- So, we've been talking a lot about the Surface Go lately,
but one thing we haven't addressed directly
is that four gigabyte introductory model for $399.
Is it really as bad as everybody says
who actually never touched it?
Well, today we're going to give you a quick review
and tell you if it's worth it or not.
Stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
All right, before we get started, mini-rant here.
So, if you've noticed, a lot of the tech sites
have all reviewed the eight gigabyte model.
That's the one Microsoft sent out,
and many of those same sites
dismissed outright the four gigabyte option
because why would anyone want four gigabytes?
Not to mention the 64 gig storage is eMMC,
which is significantly slower than SSD,
which, at least in the 128 gig model,
is actually pretty fast,
and there's a lot of bias here towards these devices,
and I think a lot of it's unwarranted.
As it turns out,
Windows 10 actually runs four gigabytes pretty well.
Now, it's not for everybody,
and today, that's what we're going to talk about.
All right, let's start with the eight gigabyte version.
This is the one we reviewed last week,
and as you can see here, just unlocked it,
got a bunch of stuff running.
I have Photoshop Elements
with a pretty high-resolution photo.
That was taken a while ago, pre-beard.
So, I was doing some photo editing.
I do have MyTube open, as well.
I have some settings.
I have the News app open.
I can click a story.
While we're doing that, we'll load up Edge.
You can see I have a bunch of tabs open, including Amazon.
I have Steam over here.
Everything is loading pretty quickly.
No issues scrolling.
I'll even open a new tab to show you guys how this is live.
So, this is the performance you get
with the Pentium processor,
and as far as I can tell, it's pretty snappy.
Everything works as expected,
and I really don't have any complaints about it.
We'll even go and launch a game here.
So, this is X-Force.
It's, X-Morph: Defense, sorry.
It's a $20 game on the store.
We are running in S mode,
not that that should really affect anything.
These are standard apps here.
We are playing X-Morph now.
This is set at full HD.
Their graphics are low.
So, it's not gonna be super-high graphics here,
but it basically plays pretty smoothly.
There's occasional stutters here and there,
but this is a pretty high graphics game right here,
and this is, by the way, pretty fun, too.
I've never actually really played this game before,
but you can see the graphics handle just fine on that.
That's partly due to the Intel HD 615 graphics
on this device, which is a big boost over Surface 3,
and if we're playing games like this it's,
I, honestly, have no complaints.
The load time is a little bit long
when you first load the game up,
but during actual game play, it's, no complaints at all,
and I really, really enjoy it.
Now, we're going to pause this,
and we'll go back to the desktop.
Well, there we go,
and we'll just continue scrolling through our stories.
You can see a little second there
to jump back in, but otherwise, pretty fast.
No complaints really,
and a big surprise here I'm going to show you.
Sorry, folks.
This was actually the four gigabyte model the whole time.
Yes, I pulled a ruse on you.
This is the four gigabyte eMMC model that you can buy
for $399.
Now, I was keeping it in S Mode, and I do stick to Edge.
If you run it on Chrome,
you may have a different experience,
but I think the hype against four gigabytes
is way overstated.
The fact is, Windows 10 actually manages its memory
very well.
You can see, I jumped between games and tabs,
and there was really no lag there.
Would it be better in eight gigabyte?
Possibly.
If you gave me both in front of me
and asked me to tell the difference, could I?
Probably not.
Now, for some of you, it will absolutely make a difference.
If you're trying to do things like,
some of you have asked, "Can it run AutoCAD?"
Which I have never run in my life,
and I don't know, but I assume the eight gigabyte model
will be better for that, right?
Also, if we're doing other advanced features
like, say film editing,
yeah, obviously, the eight gigabyte will be better,
but there's a really good channel out there
called Tablet Pro run by a guy named Justice
who's been looking at the drawing apps
on the four gigabyte model, things I never touch
'cause I'm not an artist,
and he's been actually giving a lot of these things
positive reviews saying, "Yeah, you can run Zbrush.
"Yeah, you can run Leonardo and all these other apps
"without a problem on the four gigabyte model."
And this brings me to my final point.
If you're thinking about buying Surface Go
and look at that $399 model,
don't dismiss it just outright,
also, if you buy it, don't sit there
and look at the Task Manager
and look at your memory management.
The fact is, Windows 10 will handle most it.
I think, for a lot of people, this is totally fine.
There was a user on Reddit recently asking about this.
He's looking for a device that, basically,
he can watch Netflix on, go on the web, answer emails,
quickly annotate maybe an article or a document,
do some ereading.
Well, that's the kind of person
who would love having the Surface Go
and would be totally fine having the four gigabyte model,
and this also breaks down to another way
how you're going to use Surface Go.
If you're buying this device to be your ultimate
and main PC, obviously, you try to splurge
for the eight gigabyte option.
If, on the other hand, you're buying this as a secondary PC,
something you can take to the coffee shop,
something you can use on the airplane,
something to give the kids in the backseat,
then, the four gigabyte model will be totally fine
for your usage.
You can do a lot of games on it,
and these are store games.
They're not going to be the high-end stuff,
but for casual stuff, it's actually a lot of fun,
and one final takeaway regarding Surface Go,
remember, this isn't all just for consumers.
A lot of this device is meant for the education market,
which is why I brought that up at the beginning.
This is supposed to compete against Chromebooks
and even the iPad 9.7,
which is why I compared it to it a few days ago.
This is supposed to go into schools.
It's meant for younger kids, as well.
That's why it's designed this way,
and for them, four gigabytes will actually be fine,
especially for schools who are on a budget.
Overall though, the Surface Go
with four gigabytes of RAM is fine,
and I know a lot of you guys use four gigabyte devices.
So, leave me a comment below.
Tell me your usage experience,
and why everybody else is wrong about four gigabytes,
and why it's fine for most people.
Hope you liked this video.
Give us a thumbs up.
Thanks for watching, and take care, everybody.