The latest news on Surface Laptop Go 2: Performance, battery, and value

Basic information about Surface Laptop Go 2. Now that it's all open to the public, our questions about its actual performance, internals, and value are finally getting some answers.

The Surface Laptop Go 2 still has the aesthetic DNA of its luxurious-looking predecessor. It looks like a premium laptop, but this college budget-friendly laptop isn't too far removed from the original Surface Laptop Go. There are minor and major changes, but Microsoft is trying to keep these upgrades close to reality as it starts at $599. This explains why, despite its appearance, some of its internal specs aren't what you'd expect from today's modern laptops. For example, it still lacks the backlit keyboard that frustrated many of us in the Surface Laptop Go. That's not a big deal, but for this price point and today's modern laptop standards, it's frustrating that Microsoft still hasn't listened to what Surface Laptop Go customers have wanted before.

On the other hand, perhaps the biggest detail we've been waiting for about the Surface Laptop Go 2 is its battery performance. When Microsoft launched the laptop, the company announced that it could last up to 13.5 hours. However, given the actual performance of its predecessor (13 hours of battery life was promised but ended up lasting less than 8 hours), I'm sure that won't be easy. So, can Surface Laptop Go 2 really last 13.5 hours? In most real-world tests, it reportedly only lasted a maximum of 9 hours. Still, it's important to note that it depends on the setup you'll be using and the activities it will perform. So if you want to get constant use out of a single charge, you may need to make some sacrifices in some areas like screen brightness.

The laptop comes with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 instead of the 12th Gen Core i5 you’d expect from a 2022 laptop, but then again, it’s a budget laptop. In addition to limited availability, the Surface Laptop Go 2 may be cost-prohibitive. The good news, though, is that it's still a significant improvement over the Surface Laptop Go's 10th Gen Intel Core i5-1035G1. That said, it offers better speed and performance compared to its predecessor. The Surface Laptop Go 2 is said to outperform the Surface Laptop Go in different benchmarking tools such as Cinebench 23 (23% improvement), Geekbench 5 (30% improvement), and PCMark 10 (43% improvement).

Complementing the above processors is Intel Iris Xe for GPU, which is also a nice improvement over the Intel UHD of older models. It doesn't make it the best choice for AAA games, but it can handle lightweight and casual games.

Another thing worth mentioning is how much better its storage capacity is compared to the Surface Laptop Go. There are two options: 128GB or 256GB SSD. The base option is a 128GB SSD, but that compares to the 64GB eMMC of the older Surface Laptop Go 2 model. What's more, it's a PCIe SSD, which means it's faster. You can also choose another RAM and upgrade it from 4GB to 8GB, which is ideal as it means better performance when multitasking. Opting for higher RAM also gets you a fingerprint reader feature built into the power button, which is not available on the laptop version with 4GB LPDDR4x RAM.

One of the last decent upgrades the Surface Laptop Go 2 has to its performance is the camera. While it remains at the same 720p resolution as its sibling, it's better because it's f/2.0, and current users claim it displays sharper images. Accompanying this are dual far-field studio microphones and Omnisonic speakers with Dolby Audio premium features, making it excellent in the audio department.

Aside from these big changes, another notable detail the Surface Laptop Go 2 boasts is the new Sage colors, which brings your color choices to four. Other minor improvements include Bluetooth 5.1, more replaceable components, secure core PC features, and Windows 11 Home operating system.

In other words, is Surface Laptop Go 2 a major upgrade from Surface Laptop Go? Yes. The new laptop may not have all the latest specs we've come to expect from modern laptops, but comparing it to the original Surface Laptop Go shows how significant its upgrades are, especially when it comes to processor, RAM, storage, and graphics. The battery didn't live up to our expectations, but it's still better than the one in the Surface Laptop Go. What's more, the top model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD is only $799, despite having the same specs as the $899 2020 Surface Laptop Go. All that said, is the Surface Laptop Go 2 worth the money? Absolutely.

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