I’m a sucker for a 3:2 display when I’m writing the extra height gives the screen a roomier feel and makes the word-processing top bar far less obtrusive, which can be a problem on smaller screens. But does it live up to its price point or is it defeated by its rivals? And while it’s touted as a great choice for students seeking a portable laptop for essays and social media, does it have enough functionality to become a student staple?įor word processing and social media, the Surface Laptop Go 2 is perfect. The Microsoft Surface Laptop Pro is targeted more at the consumer than the prosumer or professional, and has a price to match. (Image credit: Beth Crane) Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2: Price and Target Audience While the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 did handle smoothly running a relatively processor-heavy game (Factory Town, via Steam), the fans did kick into gear quite quickly and the whole unit heated up, so users may want to invest in a riser.

While memory constraints are more likely in the 4GB RAM version, in the 8GB I didn’t find any real lag to speak of when doing basic tasks in graphics and vector programs, although if you’re intending to do anything more complicated than the occasional tweak you’d probably be better off checking out our guides to laptops for graphic design and photoshop.

While the benchmarks look good, it’s worth bearing in mind that the low-res screen will get in the way of video and photo editing. Putting the Surface Laptop Go 2 through its benchmarking paces, the laptop scored 1918 on Cinebench, higher than its sibling the Surface Laptop Studio, and its overall score on PCMark, with 4443 for Digital Content Creation, 7447 for Photo Editing and 4332 for Video Editing. All three have the same processor, a quad-core Intel Core i5-1135G7. At the top of the range - the laptop tested for this review - we have 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, in addition to the fingerprint scanner and, of course, the full range of colours, for £729. The mid-range model has 8GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, a choice of four colours (platinum, sage, ice blue and sandstone) and an incredibly fast fingerprint scanner, and costs £629. The cheapest base model (only available in platinum) has 4GB RAM and 128 GB of Storage and will set you back £529. There are three options for the Surface Laptop Go 2 and four colour options.

Microsoft laptop go review