“Surface Laptop Go is an affordable way to stay productive and enjoy premium Surface design without breaking the bank”

Thin and light; Comfortable keyboard and trackpad; Good port selection; Good performance

No backlit keyboard; Display's pixel density is low; No Surface Pen support

Solidly built and great looking; with a fast enough processor.

The display's resolution is wonky; and boy does it get hot.

Microsoft’s Surface lineup, long a showcase for the most advanced hardware design ideas in the Windows ecosystem, now welcomes a $549.99 laptop for the rest of us. With streamlined component configurations and the omission of some of the more futuristic Surface Laptop 3 features, the new Surface Laptop Go will appeal to price-sensitive buyers who need a sensible workhorse laptop for light computing tasks. The $699 configuration reviewed here is the best one for most people. It takes the laptop out of the “cheap” range and isn't quite as impressive on raw performance as similarly priced competitors with AMD Ryzen processors, but it’s still a fine value for what it offers. A Sturdy, Svelte Surface First, a word about the Surface Laptop Go name, and where this laptop fits into the grand, confusing scheme of Microsoft's Surface line. The Surface Laptop Go is a new flavor of Surface. It's not to be confused with the Surface Go (Microsoft's budget-minded detachable 2-in-1, now on the S...

Although it's missing some nifty features from the pricier Surface Laptop 3, the Surface Laptop Go is what many people are looking for right now: a well-designed, lightweight laptop with adequate performance that won't break the bank.

Inexpensive; Light weight; Comfortable keyboard and touch pad; Multiple color options; Attractive styling and excellent build quality; USB Type-A port

Less-than-1080p display; No face recognition camera or keyboard backlighting; Internal storage tops out at 256GB; Middling audio quality

The Surface Laptop Go looks like a Surface, but it doesn't impress like some of its bigger brothers. I love the Surface Laptop Go as the sleek mid-range laptop that it almost is. You can get its great keyboard, elegant chassis and decent performance at a respectable price — if you choose the $699...

Elegant aluminum lid and deck, Thin bezels and 3:2 display, Wonderful typing experience, Both USB-C and USB-A ports

Highly disappointing battery life, Display could be brighter, Gets a little warm

The Surface Laptop Go joined me in the woods last week. It lived in my backpack for a few days and came along for a 20-mile hike through footpaths and across bridges of questionable integrity. It is, without a doubt, light.

The ultra-portable Surface PC

The Surface Laptop Go is an imbalanced machine. On one hand, it's one of the best $550 USD laptops you can find because its 10th gen Core i5 CPU, 3:2 touchscreen, and metal design are better than anything else at this price range.

faster display response times than Surface Laptop 3; USB-C charging and DisplayPort support; quiet fan during low-medium loads; >95 percent sRGB coverage; affordable starting price; well-calibrated display; crisp 3:2 touchscreen; small and lightweight; metal chassis

low-end SKUs are stuck with 4 GB of RAM; below average Turbo Boost sustainability; serviceability could be more user-friendly; no Thunderbolt 3; HDMI; or SD reader; higher-end SKUs are overpriced; slow NVMe SSD write rates; slow graphics performance; hinges could be more rigid; Wi-Fi 6 connectivity...

We think Microsoft can chalk this up as another successful downsizing: although the Surface Laptop Go’s cutbacks are more frequently felt than on the Surface Go 2, it’s still clearly a laptop that’s been crafted with care.

High build quality Great inputs Extremely portable

Lowered screen resolution Slow write speeds Not actually that cheap

Every mid-priced laptop comes with tradeoffs. The Surface Laptop Go’s concessions are largely straightforward: you get an excellent design in exchange for a couple of useful features and some performance overhead. For many people, that’s fine.

Light; attractive; and high-quality design; Comfortable keyboard and trackpad; Minimal bloatware; Good value for money

The keyboard isn’t backlit; Mediocre battery life; Only 256GB of storage at maximum; Slightly less-than-1080p display; The cheapest configuration probably shouldn’t exist

The Surface Laptop Go is a premium laptop at a lower price than you’d expect but it isn’t the best budget laptop you can buy

Beautiful design; Excellent display; Fingerprint reader and Windows Hello webcam

Cheapest model only has 64GB storage and 4GB of RAM