The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 is a laptop that has been making waves in the tech world with its unique design and features. One of the notable aspects of this laptop is its screen aspect ratio, which has shifted towards a less widescreen configuration. This change may seem counterintuitive at first, but many users have reported that it's a net plus for most people. The screen is also a touch screen, which is something you don't often find in budget laptops.

The resolution of the screen is slightly lower than Full HD, with only 720p on some models. However, this didn't seem to be a major issue for me during my testing period. The overall design and display of the Surface Laptop Go 2 are quite impressive, especially considering its budget-friendly price point. One area where the laptop falls short is in terms of ports. Many laptops are cutting down on the number of ports, with some models only featuring one or two USB-C ports for everything, including power connectivity. However, the Surface Laptop Go 2 still manages to include a single USB-C port, a full-size USB-A port, and a headphone jack.

The laptop also features a Surface Power Connector, which is Microsoft's version of the MagSafe connector found on MacBooks. This allows you to charge the laptop through USB-C, and it's a convenient feature that adds to the overall design and functionality of the device. Inside the laptop, you'll find an 11th Generation Intel Core i5 processor, which is the same chip used in the most expensive model but at a lower price point. This means that the performance may not be as impressive as some users might expect, especially when compared to newer laptops with 12th Generation chips.

Despite this limitation, I found the Surface Laptop Go 2 to be perfectly fine for everyday use. It's a small and thin laptop with a 12.4-inch screen, making it ideal for travel or use on-the-go. In fact, I put it to the ultimate test by taking it on a six-hour cross-country flight, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it performed. The footprint of the laptop is compact enough to fit easily in an airline tray table, and the screen is tall enough that you can easily see what you're working on without having to tilt your head back.

One other notable feature of the Surface Laptop Go 2 is its availability in a new color option called Sage Green. This color was recently identified as "hot" for 2022, but upon closer inspection, I found it to be quite subtle and not overly attention-grabbing. While it's still a nice-looking device, there's no getting around the fact that this laptop is budget-friendly and won't blow you away with its features or design.

One area where the Surface Laptop Go 2 really falls short is in its webcam resolution. The laptop comes equipped with a 720p camera, which is lower than Full HD (1080p) cameras found on many other laptops. This may be particularly notable given the growing trend of video meetings and online collaboration. In my testing period, I didn't notice any significant issues with the webcam, but I can imagine that it might become more noticeable in situations where a higher-resolution camera would make a difference.

In conclusion, the Surface Laptop Go 2 is a complex device that defies easy categorization. It's a budget-friendly laptop with some impressive features and design elements, but also has its limitations and compromises. While it may not be the most powerful or feature-rich laptop on the market, it should appeal to users who are looking for a slim and portable device without breaking the bank.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's a tough time to buy a budget laptop right now 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 2 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 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 back to school season inexpensive but good laptops that's a real premium thing that you want to 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 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 seven hundred dollars 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 the surface laptop go after the surface go which again was a cheaper version of the surface tablet itself and it was a pretty decent looking machine it started at 550 and for that you got nice aluminum body a 3 2 aspect ratio screen that frankly seemed pretty generous a nice keyboard touch pad touch screen 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 windows system even in 2020 it also had 64 gigs of storage again very little so now here in 2022 the surface laptop go 2 also starts with that same 4 gigs of ram it's 600 now the starting price is a little bit more i can't in good conscience say you should get a windows 11 laptop with 4 gigs of ram uh it does have a 128 gig hard drive so at least that's that's better and they've jumped up from a 10th gen core i5 intel chip to an 11th gen you know regular cpu performance it's fine it's not spectacular for 600 bucks it's pretty good the problem is you're not going to be buying the 600 version of this you're going to be buying the 700 version or the 800 version and that's because that's where you get bumped up to 8 gigs of ram which is really the minimum that you should get to run a windows 11 system effectively so 700 bucks you get the 128 gig hard drive and you get eight gigs of ram 800 bucks you get eight gigs and a 256 uh hard drive okay but once you're spending hundred dollars 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 that said i found a happy medium looking over all the specs that seven hundred dollar version eight gigs of ram 128 gig storage which is not huge but i feel like we all kind of live on the cloud anyway 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 feeling 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 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 it starts at 600 bucks and whichever version you get you get basically the same body 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 it's got a nice 12.4 inch screen it's a 3 2 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 less widescreen aspect ratio and i think it's a net plus for most people it's a pretty decent screen 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 error when a lot of laptops are cutting down on the number of ports maybe just one or two usb-c ports for everything power connectivity at least here you get one usbc one full-size usb a which is getting harder to find but still pretty useful for a lot of people and a headphone jack and also a surface power connector 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 magsafe connector uh from a macbook and you said how can we make this worse in every way possible i only plugged this thing in through usbc and i bet that's what you're going to do also now inside you're going to find an 11th generation basic intel core i5 and the problem is newer laptops are up to 12th generation chip 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 inch screen 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 i'm gonna take the surface laptop go to with me 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 airline tray table uh the screen it's a little bit tall that makes it a little difficult but by pulling off the tray 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 go 2 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 now sage green is apparently the hot color of 2022 so when i got the surface laptop go 2 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 sage green version 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 2022 but don't expect this thing to jump out and be like hey i'm green now because this is a budget laptop there are certain things you're just playing not gonna get and the biggest disappointment for me was this has a regular old 720 resolution webcam when so many other laptops are finally moving up to full hd 1920 by 1080 cameras which is important because we're all spending a lot more time in video meetings now and the difference between a 720 camera and a 1080 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 it 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 most budget-priced version of it is just not acceptable for a bunch of reasons not enough ram just not 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 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 don't forget to read my full review of the microsoft surface laptop go to the full link to that on cnet is in the description belowit's a tough time to buy a budget laptop right now 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 2 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 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 back to school season inexpensive but good laptops that's a real premium thing that you want to 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 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 seven hundred dollars 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 the surface laptop go after the surface go which again was a cheaper version of the surface tablet itself and it was a pretty decent looking machine it started at 550 and for that you got nice aluminum body a 3 2 aspect ratio screen that frankly seemed pretty generous a nice keyboard touch pad touch screen 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 windows system even in 2020 it also had 64 gigs of storage again very little so now here in 2022 the surface laptop go 2 also starts with that same 4 gigs of ram it's 600 now the starting price is a little bit more i can't in good conscience say you should get a windows 11 laptop with 4 gigs of ram uh it does have a 128 gig hard drive so at least that's that's better and they've jumped up from a 10th gen core i5 intel chip to an 11th gen you know regular cpu performance it's fine it's not spectacular for 600 bucks it's pretty good the problem is you're not going to be buying the 600 version of this you're going to be buying the 700 version or the 800 version and that's because that's where you get bumped up to 8 gigs of ram which is really the minimum that you should get to run a windows 11 system effectively so 700 bucks you get the 128 gig hard drive and you get eight gigs of ram 800 bucks you get eight gigs and a 256 uh hard drive okay but once you're spending hundred dollars 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 that said i found a happy medium looking over all the specs that seven hundred dollar version eight gigs of ram 128 gig storage which is not huge but i feel like we all kind of live on the cloud anyway 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 feeling 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 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 it starts at 600 bucks and whichever version you get you get basically the same body 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 it's got a nice 12.4 inch screen it's a 3 2 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 less widescreen aspect ratio and i think it's a net plus for most people it's a pretty decent screen 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 error when a lot of laptops are cutting down on the number of ports maybe just one or two usb-c ports for everything power connectivity at least here you get one usbc one full-size usb a which is getting harder to find but still pretty useful for a lot of people and a headphone jack and also a surface power connector 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 magsafe connector uh from a macbook and you said how can we make this worse in every way possible i only plugged this thing in through usbc and i bet that's what you're going to do also now inside you're going to find an 11th generation basic intel core i5 and the problem is newer laptops are up to 12th generation chip 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 inch screen 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 i'm gonna take the surface laptop go to with me 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 airline tray table uh the screen it's a little bit tall that makes it a little difficult but by pulling off the tray 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 go 2 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 now sage green is apparently the hot color of 2022 so when i got the surface laptop go 2 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 sage green version 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 2022 but don't expect this thing to jump out and be like hey i'm green now because this is a budget laptop there are certain things you're just playing not gonna get and the biggest disappointment for me was this has a regular old 720 resolution webcam when so many other laptops are finally moving up to full hd 1920 by 1080 cameras which is important because we're all spending a lot more time in video meetings now and the difference between a 720 camera and a 1080 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 it 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 most budget-priced version of it is just not acceptable for a bunch of reasons not enough ram just not 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 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 don't forget to read my full review of the microsoft surface laptop go to the full link to that on cnet is in the description below\n"