surface stuff can come in like, you know, a gold and a gray and a silver, uh, they've added a new one called Sage.
Speaker 1: Uh, now Sage green is apparently the hot color of 2022. So when I got these surface laptop go to in the mail, I opened up the box and I was a little disappointed. I was like, oh, they just sent me the gray version. This is not the, the Sage green version. [00:07:00] Then I looked on the back of the box. It was actually the Sage green version. So the green is so subtle. I actually had to put it next to another really gray laptop in order to see the difference. So when you look at it closely, yes, you can tell it's Sage green. It's not really popping out at you. And I like the color and I can see why it's like the hot color of 20, 22, but don't expect this thing to jump out and be like, Hey, I'm green now because this is a budget laptop.
Speaker 1: There are certain things you're just playing, not gonna get. And the biggest disappointment for me was this has a regular [00:07:30] old seven 20 resolution webcam when so many other laptops are finally moving up the full HD 1920 by 10 80 cameras, which is important because we're all spending a lot more time in video meetings now. And the difference between a seven 20 camera and a 10 80 camera is frankly huge. So hopefully that's something we'll see in a future generation of surface laptop go, but you're not getting at this time. So in the end, the surface laptop go to, it's a difficult product to wrap your head around. It's a nice looking budget laptop, but the [00:08:00] most budget price version of it is just not acceptable for a bunch of reasons. Not enough Ram doesn't have the fingerprint reader. The higher end versions are actually pretty nice, but once you get to the top tier, you may as well go shopping for just a regular mid price slash low end premium laptop. Uh, you're kind of stuck right in that middle band there. So who is the surface laptop going to really aiming for? What's the ideal audience. It's probably somebody who's shopping for a budget laptop, but at the very highest end [00:08:30] of what you would call the budget spectrum. And that is probably a fairly thin slice of the audience. Although I did enjoy my time with the surface laptop go to, and I thought it was an excellent flight companion.
