The Surface has an Intel i5-1035G1 and 16GB RAM. Both of these things were very appealing to me as the CPU meant it would be Windows 11 capable, meaning even though, I preferred Windows 10, I was future proofed. And arguably most importantly the 16GB meant that I could have loads of applications open, Word and VS Code open for coursework, Chrome with loads of tabs open for research and YouTube running in the background, etc… As a college student that was particularly important to me.
I had been in college for about a month, and I had been lugging my gaming laptop into college everyday, taking it around college, and on the walk there and back (40 minutes each way). After a couple of conversations with some fellow tech “nerds and geeks”, my kind of people, I decided to purchase a used laptop on eBay, so I saved up about £200. I then spent about a week on eBay looking at listings of old laptops, Dell Inspirons, HP Pavilions, Lenovo ThinkPads, and all of them had a couple of things in common, they had 8th or 7th Gen Intel Processors, 8GB of RAM and would have been incredibly slow. Furthermore, most of them were around the £200 which was fine as that is what I had been looking at spending, but at that price I was hoping for a bit of a speedier machine, nothing crazy just something that I could have loads of tabs open with, as well as coding, and streaming. And then I saw it.
When I purchased this laptop, the plan was simple it was meant to be a light laptop that I could take to college, while my gaming laptop stayed at home as a pseudo-desktop. And for the most part that is what I did, I used it for writing coursework projects, doing some research, watching some YouTube in my downtime, etc… However, like anything there were some issues, the battery life, while better than on my other laptop, was about 6 hours if I was being careful, it could be more like 4 if I was using it heavily. Luckily for me, there was never a day in college where I would be away from a plug for more than 3 hours, so I was always able to use it throughout the day. The only other downside was the somewhat lacking I/O, with no HDMI port, or even a microSD card slot it felt fairly limiting on occasion, especially if I ever wanted to connect to an external monitor in college. However, for what I needed it for neither of these issues came close to being deal-breakers.
What I noticed after I got
this laptop was I very rarely worked on my gaming laptop, what was meant to be
a secondary laptop turned into a primary machine. The keyboard on the Surface
is exceptional, far better than both the one, not only on my Dell, but also on
the mechanical keyboard I have at home. So much so that I have now bought the
standalone version of the Surface’s keyboard. It has a nice amount of travel,
very little chassis flex, and a satisfying tactile response. The screen is
great with a 3:2 aspect ratio being ideal for productivity, as you have more
vertical space. Where I thought this would struggle was with anything that
required lots of CPU horsepower; however, I was able to run up to 2 VMs on this
without issue, which was helpful for testing out MDT deployments, for example. All
these things allowed me to carry a 12-inch laptop with confidence. After about
3 months, I could count on my hand the number of times I had used my other
machine, I was surprised and feeling slightly guilty with how little I was
using it. What surprised me more is how often I would actively try and make the
Surface work so I could use it instead of the other laptop. That said, it
wasn’t invincible, I did have to go back and use my other machine sometimes,
when running VMs that required a bit more CPU power, video editing, or any
complex asks that the Surface couldn’t quite do.
There are 2 types of people
who should consider, and in my opinion buy this laptop. The first, people like
me, people who already have a powerful desktop or laptop, but that isn’t
practical to take around with them. This machine is a perfect machine for us. And
the other, is the type of person who doesn’t need any power all they need is Chrome,
Word, and YouTube, in which case the device is perfect because it can handle
that, and more, and has done since I bought it nearly 2 years ago. However,
this shouldn’t be the primary machine of, a gamer, a video editor (or any
creative for that matter), a SysAdmin, etc… it simply doesn't have enough power
for your needs.
Having turned my original scepticism
into a purchase, this laptop has continued to surprise me. For £140, I think I
can safely say that it is the best value piece of tech I have ever bought. It has
challenged what I thought about the second-hand IT market, something that should
be embraced and used where possible. As I head off to university in September,
this laptop is going to get another new lease of life as a replacement to my
sister’s Chromebook that has 4GB of RAM and a Celeron CPU from the last decade.
I think and do hope this little machine will continue to do itself proud for
years to come.
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