Microsoft Surface Go2 or Go3 - Type Cover - Charcoal keyboard

Product Information

Microsoft’s smallest tablet PC gets Windows 11, newer chips and a small price cut but really needed more to make it worth the investment. If the LED lights turn on, your problem may be with Windows and not the device itself. The next step is to reset your Surface. Here's how: You'll see the logo screen on your screen. Continue to hold the Volume Up button. Release the button when the UEFI screen appears.

Surface Go Type Cover – Microsoft Surface Surface Go Type Cover – Microsoft Surface

Before we get into the meat of things, a word needs to be said about Windows 11. Microsoft has been beating a retreat from Windows as a touch-optimised OS for a while. With Windows 8, touch was to the fore. In Windows 10 it was an option. In Windows 11 the old “Metro” tile interface has finally been killed off. That leaves the Go 3 with an interface that is frankly only a little more touch-optimised than Windows 8 and nowhere near as finger-friendly as iOS or Android. Windows 10, Windows 10 Tech Preview, Windows 11Surface Go 3 required for compatibility with these drivers. These drivers and firmware are compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11 including Enterprise versions. For Windows 10: Go to Settings > Ease of Access > Keyboard (scroll down to the Interaction section.) To adjust the settings, toggle the settings to either on or off, depending on your preferences. These are the best keyboard options you can find for the Surface Go 3. Depending on what you value most, each one has its own worth. The official Surface Go Type Cover is the best if you want a reliable connection since it's the only one to use the proprietary Surface keyboard connector instead of Bluetooth. On the other hand, something like the Brydge 10.5 Go+ is very cool because it truly makes the Surface Go 3 feel like a real laptop. And, for office setups, something like the Logitech MX Mechanical is really where it's at. Mechanical keyboards are fantastic, and since this one has such a clean design, it's great for work.There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the Go 3’s display. At its peak of 418cd/m², it’s usefully bright and there’s decent colour representation, with 99.6% of the sRGB gamut represented. The benchmark results tell the same sorry story. Our in-house media benchmark app produced a wretched score of just 24. That’s compared to 32 scored by the Core m3-8100Y version of the Go 2 we tested last year, which was itself a dismal showing. The Geekbench 5 CPU scores of 839 (single-core) and 1,572 (multi-core) were equally poor. Considering the laggardly system performance, the SSD speed is almost irrelevant. That’s actually just as well, since the drive in the Go 3 could only reach sequential read and write speeds of 1,259MB/sec and 319MB/sec respectively; those are pretty awful results. Windows 11 is brand new, and it feels it. There are some rough edges that need smoothing out, such as the inconsistent dark mode with bright-white dialogue boxes, but overall it fits better on the Go 3’s small screen than Windows 10. Use these drivers and firmware to prepare your custom images for enterprise deployment, or to repair problems with custom installations of Windows on your Surface Go 3. The MSI will install all relevant drivers automatically. These drivers and firmware are not compatible with Surface Go (first generation) and Surface Go 2.

Microsoft Surface Go2 or Go3 - Type Cover - Grey keyboard

For Windows 11: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard (scroll down to the Interaction section). To adjust the settings, toggle the settings to either on or off, depending on your preferences. If the LED lights don't turn on, there might be a hardware issue. To verify in UEFI, do the following: There are some solutions you can try. First steps if your Surface Type Cover or Keyboard doesn't work If the keys are working correctly in UEFI, but not in Windows: The problem is likely with the software installed on the Surface, and you'll need to reinstall. See Creating and using a USB recovery drive for Surface.READ NEXT: Asus Zenbook Fold 17 OLED review Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: Performance and battery life Even its cheapest tablet, the Surface Go, has failed to make an impact on Apple’s dominance in this area, so the latest model – the Microsoft Surface Go 3 – has its work cut out. The fact is that the processors Microsoft is using in the Go 3 machines are simply not powerful enough to give an even remotely satisfying user experience beyond basic computing activities. The redesigned Start menu squeezes more icons into a smaller space, so it is a better fit for the 10.5in screen of the Go 3. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Microsoft Surface Go2 or Go3 - Type Cover - Black keyboard

Somewhat discouragingly, these and other similarly priced devices are likely to offer a smoother experience than the Go 3 does on everything but the simplest tasks. I found there to be occasional lag and sluggishness while installing apps, as well as when opening and closing menus. And sluggishness occurs with more frequency when switching between two apps that are already running. It’s a similar experience to what we found when testing the Go 2 last year, except that the lag behavior is less excusable now considering the Go 3 has an upgraded CPU and runs Windows 11. Above the screen, housed in one of the long bezels surrounding the Go 3’s display, you’ll find an above-average webcam. This 5-megapixel, 1080p shooter is an improvement over most laptop webcams, which typically employ low-quality sensors with 720p resolution that result in grainy video quality even when the room is brightly lit. In addition to the front-facing camera, which includes IR sensors for face-recognition Windows Hello logins, the Go 3 has a rear-mounted 8-megapixel autofocus camera that also shoots 1080p video.

A still-impressive design is undermined by a puny entry-level CPU that is barely fit for purpose

Inside, the Go 3 has been upgraded. You have a choice of an Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y, which is much faster on paper than its predecessor, or a 10-generation Core i3 processor, which is about the same. Both are very much at the lower end of the market, based on older technology. We’ll look more in-depth at performance below, but suffice it to say that the Surface Go 3 isn’t for anyone who needs to run complex apps like Adobe Photoshop, and its day-to-day computing experience is a bit laggy compared not only with Windows laptops, but also with better-equipped Chromebooks and iPads. While it’s true that many Chromebooks and iPads come with just 4GB of RAM, iPadOS and Chrome OS have limited multitasking capabilities or other memory-hungry requirements. Pressing the fingerprint reader at the Windows sign-in screen results in an error or other message such as "Fingerprint not recognized." I would like information, tips and offers about Microsoft Store and other Microsoft products and services.

Microsoft Surface Go2 or Go3 - Type Cover - Charcoal keyboard

To try to resolve these issues, you can begin by following the steps below to force a restart, detach and reattach the Type Cover or Keyboard, get the latest updates, or confirm connectivity. Force a restart Select Start > Power > Shut down and wait a moment for your Surface to shut down. Then press and hold the power button for 20 seconds. If you see the logo screen appear after a few seconds, continue to hold for the full 20 seconds until you see the logo screen again. The changes to the Microsoft store are welcome, too, with apps from more developers now available, such as Disney+, making it the central place to get programs from and keep them updated automatically. Price Note: This process reinstalls Windows but keeps your personal files and any apps that came with your PC. It removes changes you made to settings, as well as apps and drivers you installed.I would like information, tips, and offers about Microsoft Store and other Microsoft products and services. The Go 3 also finishes last in this lot on more-demanding content-creation workflows like transcoding a 4K video using Handbrake or rendering a 3D image in Maxon’s Cinebench app. The tablet couldn’t even complete our Adobe Photoshop image-editing trial, although its failure here could have more to do with a software glitch, since it otherwise meets the minimum system requirements. As refreshing as it is to see a lower-priced Windows tablet, the Surface Go 3 nevertheless feels like an update with little improvement over its older kin. Unless you need Windows, or especially want to try the new OS in tablet format for a budget price, you’ll probably be better off with an iPad, or a detachable Chromebook tablet.