Microsoft's entry-level budget devices, the new Surface Laptop Go 3 and Surface Go 4 for Business, are finally ditching starting configurations with 4GB of RAM. Thank goodness!
It may seem like a small change, but several of Microsoft's customers, like Dell and HP, have largely eschewed 4GB configurations, especially on premium products.
Both previous generations of these devices started at 4GB of RAM. And in theory, Microsoft could have tried to justify doing so again; After all, 4GB is the minimum memory to run Windows 11. One demo rep on Microsoft's show floor told me, "4GB isn't good enough for anything."
But now, even at their base configurations, both start at 8GB of RAM. The Surface Laptop Go 3 starts at $799, while the Surface Go 4 for Business begins at $579 (but I'm sure you'll want to buy a keyboard).
It's all about time. I've been seeing fewer and fewer machines start at 4GB. Those that do primarily come off as attempts to upsell to 8GB. Now, if only they would bump up the Go 4 for Business' starting storage from 64GB!
Today's Surface event saw other memory-related news. The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is the first Surface machine ever to feature 64GB of memory, marking a high point for RAM in Microsoft laptops.
Clearly, for Microsoft, 8GB is the new 4GB. Hopefully, that new memory helps increase performance for Copilot, which was announced today and will generally be available on September 26.
Thank Goodness: Microsoft's Budget Surface Entries All Start With 8GB RAM
