Will 4gb Surface Go be less future proof?

[skstrials]

I am starting nursing school in the coming September, I thought it would be a good idea to have a tablet in addition to my Thinkpad T480.

I was planning on using the tablet for ebook viewing, pen note taking, media consumption, Web browsing, and light office work. I do not need much internal storage as I mostly just have word and PowerPoint documents, and use Onedrive for any big files.

So I am leaning towards the 64gb/4gb Surface Go but I am not sure how future proof it would be compared to the 8gb model? I will most likely just leave the tablet in the S mode since I have full windows 10 pro on my Thinkpad laptop for any heavy stuff.

Would the 4gb Surface Go serve my needs for few years down the road when Windows 10 might have more features and processes?

 

[HeyCori]

4GB is probably fine for what you do. And 4GB Windows devices aren't going away any time soon so security and Windows feature updates likely won't be a problem.

But 4GB vs 8GB might not be the key difference that matters to you.

The 4GB model uses whats called eMMC memory while the 8GB model is a true SSD. The only thing you need to know is that the 8GB model is MUCH faster at reading data on the drive.

You'll really see a difference when opening large files (like a graphic heavy PDF for example). Yes, the 4GB model can still do it, just slower. And if that happens a lot, you might get frustrated with the slow performance. So if you read a lot of documents with charts, diagrams, images, etc etc, you may prefer the faster read speeds of the 8GB model.

There is one other option (but only if you're a member of Costco). Costco is selling a special configuration that has 4GB of RAM plus an SSD for faster read speeds. It also costs $549 but it comes bundled with a keyboard!

https://www.costco.com/Microsoft-Su...e---Surface-Type-Cover.product.100428070.html

 

[Drael646464]

I don't think 4gb is going to be phased out of important features in the near future. 4gb has long been an optimal sweet spot for windows 10, and with devices getting smaller, it'd be bad for Microsoft to lose that.

The 600 series GPU will also certainly handle any UI flourishes they add with fluent design. Windows is bound to get a little bit more flashy, but it'll handle that fine.

I've not had any issues myself reading pdfs from emmc - emmc is these days nearly as fast as SSD used to be. One of the biggest issues I've found on my consumption tablets with emmc isn't the drive, but the software. Some software is massively faster and better featured for reading graphical pdfs. Book viewer is nice because it has a bookshelf display, so you can easily find titles. Edge is very fast as a reader as well. But something like acrobat is a total dog.

But in my experience the reader itself makes a MASSIVE amount of difference - basically some are really light, and cache ahead, some don't, and it's painful. I read comics, so it's something I've experimented with.

But if I was literally doing it all the time (reading graphics heavy pdfs), I might consider going for the SSD option. IDK if that's a must though. I think you could live without it, especially if most of your pdfs were text.

The most noteable penalties to an eMMC are installing software, loading heavy software doing windows updates and copying very large files. Short of that, I never notice. And I do some heavier tasks on my atom based (weaker than surface go), emmc tablet- like playing some games, writing music. Adobe illustrator was a tad slow, but it still worked.

In general, I think in s mode, your device will fly, and I don't see any future proofing issues. Especially because Microsoft has a long device support life cycle for their devices, and windows runs on a wide variety of devices.

Processors don't advance that fast either. 5-10 percent a year at best. And there are even lower TDP than tablets for ultrathin laptops and NUCs. The Pentium chip they use is pretty solid actually. At 6 tdp there are plenty of modern chipsets with lower base speed.

Storage wise, you can always kick in a microSD.

 

[anthonyng]

My surface 3 4gb only got better with win10... The way Microsoft is going, it'll get even better still. So i won't be worried about it not working well.

Remember, you're not buying one of these got high end tasks right? If you're expecting something different then maybe you should reconsider your needs

 

[jlwaters11]

IMO- "Future-proof" as a concept with Technology is idiotic. Nothing about tech is "Future-proof" Any computer 5 years or older is a dinosaur. I think 4GB of RAM is perfect for 75% or more of the population. IF you think a Chromebook or iPad Pro are adequate options --which aren't powerhouses then 4GB will also do everything you would ask of it. Especially when you look at who the Surface GO is for- Students in High School or College. Most don't need super powerful computers to take notes, run office and consume media.

 

[Millstream]

I looked over at some benchmarks and found that in terms of performance it's comparable to an AMD Athlon II x2 250 (3ghz) or the Intel C2D T9900 (3.06ghz), processors considered average (~2011) or on the higher-end (2009), and still do a fairly good job today for anything not too intensive. I own machines with both of these processors, so the experience should be similar, if not better for the improvement over a traditional HDD, even with the eMMC model, and this is not even touching the graphics performance of the GPU's they're paired with.

 

[Pedalboy]

I am a Costco member and need to replenish my supply of toilet paper and paper towels so I may amble over and take a look. I would consider running Lotus Notes on the machine and between 128gb and the SD card do not think storage will be an issue. I would have to connect to a network to replicate my database. I just wonder if 4 gb ram would be an issue for running notes on what would be my secondary or travel machine that would be used as part tablet/part laptop.

 

[anthonyng]

I just wonder if 4 gb ram would be an issue for running notes on what would be my secondary or travel machine that would be used as part tablet/part laptop.

no computer can handle notes properly

 

[scoob101]

The way the tech press have been panning the 4gb go is frankly a smear campaign.

If you keep it in S mode and use Store apps, it runs perfectly - and absolutely flies compared to a 2gb Atom