Surface Go gets updated

Discussion of hardware related issues
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wove
Posts: 1188
Joined: Mon May 04, 2020 4:47 pm

Surface Go gets updated

Post by wove »

I have been watching the Windows Insider and Win 11 beta landed for the Surface go. Since one of the changes was to be improved tablet I went ahead and installed it or updated to it. It included a big firmware update to the machine.

There is nothing to see here. MS is still MS and their answer to tablet use it to just get rid of it and go full desktop. There are a couple things that are improvements. They brought back the ability to change text size independent of screen scaling, which improves readability across the board for me. But of course that change does not impact the size of the dialog boxes created, so mostly you end up with the text cut off because it does not fit in the box.

There are changes to a lot of the eye candy, which over all I do not care about. Setting are settings and how they get presented are of very little importance compared to what they do. The store is updated as well, but I do not notice much difference there. The other core apps are about the same. The damn update also loads all the crapware back on the system. Candy Crush Saga will need to be deleted again.

The width of the task bar was increased, however the icons displayed are the same size as before, and the UI actually requires you hit the icon rather the whole area around the icon which does not make anything any easier to hit than it was before. The window header bars are large too, but again there was nothing done to make the targets easier to hit, only easier to see.

Of course it is beta so things might change, but I really doubt it. So I think it is probably about time to really look at getting a Linux distro installed.
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tlmiller
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Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: Surface Go gets updated

Post by tlmiller »

I know Surface hardware hasn't been the quickest to get added to the linux kernel in the past, most notably the various accessories (pens, keyboard covers), and the touchscreens had less than perfect support usually for at least a while after they'd be released. Haven't actually paid any attention to the support for the Surface Go, but have you heard of better support for it so far with the linux kernel?
wove
Posts: 1188
Joined: Mon May 04, 2020 4:47 pm

Re: Surface Go gets updated

Post by wove »

The Surface Go is actually pretty well supported. From what I have been reading everything works alright except for the camera which does not work at all. It is one of those Windows Hello cameras, which someone has gotten working as a biometric device in Linux, but alas you can not take a regular picture with it.

I do tend to take user reports/blogs with a big grain of salt. There are many use case scenarios and what is "Works pretty well" for one can be totally unsuitable for another. Although I have never tried Linux on a tablet, most distros/DEs do not strike me as being too tablet friendly.
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