Microsoft welcomes fall with $549 Surface Laptop Go and pricey $1,499 Pro X

Microsoft is not done releasing devices this year yet. Hot on the heels of the dual-screen Surface Duo, Microsoft has just announced two new devices: the Surface Laptop Go and an updated Surface Pro X.

Surface Laptop Go — The 2.45-pound laptop strips down some of the Surface Laptop 3’s features to get pricing to start at $549. Microsoft achieved this by also using a mix of materials: aluminum for the lid and a “hybrid polycarbonate composite resin system with glass fiber and 30 percent consumer recycled content" for the base.

The small, but not exactly mini-sized, laptop has a 12.45-inch PixelSense touchscreen (1,536 x 1024) with classic 3:2 aspect ratio (none of this squat 16:9 nonsense you usually find in cheaper laptops), a 10th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, up to 8GB of RAM (16GB for commercial buyers), up to 256GB of SSD storage, and up to 13 hours of battery life according to Microsoft.

You still get Windows Hello face login, but the power button also doubles as a fingerprint reader on the 128GB and 256GB models (the 64GB version doesn’t have it). The webcam is 720p HD resolution; there are “omnisonic speakers” with Dolby audio tuning; Microsoft says the microphones are “studio quality;” and there’s a USB-C, USB-A, Surface Connect port, and headphone jack.

I’m told the keyboard is “full-size” with 1.3mm travel and the precision trackpad is as responsive as on the Surface Laptop 3. It comes in three colors: “ice blue,” “platinum,” and “sandstone.”

Surface Pro X (2020) — Then, there’s the 2020 Surface Pro X. Same physical design as the super thin and light ARM-powered Surface Pro X released last year, but the top-of-the-line model now comes with a new CPU and GPU chipset to (hopefully) boost the original’s sluggish performance.

The 2-in-1 tablet transformer still has a 13-inch display, dual USB-C ports, and built-in gigabit LTE. The silicon powering it is all new: a custom Microsoft SQ2 processor based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips made for ARM laptops.

The more powerful Surface Pro X doesn’t come cheap: it starts at $1,499. Like the Laptop Go, the bumped up Surface Pro X also comes in a platinum color and the keyboards in three new shades (platinum, ice blue, and poppy red).

Coming October 13 — Pre-orders for the new Surface Laptop Go and boosted Surface Pro X start today with availability on October 13.

A few months ago, I reviewed the Surface Go 2. Even though I tried the middle-tier $629 version ($749 with keyboard), its Intel Core m3 chip was too wimpy to run Windows 10 daily without bottlenecking.

The base Surface Laptop Go starts at $549 and comes with an Intel Core i5 chip, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of slower eMMC storage. Even minus some of the higher configurations’ trims, it may be a better laptop from the jump. I’ll find out soon when I get a device for review. Stay tuned!

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