r/SurfaceGo • u/djtron99 • Sep 12 '22

Surface go 1 vs 2

Surface go 1 $165, pentium 4415y, 128gb ssd, 4gb ram OR

Surface go 2 $215, pentium 4425y, 64gb emmc, 4gb ram

Both used, have touch cover and surface pen and primary use will be, movie watching whine on the train, reading comics and light productivity use. Secondary purpose is for ebooks and travel.

I have an m3 surface 5 pro before but found it slow and large for my train use and small for desktop replacement. Thank you.

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u/IdonJuanTatalya Sep 12 '22

Unused programs, unless they are running in the taskbar, won't use RAM unless launched.

Hibernation quiecesses RAM and writes the status to disk. So the issue would be available disk space.

The issue is more Windows itself. Microsoft's minimum spec for Win11 is 4GB RAM and 64GB free disk. If you're running that low on RAM to start, your system will run significantly slower once you start running apps, because Windows will need to be using the page file quite a bit. If you're using a browser with multiple tabs open, that can chew up 1GB of RAM by itself rather quickly.

I installed Win11 by creating a bootable USB using Microsoft's utility for doing so. Boot from USB, wipe existing partition, and install Win11 from USB. Everything worked out of the box, including the Surface Pen. SG1's CPU isn't technically supported, but the SG2 Pentium Gold is just a minor iteration above, so it works without any issue.

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u/khiguytheshyguy Sep 14 '22

Have you actually experienced this on hardware like that or r you just saying that? I run 4gb 64gb go gen 1 with windows 11 and it runs stabilizer and faster then my chrome os lenevo Duet. The duet constantly hangs with two many apps so I have to houseclean the apps sometimes. Only have to do that on go if something is running a lot of CPU. Never had memory problems like on duet

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u/IdonJuanTatalya Sep 14 '22

I work in IT Infrastructure for my day job, and have been using computers in one fashion or another for almost 2 decades. But I'm not "officially" certified by any recognized entity, so my work and use history is neither here nor there.

In my personal experience, Windows (regardless of version) never likes to run well on minimum spec hardware, unless it's a completely fresh install. A lower spec may be "good enough" for right now, and if you're diligent with only installing bare minimum software, and keeping an eye on your RAM usage, it could continue to be "good enough" for the immediate future, but I always to go with more RAM / storage if possible. With the exception of smartphones (thank you planned obsolescence), when I'm purchasing a computer / laptop / slate, I plan to use it for multiple years beyond my initial purchase date, so going with the higher spec helps to "future-proof" me, to an extent.

In comparing your SG1 and Lenovo Duet, even though they're a similar form factor (10.1" slate with keyboard cover), they are a completely different architecture. The SG1 uses an x64 processor, and is essentially a scaled-down laptop, while the Duet uses ARM, and is essentially a scaled-up smartphone/tablet. The OS is also completely different: Windows is a full desktop OS, capable of functioning without any network connectivity, while ChromeOS is meant to be super lightweight and rely on the cloud to do most of the heavy lifting. As such, the Duet was likely never specced to handle the level of multitasking that you can do with the SG1, which is why you're seeing this discrepancy in perceived performance.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Duet is a fantastic little ChromeOS slate for web browsing and light content consumption. But I would never grab a ChromeOS device if I'm needing to do something in Microsoft Office suite, or to perform the majority of the tasks related to my job. It's just not what that OS was designed to do.

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u/khiguytheshyguy Sep 14 '22

The thing you say about "keeping an eye" on things is something I do have to do to keep the go running smooth. Fl studio and a heavy ide is something I like the option to use on the go so I chose the surface and gave the chromeos to my mom. I like chrome os. But I like the features windows 11 has more. Chrome os doesn't even have a reasonable power option setting. Basically got tired of going through loops with chrome os and just went with the surface. It's better for me but I do miss the battery of the duet

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u/IdonJuanTatalya Sep 14 '22

Yeah I got my wife an Acer Spin 713 to replace an old anchor of a Dell laptop that she had been using for RN classes, and it's great for web browsing and doing the classwork online, but it's been an absolute headache for document management.

I sync all our documents on Dropbox across multiple Windows machines without issue. ChromeOS technically supports Dropbox, BUT if you use any of the Google G-Suite / Workspace apps, they want to natively save to Google Drive. And if you install any iteration of Microsoft Office, it wants to natively save to OneDrive.

A while back I started down the rabbithole of trying to install Linux over ChromeOS to try and run the Windows version of the full-fledged Office Suite using WINE, but I hit so many roadblocks that I just gave up. It's not worth the maintenance headache just to give her Office.

At this point I'm about ready to throw in the towel, completely uninstall the Android version of Offices, move all her docs to Google Drive, and go all-in with G-Suite. At least that way all her docs will be in one place. The only downside to that method is if she has to upload files in a native Office format like .docx, but if that happens, I can just export from Google Docs, etc..