58 PCWorld NOVEMBER 2020REVIEWS MICROSOFT SURFACE LAPTOP GO
viewport because of the Surface Laptop Go’s
smaller, lower-res display.
Weirdly, I was most conscious of the
Surface Laptop Go’s display when I
connected to my home’s 4K monitor, and
not because the Laptop Go had any
technical issues. Microsoft’s low-res Surface
Laptop Go wallpaper—a fever dream of
cotton-candy shag carpet and sand—looked
even worse in 4K.
The display options are an area of
compromise. You can use the USB-C port to
connect to a single external 1080p display
without issue, but if you need an HDMI port
you’ll probably need to attach a USB-C hub
that includes it. If you want to get fancier—I
like to have two displays attached to my
laptop—My Surface Laptop Go connected
easily to my 4K display and a separate 1080p
monitor at full resolution,
but only thanks to the
first-generation $175
Surface Dock (go.
pcworld.com/1gdk) I
happened to have on
hand, along with a pair of
miniDP-to-HDMI cables.
Via a USB-C hub, the
Surface Laptop Go limited
my 4K display to a subpar
24Hz refresh rate. I had to
manually force it to 30Hz,
still far inferior to the
preferred 60Hz frequency.KEYBOARD: SAME
DIFFERENCE
If you’ve ever used a Surface keyboard, there’s
a resilient springiness that tends to carry over
from one Surface device to another. The
Surface Laptop Go feels somewhat like a
traditional Surface keyboard, and Microsoft
says it retains the 1.3mm of key travel of the
Surface Laptop 3 and Surface Laptop 2. I
perceived a very plasticky feel to the keys, but
Microsoft says the only change is the paint
atop the keyboard resin. They’re certainly very
comfortable to use. Unfortunately, there’s no
keyboard backlighting, however.
Microsoft included a Precision touchpad
in the Surface Laptop Go, and it, too has its
quirks. I’ve never felt a touchpad so slick, to
the point that I’m not sure it always registered
my fingers when they slid across the surface.A large, slick trackpad dominates the Surface Laptop Go’s keyboard.