Microsoft Surface Studio 

You will Fall in Love

The Surface Studio is a most impressive desktop that has already shaken up the all-in-one PC landscape, however, its exorbitant price makes it an extravagant dream for everyone but artists and illustrators.

Since Microsoft got into the hardware world in earnest, every Surface device has been about breaking molds. Surface has made a name for itself as a tablet that can truly replace your laptop and the ultimate laptop, each taking a unique flip on the 2-in-1 format. Now, Microsoft has set its sights on revolutionizing the desktop space with the Surface Studio, a 28-inch all-in-one designed to be the ultimate creative workstation.

On one hand, it one ups the long-established
iMac with an even sleeker design by moving the computing parts from behind the screen to the base. On the other, putting digital pen to screen has never felt more natural, thanks to the massive, 28-inch touchscreen that effortlessly folds down into a virtual drafting table orientation.

Turn your desk into a Studio

Surface Studio is an entirely new device designed for the creative process. Its roomy and adjustable 28-inch PixelSense Display provides a huge canvas for all kinds of work. Position it upright to sketch, paint, and edit photos, or lay it flat to draw on it like a drafting table. With Surface Studio, the possibilities are limitless.

We’ve seen some truly impressive displays, such as the 5K iMac and Dell's ridiculous 8k monitor, but the Surface Studio takes the cake. 

Although 4,500 x 3,000 pixels isn’t the sharpest resolution in the world, it is sharper than a 4K display without being overzealous. This combination of screen resolution and size with the Studio’s 3:2 aspect also means you can snap four separate programs to each corner and still have a legible view of each app. Frankly, the size and resolution feel just right.

Microsoft’s nearly perfect sense of color gamut and contrast carries over to its latest PixelSense display. Additionally, there are more color profiles to choose from, including sRGB, Vivid, and DCI-P3 to make it a truly production-grade display.

A brilliant screen for your ideas

Strikingly large and incredibly thin, the razor-sharp PixelSense Display draws you in with its immersive picture quality. Lose yourself in 10-bit color depth, visualize ideas as you paint, edit, and design, then watch your ideas leap off the screen with 13.5 million pixels of true-to-life color and clarity. From across the room or just 10 inches away, the view is always inspiring.

Effortlessly transforms from desk to studio

Whether upright in Desktop Mode or lying flat in Studio Mode, Surface Studio delivers amazing versatility to enhance the creative process. Touch, draw, visualize, and develop your ideas—just like you would on a sheet of paper. And when used with a unique set of tools like Surface Pen, Surface Dial, and Windows Ink, you’ll have even more control over the way you create.

Ready for your workday

Designed to handle your most hectic workday, Surface Studio features a brilliant, adjustable display that's ideal for collaborating and sharing work with teammates. And video calls feel like face-to-face meetings thanks to the 1080p camera and speakers powered by premium Dolby Audio. It also features the enterprise-grade security of Windows Hello  which quickly signs you in with just a look.

From the moment we saw the Surface Studio , we knew we were in love.

There isn’t any shortage of impressive desktops what with Apple’s ever-thinning iMacs to the six-speaker sound on Dell’s XPS 27 AIO. However, nothing beats the simplicity and elegance of the Surface Studio.

By moving all the components to the basement, so to speak, the display is just a touchscreen with remarkably thin bezels. Without that rear bump, the profile of the screen is a mere 12.5mm, making it slimmer than virtually any dedicated monitor.

There’s also no fat chin underneath the screen to flaunt a Windows logo – actually, it’s refreshing to see no branding anywhere except for a mirrored logo on the back.

The Surface Studio is a modern and minimalistic desktop designed with straight edges and a simple gray on chrome aesthetic. The base of the desktop takes this one step farther by simply being a nearly featureless, ashen box. The noticeable element is a subtle line that wraps around the perimeter of the Studio’s foundation to provide cooling for the mobile computing parts contained within.

The power you need

With 6th Gen Intel Core processors and discrete NVIDIA GeForce graphics, Surface Studio is the ultimate device for running professional-grade software like SOLIDWORKS, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Autodesk. And when paired with Surface Pen and Surface Dial, these powerful applications take creative versatility to a whole new level.

You might balk at the graphics chip from last year and the less-than-current Skylake processor on its spec sheet, but the Surface Studio keeps up with other all-in-one machines.

Thanks to its high-end GPU, this desktop pulls well ahead of the XPS 27 AIO and iMac with 5K Retina screen with a Fire Strike score that’s nearly four times higher. Unfortunately, the Studio’s processing power doesn’t prove to be impressive, and its more CPU-intensive benchmark scores lag behind.

Benchmarks aside, this desktop knows how to put in work. Microsoft’s AIO never buckled, even as we loaded up dozens of tabs on two web browsers, a separate Google Music streaming app, Slack, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator all at the same time. Even Lightroom, which usually grinds gaming laptops to a halt, ran smoothly on the Studio as we processed images for this review.

Meticulously crafted

Built with striking lines and a small footprint, Surface Studio has a minimal and modern design that fits perfectly in any workspace. It features a counterbalanced hinge that effortlessly moves between Desktop Mode and Studio Mode, creating the perfect way to work.

A canvas for your ideas

Get more from Surface Studio with Surface Pen and Surface Dial. Pen rests in your hand comfortably for natural writing and erasing. It features 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity and a working eraser. And with Dial, simply click and hold it to display a radial menu of tools that make it easier and faster to work in applications like Adobe Creative Cloud, Bluebeam, and more.

Best care and support at Microsoft Stores

When you buy a Surface from Microsoft Store, you'll receive unrivaled customer service and personalized care, including a 30-day return policy, 90 days of free technical phone support, 12 months in-store support and technical assistance, 1 complimentary training session, and more.

Pricing and availability

Microsoft’s Surface devices are usually aimed to be premium, but the Surface Studio is on another level with a starting price of $2,999 or AU$4,699 (about £2,390). Every version of this AIO comes with a 28-inch (4,500 x 3,000) display. But, at this level, you’ll be getting an Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive (with an integrated 64GB SSD) and an Nvidia GTX 965 (2GB GDDR5 VRAM) graphics.

Ratcheting up to $3,499 or AU$5,499 (about £2,790) takes you to the next SKU, doubling the memory and upgrading it to the same Intel Core i7 CPU as our review configuration.

Finally, our own review configuration costs an astronomical $4,199 or AU$6,599 (about £3,350) for another two times increase in RAM and a much larger 2TB HDD (with an integrated 128GB SSD). Graphics also gets a significant upgrade with the Nvidia GTX 980M (4GB GDDR5 VRAM).

To say the least, this is a very pricy desktop indeed. Even if you were to max out the configuration of a
Dell XPS 27 AIO, it wouldn’t even come close at $3,299 or £2,999 (about AU$4,320). However, a top of the line iMac with 5K Retina Display priced at $3,999 (£3,779, AU$6,319) doesn’t seem like much of a bargain considering the stronger specs on Microsoft’s desktop offering. 

Conclusion

There’s no doubt the Surface Studio is impressive or that you’ll probably love it at first sight as well. However, that eye-watering price is something to be heavily considered before you make the dive.

If you’re just looking for an all-in-one PC for your everyday computing or office work, you’ll be much better served by an iMac, Dell XPS 17 AIO or HP Envy 27 Aio. Videographers and photographers would arguably be better served by a similar system with higher-end specs, a dedicated desktop or building their own PC (or two) for the price of a standard Surface Studio.

However, for artists and especially illustrators the Surface Studio introduces a new wrinkle into a world primarily dominated by Wacom tablets. Not only does the Surface Studio allow you to sketch and inspect your picture with one device, the visual quality of the PixelSense display is far greater than that of Wacom’s Cintiq display or Dell's new 27 inch Canvas.

For those reasons, we’ll reiterate that the Surface Studio would best serve artists and illustrators. It’s without a doubt one of the finest premium computing devices ever produced, but there’s no reason regular users should purchase this unless they’re in the market for the highest-end iMac and want more options...or bragging rights.