Buying The Surface Go 3

Community Buying Advice
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Hi everyone. Since the Surface Go 2 came out I’ve been looking to get a Go device. Long story short, I’m now debating whether to buy a Surface Go 3. The only thing that puts me off is battery life. Many reviews complain about this and part of me thinks that perhaps I should wait for a Surface Go 4 if there’s any chance of that being released.
My use case for the device is mainly:

  • Taking notes

  • Reading ebooks

  • Console emulation

  • Media consumption (streaming, etc)

Has anyone bought a SG3?How bad would the battery life be for these things? I had considered the SG2 but am a bit paranoid about missing out on any great update a SG4 might have. Not sure what to do! Thanks in advance.

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We are probably almost a year away from the Go4. If you can hold out that long, I would. If not, the choice is harder. I have a Go2 LTE and love it. Still I would like to see the updated pixel controller in the new model, better battery life and more power (really, my third option and the least important of the three as the m3 is fine for most things I do). They will hopefully be in the Go4. The Go3 gives you a bit more power but reportedly at a cost of battery life. Tough choice.

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Two things.

One: The latest Windows 11 cumulative update more or less fixed the battery life issues with the Go 3 and it’s now within 2-4% of the Go 2 in battery life.

Two; Every rumor we here is that the Go 4 is likely a very late 2022 or early 2023 device AND is likely to be WOA based. I’ll leave that to you to determine if that’s a good or bad thing :slight_smile:

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A Go4 with 8cx Generation 4 could be interesting.

5

I think so as well since will have the fruits of the Nuvia acquisition in it.

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Moreso as it would be a Pro X mini. Surface Go X?

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@haylo : You may or may not like this idea, but even a small external battery will provide you with more than enough life for even a heavy usage day. Looking at your use case, at least half of the tasks are stationary, implying that you can easily plug in, if necessary. As reported elsewhen (in OG TPCR), my Go LTE is used as our family room floater, so it sees a lot of daily use. I keep a small external battery (Omni Mobile 12800) and a USB-C cable on one of the end tables for those times when the Go starts to tire out and it all works fine. Traveling with the battery isn’t a problem, either; it’s quite small.

Anyway, if battery life continues to be a consideration for you, try this minor work around…

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Thanks for all of the replies, much appreciated. Interesting to know that the battery life has improved due to the Windows update. I’m not sure what to make of WOA at the moment so perhaps I should go for the Go 3.

Good point about the external battery too. Not a deal breaker for me. I think I’ll go ahead and purchase. Thanks once again!

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No problem bro! That’s what we do here.

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I (used to) carry a 26,800 mAh battery around with me pretty much everywhere.

Two issues though:

  • The Galaxy Book 10.6 can empty it pretty quickly
  • It also gave up the ghost (just won’t charge) recently after less than two years. And it’s not the first battery pack that has done that to me.

Battery packs are an absolute Wild West out there. Mine have all been Anker and several of them have failed (their reputation is decent, but for the most part they also seem to be using Chinese OEM reference designs just like everyone else).

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Lenovo is releasing a phone with am AMOLED display, 144 hz refresh rate and a 720 hz touch sampling rate and an SSD in Raid 0 configuration. How about some of these specifications for a Go model or a competitor?

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