PC World - USA (2020-11)

NOVEMBER 2020 PCWorld 65

Laptop Go will run outside of Web browsing
and Office apps. Goat Simulator, a playful
“destroy everything” simulator, was
playable with all detail turned down to
minimal levels. World of Tanks Blitz, a
simple tank simulation also available for

Android tablets, ran at a smooth 60 fps at

Medium settings. (Weirdly, neither game

allowed you to set the resolution.)

PERFORMANCE: WINDOWS

10 HOME

In the real world, the Surface Laptop Go is

absolutely suitable as a classroom/study-

from-home PC. I used it for several days as an

ordinary work laptop, with Zoom and Teams

calls, streaming video, messaging coworkers,

and the like. It was a pleasure to use.

After I switched out of S Mode, the door

opened to our normal collection of benchmarks.

We use UL’s PCMark 8 tests as an older

benchmark showing off the Surface Laptop Go’s

ability to perform tasks like word processing,

data manipulation within spreadsheets,

videoconferencing, and so on. These tests are

measured by the PCMark 8 Work suite. We also

use the Creative test suite to add in light and

mainstream gaming, and more intensive photo

and video manipulation. The Surface Laptop Go

landed in the middle among its competition.

Maxon’s Cinebench benchmark stresses all

four cores and eight instruction threads of the

Surface Laptop Go’s Core i5 processor, assigning

each thread a small portion of a complex 2D

image that the software renders. We use this as a

test to measure short, bursty workloads. The

Surface Laptop Go stumbled in this test,

registering one of the lowest scores of the bunch.

The HandBrake benchmark is the

opposite of the Cinebench sprint. The

In the typical office and light gaming applications
measured by PCMark, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop
Go holds its own.

PCMark 8

PCMark 8 Creative PCMark 8 Work

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN (Ryzen 7 4700U)

Lenovo Yoga C940-14 (Core i7-1065G7)

Acer Spin 3 (Core i5-1035G1)

Acer Swift 5(Core i7-1065G7)

Lenovo C740-14IML (Core i5-10210U)

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible 14 dw0097nr (Core i5-1035G1)

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go (Core i5-1035G1)

Acer Swift 3 SF314-57-57BN (Core i5-1035G1)

Acer Aspire 5A515-55-56-VK (Core i5-1035G1)

Lenovo Yoga C640-13IML(Core i3-10110U)

Acer Aspire A515-54-30BQ (Core i3-8145U)

Walmart Motile M142 (Ryzen 5 3500U)

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (Ryzen 5 3580U SE)

Microsoft Surface Go 2 (Core m3-8100Y)

3,683

3,671

3,577

3,546

3,334

3,416

3,500

3,017

2,506

2,939

3,858

4,514

3,031

3,291

3,806

N/A

3,655

N/A

3,635

N/A

3,377

N/A

3,349

N/A

3,313

N/A

3,224

N/A