Understanding Microsoft Surface Go (Premium)

For the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to make sense of Surface Go, a reasonably-priced tablet PC that upends our notions about the premium pricing of Microsoft’s Surface lineup. This is a bit more complex than you might think. And it speaks, I think, to the tough decision making at which Microsoft has always excelled.

The software giant, as I’m sure you know, surprised and upset its PC maker partners when it launched the Surface PC lineup in 2012 alongside Windows 8. The ramifications of that era still reverberate today: In electing to compete with its partners Microsoft caused virtually all of them to adopt Chrome OS and Android. And that, together with the poorly-designed Windows 8, hastened the inevitable decline of Windows and the PC.

Moving quickly to ameliorate its PC maker partners, Microsoft fired the person responsible for those historic mistakes. And then it created Windows 10, which is optimized for the traditional PC form factors that PC makers (and their customers) demanded and is created in a far more open fashion so that PC makers know what to expect in advance. But it also killed off its awkward low-end tablet lineup, which at that time was in its 3rd generation with Surface 3. Surface PCs, from that point forward, would be expensive and aspirational, leaving the volume part of the market to Microsoft’s partners. Best of all, PC makers were free to copy Microsoft’s designs in their own products, most of which would cost less as well.

If that history seems a tad too general, sorry: I feel like I’ve told that particular story a lot. And what I’d like to get to here is why the strategy is changing now.

And “now” is very much part of this story, I think. So let’s start there.

As even an amateur Windows historian can tell you, Microsoft’s client OS has been on a three-year cycle ever since the firm recovered from its Longhorn disaster. The Windows 8 release I mentioned above happened in 2012, three years after Windows 7, which itself launched three years after Windows Vista. And the initial release of Windows 10 happened in 2015, three years after Windows 8 (and right before the shift to the Surface premium pricing strategy).

Well, it’s 2018, which is three years later. Microsoft will almost certainly stick with the Windows 10 branding for its next major release. But let’s not get stuck on semantics. Because 2018 is already notable for the fact that Microsoft has stopped pushing nonsense into the product. And Windows 10 today is focused again on productivity and core functionality. Windows is already changing in 2018, no matter what the name is.

So what about Surface?

Microsoft’s 2016 Surface releases were notable for two reasons. The lineup marked a dramatic push into the premium PC space, happening as it did right after Microsoft killed off Surface 3, its only non-Premium product. And Surface 3 notwithstanding, it marked a major expansion of the family, with Surface Studio, Surface Laptop, and Surface Pro with Advanced LTE, the firm’s first Always Connected PC, all coming to the lineup by the end of 2017.

And now Microsoft is expanding the Surface lineup yet again, this time with Surface Go. Ostensibly a more modern take on Surface 3, Microsoft’s previous low-cost tablet, Surface Go may have as much in common with the ill-fated Surface mini, if I’m understanding Microsoft’s positioning.

Which is this: Yes, Surface Go is a natural fit in education, but the software giant is also targeting two other markets here.

The first is firstline workers, a somewhat nebulous term that includes doctors, retail employees, those on a factory floor, workers out on remote job sites, and so on. Microsoft’s imagery of this customer type always involves a person out in the world, holding a PC (usually a tablet), and getting things done.

The second is even more nebulous: Microsoft believes there is a market of consumers who wish to separate their work and home computing activities. And while their employer may supply them with a work-issued laptop, they want their own PC for personal use.

It’s impossible to consider these markets and not immediately think “Chromebook” (or, to a lesser degree, “iPad”). And that explains, I think, why Microsoft is making another go at the low-cost tablet market. These markets are too important, too core, to lose. And Microsoft’s PC maker partners have done little, if not nothing, to help stem the flow of customers to competing platforms. (In fact, with Chromebook, one might argue they’ve helped customers make this transition.) So Microsoft feels a need to step in here.

It’s hard to know now whether Surface Go adequately addresses these needs of these markets and does so at prices that make sense. After all, the iPad and most Chromebooks are less expensive. Microsoft will, of course, tout the benefits of a real PC that can run desktop apps and be docked to a large display, and external keyboard and mouse, and there is truth to that. But perhaps the better question, for now, is whether Surface Go makes sense as the new entry-level member of the Surface family.

I mentioned Surface mini before.

It is perhaps interesting to note that Surface Go is smaller than was Surface 3. (Surface Go is 9.6 x 6.9 x .33 inches where Surface 3 was 10.51 x 7.36 x .34 inches.) It also has a smaller display than did Surface 3, at 10 inches, vs. 10.8 for Surface 3. It’s a lower resolution—1800 x 1200 for Surface Go vs. 1920 x 1280 for Surface 3—but about the same pixels per inch (217 for Surface Go, vs. 214 PPI for Surface 3).

This makes it more portable than its predecessor, but it also somewhat constrains its use as a normal clamshell-type PC, which makes it a bit more like the Surface mini. Yes, Surface Go can be outfitted with a Type Cover, a peripheral that was not planned for the Surface mini. But that Type Cover is small, with a keyboard that is just ~86 percent the size of a full-sized keyboard (like the one on all other Surface PCs.)

This smaller size won’t hurt many students, given their age and size. And it may benefit those who are looking for something easier and lighter to carry around, whether it’s just from the living room to the bedroom at home or out to a remote work location.

So what about the price?

News of a $400 Surface has been making the rounds for months. That sounds like a great price, but it comes with some important caveats.

First, like Surface Pro, that price does not include the cost of a Type Cover, which will set you back $99 to $129, depending on the version. I feel like a Type Cover will be a requirement for most Surface Go users, so this cost has to be factored in.

Second, the base Surface Go is a non-starter with its slower processor, 4 GB of RAM, and slow eMMC storage. That means you will want to upgrade to a more future proof model with a faster Pentium processor, 8 GB of RAM, and 128 of SSD storage. This model costs $549, about $150 more than the base Surface Go.

Third, the $99 Surface Pen is optional too. This is good to know if you need or want that accessory.

Add this all up, and one could pay upwards of $650 for a decently-configured Surface Go, and that’s before the Pen. That’s a lot more than the price that will prick up people’s ears, and it’s more money than almost any Chromebook. It’s also eking into iPad Pro territory.

And … I think that’s OK.

The $400 price is good for advertising, but most customers will allow themselves to be upsold while they’re browsing. And that more realistic $650 price means that Microsoft isn’t really stepping on any PC maker toes. Companies that sell far more PCs than Microsoft can afford to do so at similar or even lower prices.

It’s also worth noting that Surface pricing had been edging pretty close to this lower threshold for several months now anyway. Looking at the Microsoft Store website the day before Surface Go was announced, I found a Surface Pro (Core i5, 8 GB, 128 GB) with Platinum Signature Type Cover bundle for just $799. An entry-level Surface Laptop (Core m3, 4 GB, 128 GB) is likewise $799. So the $400 to $750 price range of Surface Go neatly eases up on the prices of the other Surface PCs.

Looked at yet another way, Surface Go should perhaps be seen as a premium low-end tablet PC. That sounds like an oxymoron, I know. But in the same way that you can buy an expensive trim level of a low-cost car, you can now purchase a relatively inexpensive Surface tablet PC that does much of what its more expensive siblings offer.

Ultimately, it’s possible that Surface Go—which provides the same versatility of Surface Pro in an even smaller, lighter, and more portable package—fits in with the broader Surface family less awkwardly than did Surface 3. It utilizes the Surface Connect connector for power and expansion, which Surface 3 lacked. It provides USB-C capabilities, like the Surface Book 2. It will be available in an LTE configuration soon, as with Surface Pro. (Though Surface 3 actually offered LTE capabilities too.) And it uses the same full-friction hinge as Surface Pro, and not the old 3-step version used by Surface 3.

We’ll see. I am hoping to get a Surface Go review unit soon, even though I’m not personally in a target market for this device. I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of “good enough” computing, and Surface Go seems to fill a need. More to the point, it makes Surface quality and functionality far more accessible to a wider audience. And that is always a good thing.

More soon.