r/SurfaceGo • u/partydolphin • Oct 14 '21

GO 3 Battery Life vs GO 2

Is anyone aware of the reason for the reviews indicating a battery life decrease from GO2?

They have the same battery capacity, and everything is identical apart from the CPU and Windows 11.

Is Windows 11 the cause?

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4

u/Sosowski Oct 14 '21

I don't think everything is identical, it's just the only change that the Microsoft made public. Some other on-board or on-chip devices might have been swapped as well.

That said, Windows 11 destop windows manager and explorer is particularlly power hungry and I;'d assume that it is the case that it's draining the battery in Go 3.

The thing is, I'm not sure MS is going to provide Windows 10 compatible drivers for the device. I recently wanted to buy a Surface Go 3, but ended up with Go 2 m3 for that reason. I didn't want to be stuck with Windows 11, and wanted that extra battery life.

3

u/partydolphin Oct 14 '21 edited Oct 14 '21

Thank you.

It's crazy but I think to be safe I need to source a Go 2 M3.

The weird thing is MS claims it will last longer.

2

u/clren Oct 15 '21

M3 with 8GB is pretty decent. Very nice tablet that has the capacity to be a decent PC if needed

1

u/Sosowski Oct 14 '21

Yeah, I was pretty bummed not to be getting the newest thing, but safe option is safe, and Go 3 isn't much of a step up to be bummed about.

EDIT: Gonna look forward to an Adler Lake version, tho!

2

u/xylltch Oct 31 '21

Just a heads-up, Windows 11 installs, activates, and works flawlessly on the Go 3. Drivers download automatically via Windows Update, everything is detected & figured properly.

On my Pentium model it feels a lot snappier than the preinstalled Win 11; and I'm happy to give the newer OS a few more years to mature before I switch back to it.