Coming into Roswell High School as a freshman means giving up the Dell Latitude laptop from my previous middle school. I really liked all the things I was able to do with my laptop, and with the big screen size it helped me get my school work done. With the Window’s Surface Go that Roswell have issued to students, students may have more in terms of accessories but it also consists of more problems.

With using the Surface as an everyday tool to type, I am still finding it tough to get used to. The keys lack sturdiness, which allows them to pop off easily. Currently my up-arrow key has popped off and each time I press it I must press hard on it for it to click back on. Although the Surface keyboard can detach, it also allows for more problems since it isn’t permanently attached to the screen like the Dell laptop. Having a device such as a Surface really takes away the “Lap” part in laptop considering it has a kickstand to hold it up, which isn’t very comfortable on your lap.

The weakest aspect of the Surface Go, no matter what you’ll want to use it for, is battery life. I was able to get around four hours from the Surface and, with all the classes that require my surface, that’s a very average number. Which isn’t close to how much I would need for a full school day. If I use my Surface Pro all day, it usually dies around fourth period. With a full charge, the Dell laptop can last almost all day.

The Surface Go is not nearly as fast as a Dell Latitude. Maybe it’s the school Wi-Fi, but the Surface from my experience does not do anything quickly. Especially when it comes to work load, if you have a lot of tabs open, it’s almost impossible to click back and forth between them because of how slow it takes to load. This can lead to crashes in apps, potentially causing you to lose anything that you have done on that app if not saved.

“The Surfaces this year don’t even come close to the laptops last year, I would much rather use the laptop than the Surface not only because of how good the quality was with the laptops but how much easier they were to use in general. Plus, I never had a problem with my laptop but now my pen doesn’t even work with my Surface,” says freshman Skyler Aldy.

One of the Surface Go’s best components is the Surface pen. You can markup and annotate documents and websites, take notes and draw and sketch in a lot of apps including OneNote, which is the one I use the most. Although that sounds great, there can be consequences with this. The pen needs batteries to work, so if you don’t have batteries its going be hard to use your pen for that week. Also, many students have been complaining about how their pen just stops working out of nowhere and it will not cooperate with the tablet. However, this problem will never be tolerated with the Dell laptop simply because there is no pen to cause problems.