If you haven’t yet heard of it, take a minute to look at Microsoft’s just announced Surface Studio. Here’s a link to the product page. Spend a few minutes, scroll down, look at all the images. Key to the Surface Studio is the stand which allows the touch screen to lay down at a 20 degree angle, perfect for drawing.
At first blush, the Surface Studio is targeted at creatives, the original heart and soul of the Mac market. But there’s more.
From the product page:
Surface Studio is great for unwinding after long workdays. Settle in with a movie or binge watch your favorite shows on the roomy screen. Share pictures from your last vacation with friends and family. Play your favorite games with a paired Xbox Wireless Controller.
This smacks of ecosystem, something that Microsoft owned for a long time, then ceded to Apple and Google. This is Microsoft clawing back into the game.
Now take a minute to read this review from “Gabe” (alter ego of illustrator Mike Krahulik) at web-comic Penny Arcade. Gabe is living with a Surface Studio and, obvious as you make your way through his review, he absolutely loves it, it’s the computer of his dreams.
Pay special attention to the Surface Dial, a big silver cylinder that looks like a good-sized volume knob, laid on its back.
Have you ever turned the volume knob on a ridiculously high end piece of audio equipment and felt that smooth resistance that makes you weak in the knees? Now imagine that knob is just sitting on your desk and you can make it control all kinds of stuff.
While I am drawing, a counterclockwise turn is undo while turning the other way is redo. The Dial has built in haptics so each step backwards or forwards is accompanied by a “click” I can feel in the device. It can also be pushed like a button or pushed and held to bring up a customizeable radial menu. This menu is customizable so I can easily make that same motion zoom in and out or control the volume of my music. While you are working you can hold it in whatever position is comfortable. You can keep it on the screen or on the desk, it has a slightly tacky bottom so it stays and feels good wherever you put it.
This type of interface is not new, but the Surface Dial (normally $100) ships free as part of the Surface Studio pre-order.
Next up, from Macworld’s take by Susie Ochs, Spec for spec, the iMac is a bargain over the Surface Studio.
The best Surface Studio you can order is $4,199. It’s got the Intel Core i7 processor, a whopping 32GB of RAM, a 2TB hybrid drive (again, the same thing as a Fusion drive on a Mac), and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 memory.
Versus:
A fully maxed out 27-inch iMac would cost $4,099 if you ordered it today, with the same Core i7, 32GB of RAM, and 4GB of graphics memory as you’d get it in the top-of-the-line Surface Studio. The iMac would have 1TB of faster solid-state storage, compared to the 2TB hybrid drive in the Surface Studio, and the Microsoft machine has an Nvidia GPU to the iMac’s AMD.
No touchscreen on the iMac, though, and that’s at the heart of the matter. Worth noting that we will likely see an upgraded iMac very soon, if not today. Which should tilt the price performance curve towards the Mac.
Finally, there’s this from longtime developer Brent Simmons:
What if the Surface Studio takes over as the computer for people who make things? And what if we could bring over some of our investment (such as learning Swift) with us?
I never thought to even consider that as a possible future.
Tomorrow’s going to be a weird day, as new Macs will inevitably be compared to the Surface Studio, on the Surface Studio’s terms.
Dogs and cats. The apocalypse. Zombie date night. It‘s all happening.
Looking forward to see what Apple has up its sleeves.
Good for Microsoft. This looks like a solid machine for creatives.
Dave, the link you provided above was the Studio’s page in the Microsoft Store. I believe this link is the actual product page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/surface-studio
You can tell it’s a computer product page by its similarity to Apple’s page layouts. 😉
FWIW, the Dial sounds like a great idea that improves upon Griffin Technology’s Powermate, a gizmo that’s been around for over a decade.
I suppose the respective ecosystems and user experiences will ultimately determine the success of each system.
I’d still like to know the actual factors which prompted that NFL coach to drop kick his Surface.
The one difference people aren’t highlighting in the specs comparison is the touch screen. I was talking to a friend today whose wife works on CAD, and who would love to use a computer like that. The iMac won’t let you do any sort of touchy stuff.
I’m of two minds there. First as you say it’s very compelling to have a touch screen…
…until you have to clean it. I predict a new wave of screen-cleaning products that don’t damage such screens – and my MacBook being completely clean for the first time since I bought it. (Taking finger grease off the keyboard is a feature, not a bug, right?)
Very cool, but not $3000+ cool. Still, I suspect we’ll see lots of trickle down in the larger PC market over the next few years.
Thanks, Mo. Fixed. Yet another reason I am glad you are part of the Loop community. Cheers!
High praise, sir. Thank you for that.
Apple doing well with enterprise. Microsoft chasing creatives.
Tis strange times we are living in…
I can understand the attraction. If I had more work that required pulling my old Wacom off the shelf and hooking it up, I’d be making much more noise about this machine.
I imagine the Studio is already being eyed by screen-film-applique manufacturers, at least for testing.
It’s only slightly more expensive than a similarly-specced iMac. I imagine it’s going to get quite a bit of attention from artists and retouchers.
It boggles my mind that blogs still try and compare a machine the runs OSX and one that can’t. If it can’t run OSX then it’s a deal-breaker. Windows is a POS and I am 10x more productive in OSX than Windows.
Last years CPU and gpu for 3-4K? No thanks. Would love an iMac refresh with an AMD 480 or GTX 1060 or 1070 with a touch screen. As it is, depending on today’s announcement may just keep my 2015 MBP and build a high end windows gaming system for ~ 1300
Surface displays and pens are fine for consumer use, but not for professional artists. They lack the accuracy, minimal lag-time, and user features of professional graphics tablets like the Wacom Cintiq.
Professional artists make their livelihood from the top-notch equipment they use. They are NOT going to buy a Surface Studio if it means that their work (and income) will suffer.
The problem is that the Surface Studio is not really attractive to professional graphic artists and video editors, and at the same time with a price range of $3,000 to $4,200 it is not affordable for consumers to use either.
AFAIK it has no thunderbolt at all, what a shame.
Another thing to remember: The iMac has no touchscreen because Apple and lots of users do not WANT to touch the screen.
Touch + this knob thing vs. a good mouse? No chance.
Then there are artists, that might want to draw on this surface thingy. I hope for them, that the touch capabilities and responsiveness of the display are on par with say an iPad Pro. If not, they might still use the iPad Pro. And you can draw a huge image using the iPad Pro by just zooming and scrolling, you do not need a 28 inch display.
And, face it: A real, big canvas can be used in ways, that no touch screen will ever replicate.
“It’s unlikely we were ever going to see anything this relatively cool from Dell or HP”
Three years ago, in 2013, Dell had the Inspiron 2350 which cost about half of the starting price for the Surface Studio, but had a smaller display.
It had the same type of cantilever arm, and the small base had the computer built-in, just like the Surface Studio.
Yeah the iMac doesn’t really compete with the Studio. 1) no touchscreen, 2) the Studio makes it easy to USE the touchscreen by letting you tilt and adjust it so it’s like a drawing surface, not a screen.
This is utterly niche and for most of us, totally irrelevant. But for people who can use these features, this is a really nice computer. More dangerously for Apple, this shows MS is willing to focus on a niche, design for that niche and price it right. These things start at $3k – it’s not a price competition, it’s all about winning on features.
While I have zero interest in it, I’m impressed. If you spend most of your day in Creative Cloud apps and draw a lot, I can see this being very tempting. After all, much of the advantage of the OS vanishes if you’re inside CC for 90% of your day.
Based on everything I’ve read and Belichick’s comments, it seems like it’s completely due to wireless network connectivity. On a good day, wireless connectivity is utter garbage in a densely crowded environment like a sports stadium.
Obviously you didn’t read the reviews because Gabe, a professional artist, compared it favorable to the Cintiq.
“If you are a digital artist and you are currently working on a Cintiq you have to go to a MS store and look at the Studio. I’ve always given you my honest take on this stuff and this time is no different even though I can’t think of anything bad to say. If you draw on computers the Surface Studio is something very special.”
read the excerpt above from Gabe.
Apple can’t do anything like the Surface desktop. They haven’t laid the groundwork for it. The dial is cute but it’s hard to imagine anything that it does that wouldn’t be done faster with a mouse or pen or keyboard. The dial can switch functions, sure, but it doesn’t switch magically. You have to go change the functions, and then it’s back to being a large thing changing one single setting. I like the desktop though.
This from Gabe of Penny Arcade:
He notes: “drawing on the Cintiq now felt like drawing on a piece of dirty plexiglass hovering over a CRT monitor from 1997. ”
“The Cintiq and the Surface, these are like my tools or my instruments. I am intimately familiar with how it feels to create things on these sorts of devices and the Studio honestly feels like a generational leap forward. If you are a digital artist and you are currently working on a Cintiq you have to go to a MS store and look at the Studio. I’ve always given you my honest take on this stuff and this time is no different even though I can’t think of anything bad to say. If you draw on computers the Surface Studio is something very special.”
What were the build quality and after-sale support like?
Did it include (or even support) a pressure-sensitive stylus like the Surface Studio? How precise was the touch screen? The Surface Studio’s ability to provide an incredible experience for on-screen drawing is the key feature that has allowed the Surface Pro to succeed where all other non-iPad tablets have failed.
And again Ms has no idea how to make hardware! You cannot use the machine as a desktop PC and a big tablet without reconfiguring the desk. Therefore its useless as desktop when setup as a tablet and vise versa! If the thing tilted back and moved TOWARD you it might work but it tilts away from you, you then have to reach over your keyboard, or stand up and bend over to use it. Again they prove the neither can do software or hardware!
Except its unusable!
DUH its made buy MS it was trying to download a bug fix while he was using it. 10th bug fix that game!
Then all you have is a big tablet it cannot be used as both without reconfiguring your workspace with each change. MS never used the thing.
“Apple can’t do anything like the Surface desktop. They haven’t laid the groundwork for it.”
LOL LOL LOL LOL you get stupid comment of the day!
You blew past the relevant part of Kirk’s comment:
“… whose wife works on CAD”
She’s likely not drawing with her fingers on it, she’s one of the targets for a sensitive, high quality touch screen and because of that if she does have to clean smudges it will be fine because she’ll be getting real benefit from it.
I’m the opposite – I don’t ever draw on my screen, I don’t care about doing it and so as cool as this looks, I’d never buy it. But I think this really is the right way to do a large touch screen – make it adjustable so it can naturally act like a drawing surface. It’s why I don’t see touch screen laptops as anything but a gimmick…. you can’t do that with them and if you detach the screen you might as well use a real, touch aware OS, i.e. iOS on an iPad Pro
Your laughter really is hilarious, but you’re likely not smart enough to understand why. The groundwork I’m talking about it preparing the OS for touch, which Apple has assiduously refused to do. Until they do that, they can’t produce something like this. Feel free to explain how I’m wrong.
You’re wrong because you have no idea what kind of work Apple has done. No one knew OSX could run on Intel until they announced it. You wouldn’t know if they’ve made it touch capable until they announce that either.
It is a weird day when Microsoft shows off a user interface improvement that can double a user’s productivity and Apple shows off a new kind of geegaw they have bolted onto their laptop like HP or Samsung in order to impress tech bloggers and other gear heads.
My MacBook Pro is generally anchored to a desk by devices that workaround its lack of a touchscreen. For example, Wacom Tablet for drawing and painting and precision touch work, an iPad that provides touch controls for Ableton Live, a mixer surface that lets me touch Logic. If my MacBook Pro is anchored to my desk by lack of touch, then what point is there in making it 20% thinner, or 50% better battery life, or lighter in weight? The only possible improvement that could be made is to build the pen-and-touch in so I can take the Mac off the desk and put it into my bag with my 2 iPads.
The 2012 MacBook Pro revision disappointed me. The 2016 one made me realize I have to get away from the Apple gear because there is nobody flying the plane. There are only 2 possibilities: Apple is crippling the Mac to make us buy more iPads, or Apple really doesn’t know that the primary missing feature of MacBook Pro since 2010 when the first iPad shipped is touch. Either of those possibilities is like an invitation to get the F off the platform.
Perhaps more $3000+ cool than you think. The established player in this space is Wacom’s 27″ Cintiq, which is just a $2300 pen- and touch-enabled monitor (BYO $1000+ computer to drive it), and even with its optional $400 stand it’s a bear to switch between monitor use and tablet use.
All the features of the Cintiq, plus a computer, plus the Surface Dial, for a couple grand? There are going to be a lot of creatives excited by that, assuming they’re already on Windows.
Chasing creatives is one of Microsoft’s cyclical pursuits, but usually it just amounts to marketing at us for a year or two while not addressing their platform’s shortcomings for our needs. But hey, maybe it’ll stick this time with extra effort of the “Creators Update” and Surface Studio!
Have you tried a Surface product? A current one? Because that’s certainly not the experience of myself or many other reviewers or professional creatives. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to use a Surface Studio, but I wouldn’t expect it to be worse than the current tablets.
If anything, the shortcomings are in having to run Windows (thus my perpetual decision not to purchase a Surface), not in the digitizer hardware.
You may have heard of this plucky little Apple project called iOS.
Well thank God for that. Creatives everywhere can choose between a 13″ tablet that doesn’t run Photoshop and a 28″ computer that does.
We do know, because Apple execs keep talking about it. They talked about it with CNet right before the launch of the new MBPs, and that article was published yesterday). It’s clear that they’ve made prototypes of touch Macs. But actually releasing one requires more than just a hardware bump. It requires changes to the UI and to the OS infrastructure. Those changes haven’t been spotted in Sierra. The earliest such changes can appear would be WWDC 2017. Devs would then have to adapt their apps to the new touch targets. And the earliest Apple would be able to release a touch-enabled Mac would be 2017.
You do know that you can use a mouse with the Surface, right? And the iMac has no touchscreen because Apple tells users they don’t want to touch the screen. How many times have you seen someone accustomed to an iPad reach out to press a button on the Mac screen? I’ve seen it a lot. When an adult does it, there’s a moment of embarrassment and an “Oh yeah. Silly me.” When it’s a little kid, there’s a moment of bafflement and a “Why didn’t that work?” Apple is probably right that using a vertical touch screen becomes laborious after too long. But as we see with the surface, a clever designer should have realized screens might go flat; and he or she should have conceded that hybrid interaction is possible (some things as touch, lots of things as keyboard and mouse). And as the owner of a fine iPad Pro that I love very much, there’s really no comparison. The iPad Pro doesn’t run Photoshop or ZBrush or Maya (though the Surface is a bit hobbled by mobility graphics, everyone running Maya on an iMac is in the same boat).
No, you know what they’ve said, not what they’ve done.
Of course the earliest they could release one is 2017; they’ve released everything for this year already.
Also, I never said they were going to release a touch screen Mac. I’m sure they won’t. Not this year or next year.
Odd that they didn’t improve the stylus to be more in-line with professional digital pens, though.
If Apple replaced the MacBook’s physical keyboard with a full touchscreen, you’d complain that they’d taken away the only physical feature that gives a laptop its advantage for certain tasks. And you’d be right to do so.
The Touch Bar is a macro. Some people will find it useful, some won’t.
Gee i wonder where apple came up with the touch technology they have on their iPads? They pioneered touch. LOL you really are a MS shill
Knobs like this are used in the music industry since the 1980’s.
Key thing with the Microsoft Dial is it sits on the screen when the screen is flat, and menus appear onscreen underneath it. The on-desk use is more pedestrian.
The only computers I am interested in are Surface Studio, Surface Pro 4, iPad Pro, iPad mini, and iPhone. I already have the last three. I wish there was still a Mac on that list, but I am a graphic artist and the external graphics tablet that Macs require is a chore because it requires a desk and I simply can no longer deal with that now that it is no longer necessary. When you see it side-by-side, Apple is asking me to spend 25% more, carry over twice the size and weight, use AC power instead of batteries, and sit at a desk instead of anywhere I want. When you consider that a big reason that I don’t want a desk is 10 years of iOS use and multiple iPads, it is really ironic. The Apple lineup is so screwed up right now that people tell me I’m an idiot for wanting Surface, they say get iPad Pro, but when I tell them iPad Pro has the right interface but almost no pro graphics software — even less than Windows — they say well get a Mac, then. Anything to avoid admitting that Tim Cook said some really stupid shit about multitouch in 2011 and nobody knows how to walk it back.
I know. That’s why I said it improves upon the Powermate’s idea.
And thank you for reminding me that a specialized industry has specialized hardware for its specialists to work with. 😉