Microsoft Surface Go 2
The most notable change is the bigger display up .5 of an inch to 10.5. The Go and Go 2 are the same size but the bezels have been made smaller. They’re not as slim as the sides found on their Pro X, but who currently wants that considering it can’t run x86/64 without emulation, right?
The resolution has been bumped to 1920×1280. Their base model (the one to avoid) has that nasty Pentium Gold processor comes in at $400 (They haven’t updated Ireland’s store yet).
The new Core m3 model is where it’s going to be at. It’s an 8th Gen processor and they state that it’ll have a 64% performance increase. Which should be sufficient as the original Surface Go was 40% slow.
The m3 model also comes with SSD instead of eMMC so performance gains all-round here. There’s also 8GB of RAM and a price tag of $629. (Probably around €580).
You can of course get the Gold processor combined with 128GB SSD which would alone be a good increase of speed over the original Surface, but if you’re going to spend any extra money – it should be for that processor.
Microsoft Surface Book 3
Microsofts new heavy hitter in the form of the Surface Book 3 is their most powerful laptop to date. It’s solely geared towards professionals who require desktop level performance on the go.
Microsoft claim it will have a 50% increase in speed over the old model ‘Surface Book 2’ and up to 17.5hours of battery life. Whoa, that alone makes me want to consider one! My Macbook barely gets 5.
It will come in two sizes 13″ and 15″ high DPI PixelSense displays, 10th Generation Intel Core processors and a choice between Geforce GTX or Quadro RTX GPUs (Wow!). You can max it out with 32GB of RAM. This will be a content creation powerhouse.
Surface Book 3 starting price is $1599 and available from the 21st of May.
Microsoft Surface Earbuds
Earbuds are earbuds right?…. Not exactly
These new Surface Earbuds have some interesting features. You can let your voice do the typing – using Microsoft 365, you can type using dictation in Word, Excel or Powerpoint & Outlook email. Imagine that, working while going for a run. Madness.
They come featured with intuitive touch and voice control, all day battery, four in-ear anchor points to help with weight distributing comfort and three sets of silicone ear tips.
Full gesture support tap, touch and swipe meaning you can skip, change volume, call or get assistance with ease.
Omnisonic Sound?!
They come with ‘omnisonic’ sound as Microsoft states. To us common folk that means custom designed precision drivers to deliver a great experience. Sorry Microsoft but aren’t all speakers “custom” and “designed to deliver exceptional acoustic experiences”. We’ll see. They also feature dual microphones which is the norm these days.
Battery
Microsoft are claiming their upcoming Earbuds will have 8 hours on a single charge and 24 hours total from the case.
Please note that the smaller print states:
Microsoft.com
[2] Pairing functionality requires a Surface PC running Windows 10 with the latest updates.
[3] Fast Pair requires Android Nougat.
They come in at USD $199 launch price, a $50 reduction than the retail.
Microsoft Surface Headphones 2
Offering better battery life & sound than its predecessor (Shouldn’t every product do that?) Anyway their first ones were a complete flop as they were charging top-tier Sony prices, and had no distinct advantages against the competiton.
This time they’ve knocked the price considerably (US prices for original were $350, now $249 for the 2nd iteration) so they’re competing with an entirely different market. Way to say “We can’t compete with that quality or price”, Microsoft.
The design is much the same except they now come in black, have a cushy plush material on the top. Functionality in the design differs though, as the ear cups rotate 180 degrees to make them more comfortable for around your neck.
It has the same physical dials which seemed a little weird on the original model, but in the real world work better than touch controls. These are used for managing volume and its 13 levels of noise cancellation. They look like they’re made to last too!
They still feature a 40mm “Free Edge” driver as before.
All in all, the battery life would make it an ideal companion for anyone that travels a lot or requires a full days work without absoulutely peeling themselves off the floor when they trip over the cable. Though it’s battery life is still not as generous as Sony’s 30 hours of battery on their 1000XM3.
The Surface Headphones 2 will be retailing for $249 USD, and they’ll hit stores on May 12th. For us in Ireland – who knows. Soon I hope.