It might shock you that it's nearly at the end of the life cycle for the Laptop Go 2, but why was it my go to in the 1000 - 1300 range in Australia? There's a few reasons between that and that's a fact of life, I am going to break them down here for you shortly.
But can I say a big, massive thank you to tech support from Microsoft for resolving my software update issue. I had a issue out of the box with a update not wanting to install and I had tried literally everything after a quick phone with Microsoft support the issues got resolved with the update installed without any issues and that's definitely not a bad thing to be honest with you.
One of the major down sides with the Surface Laptop Go 2 is the lack of user ports, they have kept it quite basic and that will be good for most people providing your not a power user but honestly if your rocking this, your most likely not a power user any way!
The Laptop Go 2 comes in Sage, Sandstone, Platimun and Ice Blue so there's definitely a laptop colour scheme out there for every one, I have found that most JB Hi Fi's stock Sage on hand where as Harvey Norman and Officeworks tend to the platinum in stock, My JB was more than happy to price crunch Officeworks on my sage one and that's a credit to the legend there.
The keyboard feels very nice to type on, the keys have a good amount of travel, and they are easy to type on without looking and that's a good thing for me as I often type articles while looking out the windows not to brag.
The Surface Laptop Go 2 comes in three variants in Australia and I have the mid-tier one and that's not a bad thing to be honest with you, I wanted the bigger storage 256gb, the extra 4GB of Ram and the finger print scanner, it doesn't support Windows Hello Facial Recognition at all and that could be a issue for some, however it's not a issue for me, it's not even something that gets out of the gate in terms of issues for me to be honest with you.
This still has your Surface Connect port, despite what people may say I am a big fan of the Surface Connect Port, for charging it frees up the USB C port on the side of the device, but I also know that if push comes to shove and I am doing one bag travel for the day and only have a small kit ready to go, I only need my 165W Satechi and a USB C cable and I am good to go and ready to roll and that's a good thing to be honest.
This device has a USB A port, USB C port and a 3.5mm Headphone Jack with a surface connect port which you could use to connect the surface dock too it, though at this point the Surface Dock is a fair chunk of what you just paid for your device and it would be kind of pointless in my mind to be honest with you to use a Surface dock, another standard usb dongle or dock would be more than ample if you're chasing my connectivity from the device. Alogic and Satechi would be some good contenders in the dock/dongle/adaptor lifestyle, Satechi's on the go hub has always been a personal favourite of my mine.
I am sure I am not the only one that lieks the miminalist design of the Surface Laptop Go 2, it's a clean and sleek design which makes it easy to appeal to a wide range of people, the target audience for this one though is definitely commuters and students that need something to do what you need like basic stuff.
The Screen isn't rocking any 2K or 4K resolutions, but the panel is decent with a good brightness and a excellent clarity, and that's definitely a good thing to be honest with you, I like it and I haven't had any issues with seeing any thing I have on the screen that's once again is a good thing as I am sitting here typign this article I am on a moving vline train and have around 40% brightness turned on and have no issues viewing anything. I would say it's crisp and provides ample clarity for most of the things you would want to throw at your device. (Don't throw it though)
I feel like the laptop is really well made, surface devices feel like the mac's of the windows world and I think that's why I love them so much as I have always loved the qaulity of a apple mac.
The biggest con of the device: Lack of a backlit keyboard for working of a night time, if they managed to do that, this would have taken the device to the next level.
I think another one could be the user interface ports but for me that's not a problem I am not exactly plugging in a ton of devices at once.
In Conclusion: If you need something that is rock solid, and good for light web surfing, blogging, light photoshop work and other basic tasks and small and light weight and able to last for a good couple of hours on battery this is a good fit for you, I think it's a good purchase if you can pick up the 8GB/256GB model for under 1,000 AUD, yes there is better spec'd units around that price range but they lack this form factor and I feel that's where this device shines is the form factor.
