Windows 10X on Microsoft Surface Go in 2021: Beginning of New Era of Mobile Productivity
Hi! I don’t usually introduce myself in my blog posts, but this is quite atypical post compared to those I usually publish in my blog here on Medium. Because of that I find it important to give some context.
My name is Daniel Kornev, and currently I am a Chief Product Officer at DeepPavlov.ai, a cutting edge R&D lab working in the Conversational AI space. We organize and participate in worldwide Conversational AI Challenges like ConvAI, Alexa Prize, Pro//Chtenie, and others.
Since the very beginning of my career in the industry I’ve been super passionate about intelligent and adaptive systems. These systems were expected to shine on the form-factors of the Ubiquitous Computing Wave originally announced by Mark Weiser, Chief Scientist of Xerox PARC in early 1990s.
One of my very first blog posts was about WinFS, failed Microsoft’s effort to build Integrated Storage for Windows Longhorn. I’ve spent couple years experimenting with Windows Longhorn and WinFS, studied WPF (nee Avalon) prior to Longhorn reset in 2004, and experimented with building apps on Windows Longhorn using its new platform.
In 2005 I was invited to Microsoft Student Partner program, and in 2007 I’ve joined Microsoft as a Developer Evangelist, but for the rest of my time at Microsoft my role was PM (Program Manager), and I had a chance to observe and even contribute to Windows 7 project, Microsoft Semantic Engine (nee Arena), as well as observe the beginning of Windows 8 project. Also co-authored Windows Semantic Platform ThinkWeek paper together with colleagues from Windows, Office, and MCS. Proposed spatial user interface to organize different work contexts visually which evolved into the Topographic Clusters view:
These Topographic Clusters became one of the key parts of the Microsoft Productivity Future Vision 2009.
In 2012 I’ve started my own startup, Zet Universe, which was a practical implementation of those ideas of an adaptive & intelligent private post-desktop spatial shell for Windows. After publishing the Post PC World Future Vision in 2012 I’ve designed Zet Universe to challenge the Desktop Metaphor designed at Xerox PARC in 1970s. It was built for 2-in-1s in mind (Tablet PCs. slates, modern tablets like Surface etc.). It provided a Jef Raskin-inspired Zoomable User Interface, with native support for multitouch and pen input, intelligent infrastructure for absorbing user’s information to form a knowledge graph, and an integrated storage designed to hold user’s personal knowledge graph.
In 2017 I’ve joined Yandex as a Senior Product Manager, where helped to build similar intelligent infrastructure to extract meaning from Yandex Mail emails, and shipped productivity scenarios for Yandex AI Assistant called Alice on the phone and Yandex’s first smartspeaker called Station.
In 2018–2020 I’ve consulted a number of startups in intelligent information processing, intelligent autonomous machines, and conversational AI spaces.
In 2020 I’ve joined DeepPavlov.ai in the CPO role to lead our efforts in building an open source Conversational AI stack to enable building intelligent and adaptive multiskill AI Assistants.
However, while AI assistants live in smart speakers, smartphones, and earbuds, I’m still super passionate about more traditional form-factors, be that tablets, 2-in-1s, or even foldables. There were many tablets (Windows-based, Android-based, iPads) , 2-in-1s, and mobile devices w/ and w/o pen input in my possession. I’m also still passionate about latest developments in Windows world, experiment with UWP, Uno Platform. I’ve tried running 10X from emulator images on my Surface Go last year, and when the new 10X build popped up last week I was pumped to try it out once again!
3 Why
To me, Windows 10X and Surface Go are not a subject for a general conversation about tablets and other things. Instead, the key question is what place both take in the context of productivity. And to answer this key question it is important start with answers to three other questions:
- Why not 2-in-1 for everything?
- Why Surface Go?
- Why Windows 10X?
In the next 3 sections, I’ll talk about my experience in moving forward the productivity space, using different device form factors, and explain why both Surface Go and Windows 10X matter.
Why not 2-in-1 for everything?
My old friends and colleagues from the Office Labs Envisioning Team at Microsoft believed that in the future users will have tablets connected to large screens at home and at work, and used on the go everywhere in between.
On this screenshot from the famous Productivity Future Vision 2009 video you can see a huge custom ultrawide display, and a tablet that user utilizes as a keyboard.
Here a tablet is used a a touch keyboard for input on an ultrawide screen.
Here the user leaves office with his tablet, and his workstation becomes soulless without tablet as its heart.
Unlike my colleagues, I was always more skeptical about pure tablets. Productivity, among other things, requires fast text input, and w/o haptic feedback touch input can’t realistically be mastered at comparable levels. However I also firmly believed that future of productivity would require use of pen input. This meant that the future of productivity would be between pure tablets and laptops.
That’s why I believed that the future was in the 2-in-1s category. My first own Tablet PC was Dell Latitude XT which was also used by Windows 7 Touch Team for adding multitouch support to the OS.
Unfortunately, it, as well as it’s successor in my personal computers arsenal, HP 2740p, was too heavy compared to that tablet envisioned in the famous Productivity Future Vision 2009 video.
Fortunately, in 2011, Samsung shipped Samsung Slate 7 Series which provided a slate/tablet Windows device with ink input and multitouch, but lack of keyboard limited it’s usability, proving my point. While I still use it at my home, it was too pricey and heavy for its scenarios.
In 2012, Microsoft shipped Windows 8 and a line of Microsoft Surface devices. It was an excellent next step after pure slates:
Unlike pure slates Surface line introduced attachable keyboard and a kickstand, making them closer to the classic 2-in-1s. Unlike the latter, though, Surface devices were less heavy, and could work as pure slates when needed.
A year later, in December 2013, I’ve purchased Surface Pro 2, and used it to build my startup’s software, Zet Universe. In December 2014 I’ve purchased an ultrawide display, and with it and an external keyboard and mouse Surface Pro 2 became a real productivity solution for me.
As the time went by, it became clear that this 2-in-1 format wasn’t really usable. I rarely disconnected my Surface Pro 2 from its periphery, and used my phone on the go.
Same happened at Yandex which provided me a corporate ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop. At this point I’ve got appetite to use a GPU, and after Carbon and Surface Pro 2 I’ve decided to buy Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga 2nd Gen, as well as a USB-C dock station for work, and Thunderbolt-3 ASUS Rog Station 2 for home. This was a move from slates to a more classic laptop form-factor, but Yoga still had both multitouch screen and first-class pen input. I’ve expected to use in the Yoga form (pictured above), but the reality of my usage (even with USB-C dock) led to the situation where both removing Yoga from the dock, or even using it for drawing/taking notes quite impractical.
In 2019, I’ve spent several months in Seattle, and brought my Lenovo Yoga X1 with me. I’ve traveled a lot between different locations including co-working places, coffee shops, and so on, and it became clear to me that it is more practical to have a powerful portable device that you can make even more powerful through Thunderbolt 3/USB-C dock, and have a separate tablet for quick note taking and inking.
Why Surface Go?
It was a full loop. In early 2018 I’ve purchased a Lenovo Android-based tablet which although didn’t have pen support, was also quite buggy. I didn’t want to invest more into Android-based tablets so I wanted to experiment with the rest of what the market could offer. Even though my main phone was Samsung Note 8, and I really loved it, Samsung’s S-Pen-enabled tablets were really costly. And so I’ve purchased some late 2018 Apple iPad with Pencil (1st gen), but didn’t really like it, and returned it after less than two weeks of use. Just a very few apps (Paper by 53, Microsoft Office, built-in Notes) were optimized for pen input, and I felt limited in what I could do on my tablet.
Instead, I’ve purchased Microsoft Surface Go with Surface Pen. In the beginning it was the cheapest version, but once I’ve realized that I like it, I’ve replaced it with the bigger LTE 8GB model. In the end, my choice was between Samsung Galaxy tablets, Apple iPad Pro, and Microsoft Surface Go. At that time Microsoft Surface Go was the cheapest thing. I also knew that I could run anything I want on it, as well as easily build apps for it.
Actually, there was a something I actually wanted to experiment with. Another cool project that was shut down alongside with Microsoft Semantic Engine was Courier, a foldable device designed for the best note-taking and inking experience:
Back in mid-2019, there were just rumors of foldable devices from Samsung and Lenovo, and it was clear that something big was coming.
Surface Go was an opportunity to prepare for that, and together with friends we’ve experimented with re-building that Courier’s Shell on it:
In the end, my work experience led to a situation where I have a portable main device with multitouch and pen input that I can bring with me around the world, but other than that I keep it connected to it’s Thunderbolt 3/USB-C hub both at work and at home. While I sometimes use multitouch and pen on my Yoga, the big number of cables connected to it made it impractical to draw on it.
And this is why my Surface Go LTE shines. I use it to take notes, draw diagrams, and create paintings. It is also quite useful for information consumption scenarios, like watching videos and lightweight web surfing, as well as chatting with friends via IM. And thanks to an attachable keyboard it can also help with productivity scenarios that require typing. Finally, on Surface Go I could make a second step towards modeling the future of mobile productivity machines based on the Courier ideas.
Why Windows 10X?
However, while my Surface Go LTE was a fascinating device for my scenarios, it still was powered by big, heavy Windows 10 desktop OS, and it was often buried by OS activity when all I basically wanted was to take notes.
This is where Windows 10X comes in.
Unlike Windows 10 client, Windows 10X is very lightweight. Working with it feels like running Windows XP after living with Windows Vista. It’s that lightweight!
Note: Windows 10X is designed to run on devices specifically built for it. This means that although you can use our unofficial guide of running Windows 10X on real hardware, your mileage will vary. Neither Surface Go nor any other existing device (maybe except Lenovo’s X1 Fold) were designed with Windows 10X in mind. This means that whatever you can get from 10X on your hardware isn’t representative of your experience of 10X on the hardware designed for it.
In the video below I’ve recorded today using my Vuzix AR Blade I’m running Windows 10X build 20279 which was rumored to be RTM (but isn’t, according to newer rumors) on my Microsoft Surface Go LTE. Several devices don’t work:
- both front and rear cameras,
- Windows Hello camera,
- built-in Wi-Fi (I’ve used external USB Wi-Fi Dongle connected to Surface Go via Samsung’s USB-C to USB-A connector),
- device orientation (no rotation),
- GPS
Several system devices also don’t work.
This is also not a final RTM build of Windows 10X.
Oh, and it’s a Test release of Windows 10X, with additional things like kernel debugging.
There were also problems with Office Mobile apps (though my build is a Test version of OS, so maybe it’s the unsupported scenario by default), and I was unable to connect my Surface Go on 10X to my Office 365 work accounts.
So, as I’ve said before, this is just a glimpse of Windows 10X experience, and you should wait for the compatible hardware to make judgement.
With that said, here’s the video for you:
As you can see, Windows 10X can run a number of apps from Microsoft Store, it natively supports multitouch and pen input, and it’s very fast and fluid. It also doesn’t have a concept of windows that can take only a part of the screen. While it might sound ridiculous, for a note-taking and drawing experience you don’t really want windows to change their size as you work with computer. You also need to have zero interruptions. Desktop OS will always stay in your way, but on 10X you are in control.
An even though there is no Courier shell on Surface Go, a built-in feature (since Windows 7) to have two apps side-by-side gives some of that vibe:
Is Windows 10X ideal for Surface Go class of devices?
This is a crucial question. I’m tempted to say yes, Windows 10X is an awesome OS for Surface Go class of devices.
It has a plenty of excellent working apps designed for note taking and drawing (OneNote, Bamboo Notes, Sticky Notes, Drawboard PDF, Microsoft Whiteboard, Bambo Paper, Sketchable, etc.).
Surface Pen also works well (however, you need to adapt in the beginning to it), with minimal parallax.
There are several limitations:
- Microsoft Edge should be way better optimized for living on this class of devices (this is a wish for all Chromium-based browsers to work faster on Windows OS in general, though),
- Cutting, dragging and dropping items from web browser to note taking apps should work like on Surface Duo,
- There should be a better user experience for working with documents and so on,
- Windows 10 Mail and Calendar need to be bundled with the OS; I know that project Monarch (One Outlook) is coming to replace it, but this will only happen in the end of year,
- Lack of support for running traditional Win32 apps.
I’m also not entirely buying the concept of PWAs, and believe that UWP-based apps are a better choice for such lightweight devices.
With that said, it is known that Windows 10X team is working on enabling running Win32 apps without compromising the experience.
Dawn Of A New Era Of Productivity
While Windows 10X on Surface Go is a surprisingly fluid and beautiful experience (for me), we need to put this into the perspective. After more than a decade living with 2-in-1s and ending up with Surface Go class of devices for portable note taking I tend to agree with my ex-colleagues from Microsoft. The future of productivity is about devices that are more fluid and tangible unlike Surface Go and its class of devices.
While Surface Neo is a foray into the dual-screen devices inspired by Microsoft Courier, I urge you to take a look at Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold.
Unlike the (postponed) Surface Neo, Lenovo X1 Fold has a foldable screen:
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold, of course, is a very costly device. Much pricier than Surface Go. But it is expected as it is the first of the category-defining devices. It’s premium. I believe that in the future we will see something even more fluid, like the paper-like table showcased in the last Microsoft Productivity Future Vision (2015):
Conclusion
I firmly believe that while the road to Windows 10X today was a very long and rocky one, today we can finally see the well-deserved first fruits.
10X on Surface Go is just a glimpse of the exciting future of productivity powered by new device form factors. There will be more fluid devices that will cost around what Surface Go costs today. They will run Windows 10X, with UWP, PWA, and lightweight Win32 apps locally, while heavier Win32 apps will be delivered via the cloud.
And I’m for one can’t wait to see that future and experience it by myself!
P.S. If you want to try out Windows 10X on your Surface Go or other relatively modern Surface Go-class device, find DCH drivers and use our unofficial guide on running Windows 10X on real hardware. Beware that Windows 10X wasn’t designed to run on existing hardware so not all drivers might work and in general YMMV.
