The Microsoft Surface Studio Review
by Brett Howse on January 20, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Desktop
- Microsoft
- Surface
- Surface Studio
Microsoft has only been in the PC system game for a few years now, but over the last couple of years they have made a lot of progress rather quickly. These days they have a solid foundation of products available, with the Surface Pro 4 being one of the best convertible tablets, the Surface Book being a very solid convertible laptop, and also the more specialized products like the Hololens, and Surface Hub. Going into their October 2016 event, the one missing piece of their PC product lineup was a desktop computer, but with the announcement and release of the Surface Studio, that particular gap has now been filled.
But the Surface Studio is not your typical desktop PC. Even at first glance, the sleek, beautiful lines are readily apparent, and once powered on, it is rare for anyone to first glimpse the 28.125-inch 4500x3000 display and not say “wow”. It’s not only the very high resolution, but also the 3:2 aspect ratio that is unheard of in this segment, that makes the display stand out as something unique.
Microsoft has become one of the superlative hardware manufacturers in only the short span of four years or so, and the Surface Studio is one of their finest designs yet. However, from the very first Surface RT, Microsoft always tries to add something different, but more importantly interesting, to their designs, and in the case of the Surface Studio, it is the zero-gravity hinge, which allows the all-in-one to be quickly and easily tilted back to a 20° angle, letting it be used as a huge, digital drafting table. Microsoft announced the Surface Studio at their October Windows event, where they also announced the next Windows 10 Update, called the Creator’s Update, and it is wonderful to see them building hardware to truly bring out the exclusive features of their software.
Packed into the base of the Surface Studio is a laptop-class computer, with three different models available now. The base model, coming in at $2999, features an Intel Core i5-6440HQ processor, 8 GB of memory, a 1 TB hybrid drive with a 64 GB SSD cache, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M GPU. The mid-level model, which costs $3499, bumps the CPU up to an Intel Core i7-6820HQ, doubles the RAM to 16 GB, and doubles the SSD cache to a PCIe 128 GB model, with the same 1 TB HDD and GTX 965M. The highest priced model, at $4199, is an Intel Core i7-6820HQ, 32 GB of RAM, a 2 TB hybrid drive with a 128 GB PCIe cache, and a NVIDIA GTX 980M GPU with 4 GB of memory.
| Microsoft Surface Studio | ||||||
| Base | Middle | Top (As Tested) | ||||
| CPU | Intel Core i5-6440HQ Quad-Core, 2.6-3.5 GHz 6 MB Cache, 45W TDP, No Hyperthreading |
Intel Core i7-6820HQ Quad-Core, 2.7-3.6 GHz 8 MB Cache, 45W TDP, Hyperthreading |
||||
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 965M 1024 CUDA Cores 944 Mhz + Boost 2 GB GDDR5 128-bit memory |
NVIDIA GTX 980M 1536 CUDA Cores 1038 Mhz + Boost 4 GB GDDR5 256-bit memory |
||||
| RAM | 8 GB DDR4 | 16 GB DDR4 | 32 GB DDR4 | |||
| Storage | 1 TB Hybrid Drive 64 GB SATA SSD Cache / 1 TB SATA HDD |
1 TB Hybrid Drive 128 GB PCIe SSD Cache / 1 TB SATA HDD |
2 TB Hybrid Drive 128 GB PCIe SSD Cache / 2 TB SATA HDD |
|||
| IO | 4 USB 3.0 ports - one high power port Full size SD Card Slot Headset Jack Xbox Wireless Connectivity DisplayPort |
|||||
| Display | 28.125-inch PixelSense Display 4500 x 3000 resolution 192 DPI sRGB, DCI-P3, P3 D65 color modes |
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| Webcam | 5 MP Webcam Windows Hello Facial Recognition |
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| Networking | Marvel AVASTAR 802.11ac Intel I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet |
|||||
| Price | $2,999 | $3,499 | $4,199 | |||
There was quite a bit of discussion at the time of the Surface Studio launch over the fact that it was equipped with older technology. Intel’s Kaby Lake quad-core parts just launched at CES this year, so Skylake quad-core CPUs were the latest generation available at launch. The Maxwell based graphics options chosen were not the latest generation mobile graphics from NVIDIA, with the GTX 965M and GTX 980M available in the Studio. The Pascal based GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 would have been much more powerful substitutes, but they are not pin-compatible drop-in components with the Maxwell GPUs in the Surface Studio, meaning a new board design and thermal considerations would have been necessary late in the design phase, and Microsoft appears to have been conservative here to avoid missing their launch window.
Microsoft has also been very conservative with their I/O choices, with four USB 3.0 Type-A ports on the back of the Studio, along with a SD card slot, and mini DisplayPort. As with the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, Microsoft has continued to provide only the older USB-A ports, and not even offer a single USB-C port, let alone with Thunderbolt. Anyone purchasing a Studio will likely be using it for several years, and the lack of USB-C is going to be an issue in the future, if not already today. The Surface team really needs to reconsider this as it is already a detriment to not include any.
There also must be some questions raised about the use of a hybrid drive in a PC of this price. We’ll dig in to the experience later, but Microsoft could and should offer a larger SSD as the boot disk, complimented by a HDD as a secondary disk, at least on the highest end model. A 512 GB NVMe SSD as the boot drive would appease much of the criticism. The computer does cost over $4000 after all, and while much of the cost of the device is in the display, SSDs have been the biggest improvement in user experience on the PC in a long time.
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jlabelle2 - Friday, January 27, 2017 - link
- Unique doesn't automatically mean "better." I realize you want to defend this for psychological rather than practical reasons and that's completely okay.Correct (1st sentence) and wrong (2nd sentence).
And this is why I make a difference between the fixed trackpad and home button of the iPhone / Mac that serve absolutely no purpose compared to the SB hinge that have a clear functionality of pushing the screen further away of the base when open (to counteract its weight).
On top of that, it helps avoiding marking of the key on the screen but it is not its primary function.
Those have been explained to y ou but you still dismiss those and I don't know why even if you try to put some psychology into that whereas it is basic proven fact.
sorten - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
Apple only has 5% of the PC market, and yet we still take them seriously. Right? The Surface line has been very successful and very profitable for Microsoft. The Surface line has also brought innovation and excitement back into the PC market.hlovatt - Sunday, January 22, 2017 - link
Apple sells about 5 million macs per quarter and Microsoft sells about 1 million surface branded computers per quarter. Therefore Apple is significantly bigger than Microsoft in sales, the difference is even more in terms of revenue.However, despite the low sales of surface I am glad that Anandtech covers the surface range since they are innovative. I would also like to see more Apple coverage, likewise because it is innovative.
In general, I am keen on reviews of niche products and I am bored by reviews of mainstream except for providing a benchmark to judge the innovative products against.
fanofanand - Monday, January 23, 2017 - link
What exactly has Apple innovated in the last ten years?hlovatt - Monday, January 23, 2017 - link
Gee let me think for a second: iPhone, iPad, retina displays, gloss displays, uni-bodied products, all day battery life for laptops, touch pads on desktops, iMac style all-in-ones (which the studio owes a great deal to), ...Got bored if thinking of things, who do you suggest has done more?
fanofanand - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link
So Apple's innovation is taking someone else's idea and improving on it? And that impresses you? They didn't invent the smart phone, they didn't invent the tablet design or form-factor, retina is a marketing term, not anything "real". Glossy displays reflect light more and are difficult to see in several situations, they weren't the first to do an all-in-one, and what on earth do you mean by "touch pads on desktops"?Sorry but your list is weak, and is nothing but Apple taking other's ideas and running with it. Apple's only true "innovation" is making things pretty, and simple enough for tech illiterate folks to use them.
simonm - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link
And adding to hlovatt's list:Mostly solid-state trackpads with very realistic click sensation, MagSafe (RIP), best fingerprint reader, Thunderbolt, pressure sensitive phone screens. Lightning connector, which despite being propriotory is actually very good (I've had numerous micro USB cables break on me). Ultra-slim laptops. Plenty of software tech underpinning OS X (I refuse to call it macOS for a few years). Pushing to have sRGB phased out. Pushing adoption of USB-C (and collaborating on the spec).
The company may be greedy and risking their competitiveness but they have some good innovative tech that keeps them in the business. To say Apple isn't innovative is kind of a troll-worthy comment.
fanofanand - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link
TB was designed and invented by Intel, not Apple. solid-state trackpads? You realize they don't build those right? Pressure sensitive phone screens have been around for years. Best fingerprint reader is an opinion not a fact that can be validated. Ultra slim laptops are the bane of actual computing, they take dramatically reduced internals and jack up the price because "thin". "pushing adoption of USB-C" so now that's an innovation? I think your love of Apple has blinded you to the truth. Seriously, you said "with a very realistic click sensation" wtf does that even mean? Who decides what a "realistic click sensation" is? Pathetic fanboys.jlabelle2 - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
Yes Apple has realized really some innovation, but as Samsung or LG or Microsoft or others.But they have also push a lot of standard things with marketing terms to try to appropriate themselves a perception of innovation (high resolution screen, Thunderbolt, all-in-one..) or try to make "different" without advantages and tried to push that as innovative: glossy screen (often necessary with touchscreen tech but avoidable for non touch screen Mac), fix simulated trackpad (which is a complete non sense as the gain of place with the motor unexistant and worse than a real one), only USB-C ports, touch pad for desktop...
At last, they are very good at battery life but when it is at the expense of a TN low resolution non-touch screen like the iPad Air, it is just a different set of compromise than others.
And the lightning cables of Apple are abn absolute chores. They last 2-4 months in average and I must have had more than 10 cables failing as regularly as a clock. This is not per see a problem of the Lightning port but the construction but still...
osxandwindows - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
Apple pay, the first real mobile payments solution, airpods, it changed the wireless headphone market for the better, the smartwatch, little features with new updates and the new watch are innovative, little things that turn out to be really useful.