Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio and Surface Pro 8 stole the spotlight from the Surface Go 3 when the company revamped its PC portfolio last year, but now there is another reason to check out the diminutive convertible tablet.
Leaker Aggiornamenti Lumia posted images on Twitter showing the 10.5-inch Surface Go 3 in a new matte black finish, one similar to the colour option available on the Surface Laptop 4.
— Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) January 10, 2022
These appear to be marketing images, suggesting the matte black version could arrive soon, and an Amazon Germany listing already has the device available for pre-order with a January 11 release date. I’ve reached out to Microsoft to confirm the addition of a matte black colour option and will update this article when I hear back.
Based on these leaks, the Surface Go 3 will ship with Intel’s Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and LTE. The inclusion of LTE connectivity is an interesting one because the Surface Go 3 didn’t ship with the feature when it arrived last October, though Microsoft has since added an LTE version to its website, a sold-out $US729 ($1,018) config only available with a Core i3. We wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft soon adds “Graphite,” the secondary colour available on the Surface Pro 8, to its Surface Go 3 online configuration tool.
It’s nice to see Microsoft add more colour options to its budget devices, especially the Go 3, a product meant as a travel companion, not just for use in your home office. It may not stand out as much as some of the striking hues available on the Surface Laptop 4 but the stealthy matte black colour option, to me, looks better than the standard Platinum.
But putting a new coat of paint on the Surface Go 3 won’t resolve some of the problems we had with the slate, including its poor battery life and mediocre performance. In our mixed review of the Surface Go 3, we called the tablet “a worthy secondary computer for those who have the cash to splurge” but not something you should use as a primary device.
For that, you could turn to the Surface Laptop Studio or Surface Pro 8, or you could wait a few months because Microsoft will apparently be launching “multiple product refreshes” throughout 2022, The Verge reports. We don’t know which specific devices will be updated, but it’s safe to assume a Surface Laptop 5 will arrive with the latest components, including the new processors that Intel and AMD launched at CES 2022.