Microsoft Surface Go with 64GB eMMC storage – How much slower is the $399 model?

With the reviews of the new Microsoft Surface Go landing one thing is obvious: everyone is looking at the more expensive $550 version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as the i to buy versus the $399 option with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of infinite.

Office of that is but the expectation of 8GB of RAM is better especially if using something like the Chrome browser. But the real concern is the type of storage used – eMMC – which is expected to be significantly slower than SSD found in the more than expensive model.

If you don't know the difference, nosotros wrote an excellent primer on how the two storage formats compare.

But what about existent-earth benchmarks? We just picked up the $399 option to requite that former eMMC memory a first expect and here is what nosotros found and how it compares to a few other Surface models:

Surface Go (128 SSD) vs Surface Go (64 eMMC)

CrystalDiskMark (higher is improve)

Device	Read	Write
Surface Go (eMMC)	260 MB/s	145 MB/s
Surface Go (SSD)	1,185 MB/south	133 MB/south
Surface 3 (eMMC)	149 MB/s	33 MB/due south
Dell XPS Tower (HDD)	133 MB/s	150 MB/s
Surface Laptop	648 MB/due south	244 MB/south
Surface Pro 4	758 MB/s	159 MB/s
Surface Pro 2022	847MB/south	801 MB/due south
Surface Book	i,018 MB/s	967 MB/south
Surface Pro 2022	one,284 MB/s	963 MB/s
Surface Book 2	ane,411 MB/s	1,202 MB/s

For the test, I left the Surface Go in S-mode and the OS updated to build 17134.191 although those unlikely have any effect on CrystalDiskMark anyway.

As you can meet, at that place is a rather significant drop in deejay read performance between the 128GB model'due south SSD (i,185MB/s) and the eMMC plant in the 64GB model (260MB/s) every bit expected.

Still, compared to the Surface 3'south slow eMMC (149MB/s) the Surface Become is a step up – just not nearly equally dramatic as the 128GB model, which has roughly 10x the functioning.

Other curious $.25: Users have but over 40GB of free space out of the entire 64GB for storage. Yous can add more storage through the micro SD slot under the kickstand for music, videos, documents, photos and more.

The model of the eMMC is SK Hynix hC8aP.

Without even loading whatsoever apps RAM usage is already around 58% chapters.

The question if 4GB of RAM is as well picayune depends on your usage and expectations. Windows x does do an excellent task of managing retentivity fifty-fifty at the 4GB level compared to what it was like years ago. Nonetheless, you can hit a wall if running 20 tabs in a browser with some more heavy apps running, merely that is the tradeoff for a $399 PC versus something more expensive. (Personally speaking, I've used laptops with 4GB of RAM and retrieve the hysteria against them is often overblown).

Does it matter?

Benchmarks are one thing, but does any of it affair? Every bit usual with all things PC: it depends.

If you lot're using the Surface Go for e-mail, some web browsing in Border, watching Netflix or Hulu, listening to Spotify, or using Microsoft Office I would say no, not actually. (Remember, the original Surface iii shipped with 2GB of RAM as the entry-level!)

I've been running the Surface Become 64GB model for about thirty minutes, so it's too early to reach any real conclusion, but it does not feel radically different from the more than expensive 128GB model. Surely that can change one time I start installing and running more massive apps, but and so far this is non a dramatic experience.

Equally far as more than in-depth analysis, I'll be using this over the weekend, and I'll do a follow-upwardly video next calendar week with my thoughts and conclusions.

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