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Surface Laptop Go 3 Unboxing and Setup and hands on!

12:37 video

Microsoft just released the Surface Laptop Go 3, and today I’m unboxing and setting it up. You’re probably thinking: Jerry, you’re an Apple guy. Fun fact: I’m a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and have been for many years. My team and I manage around 1,600 servers daily, so I use Windows and PCs every day. I needed one at home for things that require Windows, and it’ll be a good laptop to test against the M2 MacBook Air and the M1.

What I got

The Platinum color (it comes in four or five), the base model at $799: an i5, 8 GB of memory and a 256 GB SSD. It’s been a while since I’ve owned a Surface. I had a Surface Pro 8 and two Surface Gos, but this is my first in a couple of years.

Unboxing

Packaging is very Apple-like nowadays. Inside: the laptop (12.4-inch), a power cord and brick with the Surface Connect adapter, and a welcome card, no Apple stickers. I’ll probably skip the power adapter, since it has USB-C and I prefer to charge that way.

It doesn’t feel like a MacBook: the top is aluminum, but the bottom is plastic and rubber. On the left: USB-A, USB-C and a headphone jack. On the right: the Surface dock connector. I like the gray keys and trackpad against the silver casing, and the function and media rows at the top. The power button is flat, glass or plastic, and doubles as a fingerprint sensor.

Setup

Windows 11 boots as soon as you open it. The display is 12.4 inches, 1536×1024: I can see some pixels, not as good as Apple’s Retina, but pretty good. Setup steps:

  1. Narrator (skip), country, keyboard layout (US, no second layout), and Wi-Fi. It’s Wi-Fi 6, not 6E, but my home Wi-Fi is good.
  2. A name, then a reboot, then sign in with my Microsoft account, which brings over settings and my Microsoft 365 subscription.
  3. Set up as a new device. Fingerprint setup is like Touch ID on a Mac, iPhone or iPad; touching the power button lights it up, kind of cool. Then create a PIN.
  4. Privacy settings: I turned off the advertising ID and accepted the rest. I skipped the activity questions and phone linking. Office apps are already installed.

Because I forget when coming from Apple, this is a touchscreen, and I actually wish Macs had touchscreens, especially on my lap or the couch, where it’s easier to reach out than pull my arm back to the trackpad.

Specs

  • $799 for 8 GB of memory and a 256 GB SSD. 8 GB for anything over $500 shouldn’t be the minimum; it should be 16 GB for Windows, Mac, everything. But I digress.
  • Intel i5-1235U, with Intel Xe graphics.
  • 12.4-inch, 3:2, 1,000:1 contrast, an ordinary LCD, individually color-calibrated, 10-point multi-touch, with Gorilla Glass on the front.
  • Microsoft says up to 15 hours of battery, a regular workday.
  • 720p camera, Omnisonic speakers with Dolby Audio, and dual far-field microphones.

First impressions

  • Camera: 720p, and it looks like it: not very bright, blowing out my forehead, not much detail.
  • Speakers: not much high end or low end, a bit muddy, and the maximum volume didn’t seem very maximum. Okay for most things.
  • Keyboard: the keys are softer than a MacBook’s, not bad, just different from what I use most days.
  • Trackpad: a diving board style, so you can’t press at the top, though it’s all touch-sensitive for drag and hold, and double-tap to drag works. It’s smaller than a MacBook Air’s, which makes sense on a 12.4-inch device versus 13.6 inches.
  • Display: on The Verge, it looks pretty good, not as sharp as a MacBook, but pretty darn good. It gets very bright, bright enough for any lighting I’d use a laptop in, and the backlight is great.
  • Bezels: a bit bigger than other laptops’, and will get some flak online, but like a notch, they fade away as you use it.

I think it’ll be a fun little laptop, and I’ll compare it with the M1 and M2 MacBook Airs.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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