Luckily, this mode isn't significantly different than keeping the Type Cover flat. This is one area where having larger hands can be a disadvantage. My only complaint about the Type Cover is that in the raised mode, where it's attached at a slight angle, I tended to accidentally hit the screen quite frequently. The backlit keyboard is a little on the small side, but I adapted pretty quickly and after a couple of days I was able to type just as fast as I can on the Lenovo laptop I use most of the time. The Type Cover will set you back $129 and, if you plan to do anything more than browsing the web and watching movies, it is a must-have. The Surface Go 2, which is capable of some tablet-like behavior, leans toward the laptop end of the spectrum.Īlas, the keyboard and the pen are still sold separately. The hybrid tablet-laptops of the world exist on a spectrum that runs from pure tablets, like the iPad, to pure laptops.

Behind the kickstand is where you'll find the MicroSD card slot. There's also a nice scallop at the base of the kickstand, which makes it easy to pry open.

The sides of the Surface Go 2 are where you'll find a USB-C port, power button, volume rocker, headphone jack (yay!), and SIM card slot if you have the LTE model. I was also able to charge it via USB-C using some battery packs I've been testing, though quite slowly. Suffice to say that for the use case where the Surface Go excels-watching videos, browsing the web, and working with documents-you can now count on a full workday out of the battery. That's an impressive step up from the older model, which loved a wall socket in a way few devices do these days.

In our standard battery drain test, dimming the screen to around 80 percent and looping a YouTube video, the Go 2 stayed on for just under nine hours. That's all with the Type Cover connected to it too. The Go 2 has managed to go all day under my normal workload, writing in a text editor, browsing the web, communicating over apps like Slack and Zoom, and playing some music in the background. In the original Go, battery life rarely went beyond six hours. It looks sleeker now, but the real improvements are tucked away under the glass, namely the much-improved battery life.

Surface go laptop 2