Microsoft Surface Go 3 (2021) Laptop Review

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 is a compact 10.5 inch tablet with a built-in kickstand and a detachable keyboard. The design is nearly identical to its predecessor, the Microsoft Surface Go 2 (2020), but it's now available in a Platinum or Matte Black finish. The bezels are a bit thick on all sides, though they provide a place to hold the tablet without triggering its touch-sensitive screen. The type cover keyboard is an accessory that you have to purchase separately, and it's the same type cover as the Microsoft Surface Go 2, so they're interchangeable. You can get it in black with a microfiber finish or an Ice Blue, Poppy Red, or Platinum color scheme with an Alcantara finish. Like most 2-in-1 tablets with a similar design, it isn't the most lap-friendly device because most of the weight is in the display, and the keyboard doesn't help stabilize it, so it feels wobbly on a lap and can easily tip over if you aren't careful.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has great build quality. It has a magnesium chassis that feels high quality, and its kickstand's hinge feels smooth and strong. The type cover flexes, especially when typing with the keyboard at an incline, but it doesn't feel cheap.

Update 02/14/2022: We've uploaded a new photo because the previous one wasn't showing the hinge's full range.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's kickstand hinge is okay. It feels smooth when opening and closing, and it feels stable no matter which angle it's set to. There are grooves on the sides to make it easier to open when fully closed.

The Microsoft Go 3 and its included power adapter are very compact and lightweight, so you should be able to fit them easily into most bags. The posted measurements were taken with the type cover keyboard attached; here are the measurements for the tablet itself:

• Thickness: 0.33 inches (0.83 cm)
• Width: 9.65 inches (24.5 cm)
• Depth: 6.89 inches (17.5 cm)
• Weight: 1.18 lbs (0.536 kg)

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 isn't serviceable. It's hard to open the tablet without risking damage, and all the components are soldered onto the motherboard anyway. Opening the laptop or changing the hardware may void the manufacturer's warranty.

• Microsoft Surface Go 3 tablet
• 24W power adapter
• Microsoft Surface Go Type Cover (sold separately)
• Documentation

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's screen displays a sharp image due to its high pixel density. Its 3:2 aspect ratio gives you more vertical space so that you don't have to scroll as much in landscape mode, and it also makes the screen feel less narrow when in portrait mode. However, this means that you'll see black bars at the top and bottom when viewing standard 16:9 content. If you're interested in a Windows tablet but prefer having a larger, crisper display, consider the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 (2021).

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has a basic 60Hz refresh rate with no VRR support, typical for a device in its class. There's visible ghosting in fast-moving scenes because the response time is slow, and there's also image duplication caused by the backlight's flicker.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's contrast ratio is decent and within the typical range for most IPS panels, but it still isn't enough to produce deep blacks for a good dark room viewing experience. The contrast ratio can vary between individual units, but most units will still be in the same ballpark.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's maximum screen brightness is decent. It's bright enough for use in most lighting conditions but not outdoors in broad daylight. It gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, so it's easier on the eyes when viewing content in the dark.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has decent reflection handling. Its glossy finish struggles mostly with direct reflections, so it's best to avoid having bright light sources right behind you shining at the screen. The photo looks brighter than other laptop reviews because it was taken in a different testing room.

The Microsoft Go 3 has exceptional black uniformity. The whole screen looks slightly gray, but it's otherwise very uniform, with no backlight bleed or IPS glow. There are some faint smudges, but they're hard to spot. Black uniformity varies between units due to manufacturing tolerances.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has okay horizontal viewing angles. The image looks dimmer and washed out from the side. You can move a little to the left or right without losing much image quality, but it's best to be directly in front of the screen if you want perfect accuracy. The flickering in the video is an artifact caused by the camera and isn't visible in person.

The vertical viewing angles are decent. Colors remain relatively accurate until you reach a steeper angle from above or below, so you have a fair amount of play to tilt the screen to your preference.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has decent color accuracy out of the box. Most color inaccuracies are minor and hard to notice, but the white balance is off, especially at higher brightness levels. The color temperature is slightly warmer than our 6500K target, giving the image a barely noticeable reddish tint. The gamma isn't bad as it follows the sRGB curve for the most part, though dark scenes are too dark and bright scenes are too bright. Color accuracy can vary between individual units.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has an excellent color gamut. It covers the entire sRGB color space, meaning it can display all the colors used in standard web content. It has great Adobe RGB coverage, but it still isn't wide enough for professional photo editing. Likewise, its DCI P3 coverage is good, but its Rec. 2020 coverage is limited and too low to be considered a wide color gamut, so it isn't ideal for viewing or producing HDR content.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's backlight is only flicker-free if you set the screen brightness to 100%. The flickering below 100% brightness can cause eye strain in some people over an extended period.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has a good keyboard. It's very compact as it's a 10.5 inch device, meaning it can feel a little cramped for people with medium to large hands. That said, the keys still feel sufficiently spaced. There's a good amount of key travel, especially for a type cover; however, the keys require a lot of force to actuate, which might cause some fatigue over an extended period. Because it's a thin type cover, the keyboard flexes a lot if you have it propped up at an incline. You can lay it flat on the table, but it might not feel as comfortable. There's backlighting, and you can toggle through the three brightness levels directly on the keyboard using the F1 hotkey.

The Microsoft Go 3 has a decent touchpad. Although it's small, it feels high-quality, and it tracks well. It responds to all movements and gestures, and there aren't any issues with palm rejection. You can click towards the top of the touchpad, but it requires more force. Note that the type cover is the same as the Microsoft Surface Go 2 (2020)'s; the only difference is that this has a microfiber finish, while the one we bought for the Surface Go 2 has an Alcantara finish. There are some differences in the measurements of the touchpad compared to the Alcantara version, but the difference is tiny. That said, the tracking is a little different as this one seems to respond more consistently and more accurately overall.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has decent speakers. There's a bump in the high-mid frequencies to emphasize vocals and leads, making them well-suited for spoken content; however, there's almost no bass, and the high frequencies drop off pretty early. They also don't get very loud, but on the bright side, there's minimal dynamic compression at max volume, so content still sounds rich and full.

The webcam's video quality is outstanding. Although slightly overexposed, the image has lots of fine details, and the colors look natural. Audio sounds clear over the microphone with little to no background noise, but voices sound slightly nasal. There's an 8MP camera and a microphone on the back if you need to show something during a video call; here's a sample of the video quality. The video is slightly shaky, but it gives an idea about the camera's video quality.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has a bad port selection. Its single USB-C port supports USB 3.2 Gen 1 data transfer speed (up to 5Gbps), and you can also use it to charge the tablet or connect an external display at a maximum resolution of 4k @ 60Hz. The Surface Connect port is compatible with Microsoft's Surface Dock 2. There's a MicroSD card slot underneath the kickstand, and models with LTE support have an additional Nano SIM tray on the side.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200. There's a variant with LTE connectivity (Core i3 with 8GB RAM model), and it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem.

You can configure the Microsoft Surface Go 3 with an Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y or an Intel Core i3-10100Y CPU. Both processors are designed for simple tasks like web browsing, video playback, and text formatting. However, the Core i3-10100Y is faster and will provide a smoother experience overall.

The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y and the Intel Core i3-10100Y have the same Intel UHD Graphics 615. It's an integrated GPU that can only handle light tasks, not demanding workloads like video editing or gaming. The Core i3's GPU has one more execution unit and runs at a slightly faster clock speed, but the difference isn't noticeable in real-world usage.

You can configure the Microsoft Go 3 with 4GB or 8GB of memory. It's best to opt for an 8GB model because 4GB is barely enough for the operating system and can cause slowdowns or stutters.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 is available with a 64GB of eMMC drive or a 128GB PCIe NVMe SSD; however, you can only get the 128GB storage if you also upgrade the memory to 8GB. It's best to get a model with a 128GB SSD because it gives you more headroom to store files locally, and the SSD is significantly faster than eMMC storage, making the system feel more responsive and snappy.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 with an Intel Core i3-10100Y performs poorly in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks, scoring very low in all three tests. Essentially, the CPU and GPU can handle general productivity tasks like web browsing and text formatting; however, they'll struggle if you run demanding applications like video editing or 3D rendering software or have too many programs running simultaneously. The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y will perform worse overall, but it'll still be faster than the Intel Pentium Gold 4425Y in the Microsoft Surface Go 2 (2020).

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 performs poorly in Cinebench R23, making it unsuitable for any CPU-intensive rendering tasks. The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y's performance will be worse.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 with an Intel Core i3-10100Y isn't suitable for 3D rendering tasks as it takes nearly a half-hour to complete the simple bmw27 scene. Blender doesn't support the integrated GPU; however, it'll likely take much longer to render the same scene than the CPU. The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y is a slower processor and will take even longer to complete the render.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 performs terribly in the Basemark GPU benchmark. Its integrated GPU can likely handle simple puzzle-like games, but nothing that's even remotely graphically demanding. The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y's performance will be even worse.

The 128GB SSD's performance is great. It has fast sequential and random read speeds, so the system boots up and launches apps quickly, but it can take a while to copy a large file or install a large app because its sequential write speed is a little slow. The 64GB eMMC will be significantly slower overall.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's battery life is sub-par. It doesn't last through a typical eight-hour workday, so you'll have to plug it in at some point for a quick charge. Video playback drains the battery a lot faster, giving you only enough time to get through a movie or two at the most. The battery life is very short when gaming, but it's still better than most gaming laptops with a dedicated GPU. Microsoft's specifications indicate that the battery size varies slightly between units, from a minimum of 26.8Wh to a maximum of 28Wh. Microsoft also advertises the LTE models to have slightly shorter battery life. If you want a compact 2-in-1 tablet with longer battery life, check out the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 (2022).

Borderlands 3 isn't playable on the Microsoft Go 3. It keeps crashing on DirectX 12, and even though it runs on DirectX 11, the average frame rate at the lowest graphical settings is in the single digits. The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y model likely won't even run the game.

Civilization VI isn't playable on the Microsoft Surface Go 3. The average frame rate at the lowest graphical settings is too low, even for a turn-based game, and the turn time is extremely long. Performance on the Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y model will be worse.

CS:GO runs terribly on the Microsoft Surface Go 3. The average frame rate doesn't even reach 30fps at the lowest graphical settings, and there are a lot of stutters and freezes, which isn't ideal for an FPS game. The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y model will perform worse.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn't playable on the Microsoft Go 3. It keeps crashing before it gets to the main menu, whether the game runs in DirectX 11 or DirectX 12.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has superb thermal and noise performance. The heat doesn't affect the keyboard because all the components are on the tablet side. The tablet itself doesn't get very hot under load as it only reaches a maximum of 41°C, with the hottest spot being near the bottom of the device in landscape mode. It's completely silent at all times because it's a fanless device.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3's performance over time is decent. The CPU and GPU temperatures are relatively low under load, likely to avoid making the tablet uncomfortable to hold. The performance loss on the CPU is minor and isn't noticeable in most instances. The performance loss on the GPU is noticeable, but only if you perform graphically intensive tasks that push GPU utilization to near 100%.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 ships with Windows 11 in S mode, a stripped-down version of Windows designed for low-end hardware. S mode generally runs smoother because there are fewer background system processes. However, it only lets you install apps from the Windows Store, meaning you can't install third-party apps like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. You can switch out of S mode, but you can't go back to it once you've activated the full version of the operating system. There aren't any other pre-installed software applications aside from those that typically come with Windows.

The Microsoft Surface Go 3 has a Windows Hello compatible IR camera so that you can log in quickly using facial recognition. There's support for pen input; however, you have to buy the stylus separately. Official first-party styluses are available, but any stylus that supports Microsoft Pen Protocol will work.