The pad is 'clicky' and hinged at the top - there's little real travel, but you can feel the pad click down with an audible noise when you depress it sufficiently. Given the temptation to use the Go's touchscreen for most pointing and 'clicking' actions, that I'm using the trackpad here at all is a compliment. Which, along with the smoothness of the glass and the super-sensitive touch detection also means a very comfortable trackpad experience. Me, I'm an Alcantara fan, it feels so soft and premium in the hand.ĭominating the Type Cover, in use, is the glass Precision Trackpad, measuring a full 11cm diagonal - it's huge. I'm reviewing the Go with this Burgundy Alcantara 'Signature Type Cover', but there's also 'Cobalt Blue' and 'Platinum', plus a ubiquitous 'Black', though the latter has a more standard rubberised plastic coating, I believe. The fabric hinges have enough designed-in slack that you can use the keyboard totally flat or, by snapping part of the hinge section against the Go (magnets again), gain a nicely angled typing experience. The magnets are strong and there's zero doubt about how to position it against the Go's spine, plus we've all seen people holding the Surface hybrids by their keyboards and dangling the expensive tablet sections - it's all very solid. streaming media player, sofa surfing) for the Go is wider than I'd have imagined.īut it's with the Type Cover snapped on that the Surface Go really shines. In regular use, I've found that I snap off the keyboard remarkably often - but this isn't a sleight against the accessory, rather that the range of uses (e.g. Which you use is up to you, though I found the best option is to have the UI change automatically (Settings/System/Tablet mode) as you snap on (or off) the Type Cover - the Surface Go detects the change in keyboard status and sets the UI appropriately. In Tablet mode, the 'taskbar' changes to a simplified, more Windows 10 Mobile-like set of navigation controls. In Desktop mode, the UI is exactly what you'd see on a traditional Windows laptop, system bar, and so on.

Snapped onto a Surface Go, this gives you the Windows laptop experience at not much more than 700g.Īt its most basic, the Surface Go is a tablet PC, of course, though you do get a choice of modes. And you'll forgive the gushing praise, but the Alcantara Microsoft Type Covers are just spectacularly high quality. Following on from my Gallery of the Surface Go review hardware kit and the first part of my main review of this relevant ultra-mobile computing device, here's part 2, concentrating on the Type Cover and the laptop experience.

Microsoft surface go 3 type cover