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Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

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Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#121

Post by codethief »

KitDuncan wrote: post #62
no_gravity wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link where someone describes how he got Ubuntu to run on the Go natively without installing software from outside of the repos? The user reports I saw did not get WiFi to work with what is in the Ubuntu repos.

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supporte... Wifi should work out of the box.

Does anyone know what the difference is between installing this custom kernel and merely replacing the WiFi's firmware as outlined here[0]? More generally, what features does the custom kernel add? (I've searched their wiki but the feature matrix they present there doesn't really say what features they added.)

[UPDATE]: Never mind, the repo's `patches` directory[1] answers my question.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/94hjxv/surfac...

[1] https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/tree/master/p...

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#122

Post by juped »

cosmodisk wrote: post #50

What I really don't get is how companies get away with shipping any model that has 4GB of RAM. I mean,come on, it's 2020. The OS running idle probably needs more than that,not even mentioning opening a few tabs in Chrome.

It's a tablet. It's the best tablet, because it runs a real operating system rather than a crippled "mobile OS", but it's still a tablet.

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#123

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

izacus wrote: post #68
cosmodisk wrote: post #50

What I really don't get is how companies get away with shipping any model that has 4GB of RAM. I mean,come on, it's 2020. The OS running idle probably needs more than that,not even mentioning opening a few tabs in Chrome.

It's trying to compete against iPads, which don't have more than 4GB of RAM in most SKUs either.

Maybe, but iPads don't run desktop apps.

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#124

Post by unix_fan »

izacus wrote: post #68
cosmodisk wrote: post #50

What I really don't get is how companies get away with shipping any model that has 4GB of RAM. I mean,come on, it's 2020. The OS running idle probably needs more than that,not even mentioning opening a few tabs in Chrome.

It's trying to compete against iPads, which don't have more than 4GB of RAM in most SKUs either.

But ipads don't have to run windows. Which Makes it actually reasonable.

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#125

Post by lorenzhs »

sergiosgc wrote: post #118
Obsnold wrote: post #40

I bought a Go for my wife for Christmas as I had heard good things about them. To us it seemed like a rubbish tablet combined with an awful laptop with the terrible windows 10 on it. In the end she has just gone back to using her 8 year old laptop with Ubuntu. Does any one have any suggestions for similar devices running Linux?

I would go with a Thinkpad X1 Yoga. I don't have experience with the Yoga variant, but I've owned X1s since the original 1st gen. Nothing but good experiences running Linux on them. Apart from the awful idea of a touch strip for Fn keys on the 5th(?) gen, nothing but good stuff to say on the hardware side of things. They're not cheap, though.

I think it was the 2nd gen that had the awful touch strip (if you haven't seen it, think of it as a shitty implementation of the touch bar). I have the 5th gen (2017) and it's a fantastic machine that works really well with Linux. The 6th gen had some issues with Linux, however, those were mostly Intel's fault iirc.

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#126

Post by rb808 »

rsynnott wrote: post #55
tastyminerals wrote: post #54

I feel like MS laptops are getting bashed left and right by various online experts these days without a decent reason. Apple products are not less cheaper and follow the same "100EUR for a charger" scheme. If you calculate the totals, MS laptop is no more experiensive than the Apple one. Except with MS products you also get a true mobile experience if that is what you are after. The only drawback is Windows and its t…

This isn't a laptop and suffers from a bit of "neither one thing nor another" syndrome; it can be used as either a kinda awkward tablet, or a _really_ awkward laptop (good luck using one on your lap on a plane or train or something, say). I think a certain amount of scepticism is warranted. If you _just_ want a laptop, a laptop will be far better than this thing. If you just want a tablet, an iPad will be far better…

I agree a laptop is a better laptop but for a tablet I find surface much better than ipad, and at a pinch (like on vacation) I can use a bluetooth keyboard and do some urgent work on it.

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#127

Post by solarkraft »

Obsnold wrote: post #40

I bought a Go for my wife for Christmas as I had heard good things about them. To us it seemed like a rubbish tablet combined with an awful laptop with the terrible windows 10 on it. In the end she has just gone back to using her 8 year old laptop with Ubuntu. Does any one have any suggestions for similar devices running Linux?

Any Intel Windows tablet will run Linux, most of them without any issues.

On the ARM side your best bet are Chrome OS devices (Chrome OS itself is a pretty mainline Linux and the devices run Coreboot), some of which are tablets. Most interesting to me currently is Lenovo's Chromebook Duet, which comes at 280$ for 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage or 128GB for 20$ more. Maybe that's enough for her.

Last time I tried Chrome OS on my tablet (Dell 5285, not a bad main machine and quickly falling in price) I wasn't very happy with it, but maybe it's better when pre-installed. It can in theory run Android and Linux apps, which seems pretty cool to me.

Unfortunately the Linux tablet experience in general is not nearly perfect. Your best bet is GNOME and even that kind of sucks (well, it's GNOME).

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#128

Post by tpxl »

lioeters wrote: post #109
Gravityloss wrote: post #30

Wonder if Techcrunch ever observed a drop in visitors since GDPR? They really don't have any usable opt out interface.

I've stopped reading TechCrunch since they've put up the data collection popup. It may technically be GDPR-compliant, but definitely violates the spirit of the law. That dark pattern of providing no opt-out for a "consent" form is insulting. Probably, most people just click "Agree" without bothering with it.

It definitely is not GDPR-compliant, which is also why I don't read techchrunch anymore.

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#129

Post by tw04 »

rsynnott wrote: post #55
tastyminerals wrote: post #54

I feel like MS laptops are getting bashed left and right by various online experts these days without a decent reason. Apple products are not less cheaper and follow the same "100EUR for a charger" scheme. If you calculate the totals, MS laptop is no more experiensive than the Apple one. Except with MS products you also get a true mobile experience if that is what you are after. The only drawback is Windows and its t…

This isn't a laptop and suffers from a bit of "neither one thing nor another" syndrome; it can be used as either a kinda awkward tablet, or a _really_ awkward laptop (good luck using one on your lap on a plane or train or something, say). I think a certain amount of scepticism is warranted. If you _just_ want a laptop, a laptop will be far better than this thing. If you just want a tablet, an iPad will be far better…

In theory the lap thing can be fixed with a third-party keyboard (when it gets released). I've been patiently waiting for something like this for my surface go because you're spot on - lap use is basically impossible. Time will tell if it's any good:

https://www.brydge.com/pages/designed-for-surface-tablets

Re: Microsoft Surface Go 2 review

#130

Post by CosmicShadow »

ABS wrote: post #10
skocznymroczny wrote: post #5

Too bad they're sticking with the kickstand design. Makes the device so unusable on the lap (as mentioned in the review). I have the original Go and I can't actually complain about the performance, but it's very hard to use without a flat surface. It's also unusable in your hand, e.g. to show something to someone while standing up.

I have the exact opposite complaint :-) the kickstand is not a problem but performance is so abysmal I can basically keep only one application open at the time. I often wondered what I was doing wrong since many people are reasonably happy with its performance but never found an answer, even after disabling everything that can be disabled.

I bought the cheap one as I couldn't resist the form factor, but by god, I'd rather walk upstairs and do something quickly on a real computer, then stay on the couch and try to even open it or load a single tab. I can't figure out how it can possibly be that slow. I'm so disappointed :(

It sits there ready to go, but it's too painful to touch :/

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