Hi! There’s no Surface on Linux Lemmy community (yet), but I didn’t feel like asking on reddit, so I thought that this community is my best bet.
I was thinking about getting a surface go, since I really like the form factor and have fond memories of my old Surface Pro 3 in Uni.
Now, there’s a deal going on, where they’re selling the tablet for under 300€, but it’s the low-spec one with 4GB RAM and the weakest processor. I was wondering if I would be doing myself a favor by getting a tablet with these low-end specs.
My usecases would be: Note taking with rnote/xournalpp, surfing, reading, youtube and maybe some light coding.
A FOSS system with encrypted home directory is essential for me, which is why I’m not even considering Android/Apple tablets.
I think I’d give Fedora Silverblue a shot, because Gnome is supposedly great for tablets and it seems more stable to fuck-ups. But maybe the meager storage space (64GB) makes this infeasible
Do any of you have any experiences with these low specs? Or even with a Surface Go 2 in 2023 daily use?
Don’t waste your money on a PC with 4GB of RAM that’s soldered on the motherboard.
Sorry, that’s just not a helpful comment. It kind of ignores my usecase.
It’s a tablet and I’m not going to use it for big workloads.
If you know of any PCs with stylus support that I can carry in the pockets of my jacket with modular RAM, please do tell.
I’m using a Thinkpad X1 Yoga with touchscreen and stylus support. Works flawlessly with Fedora. Bought the 8 GB version with an 8th gen i7 from a local shop in Vienna for 200€, but there’s also a 16 GB one.
I would say that Surface is too old for proper use especially for that price. Have a look around more, and better deals just gonna fall into your lap.
I was specifically hoping for something with the 10" form factor. I already have a thinkpad as a laptop and was hoping for something with a smaller form factor.
I’m afraid this isn’t really the place to ask for such a device. If you ask for any kind of laptop, they pretty much only tell you to buy a ThinkPad X1 Carbon here. Sure, it’s probably a great laptop, but not for every usecase.
It’s a 10" tablet, how big is your pocket?
My bigger concern checking its specs is this:
Unlike ram, ssds die after some use. So the lifespan of this device depends on this SD card, eMMC is basically a soldered SD card, a bad quality ssd. I have 3 old tablets with dead eMMC, they are otherwise perfectly fine devices, but unusable for anything
I’m not too familiar with the surface lineup, but iirc there are higher end devices with replaceable ssds. I think soldered ram is not a big deal in this form factor if it’s enough for the expected use case, but a soldered hard drive lowers the lifespan of your device
I have big pockets (in my jacket) ;)
The SSD thing you mentioned is quite a good point. :/
You’re probably not going to find a tablet with modular RAM, but 4GB will barely run a web browser these days. You will be using swap a lot and that will put a lot of wear on the non replacable SSD.
Oof. Didn’t even think of the SSD bit. The surface devices are generally good quality but the repairability is apparently atrocious with all these soldered Chips.
Although the new surfaces have good repairability apparently!
The SSD is still soldered to the motherboard.