The Microsoft Surface Studio Review
by Brett Howse on January 20, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Desktop
- Microsoft
- Surface
- Surface Studio
Color Modes: sRGB, DCI-P3, and Vivid
Next up, let’s take a look at the color gamut accuracy on the three different display modes. sRGB is the one that most people are going to want to use most of the time, because most applications do not have any color management, but in the images below you can see just how much larger the P3 gamut is. It appears P3 is making its way to being the next gamut for computers, but without color management, it is going to be a messy transition.
sRGB
sRGB is still the default target for almost everything, so it is important to get this one right, even more than the others. You can see that the Surface Studio easily covers the sRGB gamut, and it is almost perfect at doing it. Really only the white levels bring the error levels up, with the colors almost perfect for this gamut.
DCI-P3
The sRGB gamut coverage was good, but the DCI-P3 is even better, with a much more accurate white point for this color space really helping the average error level here. But take a good look at the actual white point in the image, which is the square inside the triangle. On this color space, the white point shifts much higher into green, and away from the pure white you would expect of sunlight, which we call D65. The DCI-P3 gamut does not use D65, and is therefore not really going to be used much on the Surface Studio.
Vivid
Although called Vivid, this color mode is the correct P3 color space for computers, which is P3 D65. The gamut coverage is the same as DCI-P3, but the white point moves to the D65 point which is sunlight at noon. The Surface Studio is somehow even more accurate hitting this gamut than the two that are correctly named. Using the name Vivid is a poor choice in naming this when the other two color spaces are named correctly, so if you do own or buy a Studio, and you do want to look at P3 gamut content, Vivid is the correct color space to choose for this.
Color Accuracy
Now that we’ve looked at the various color spaces, it’s time to examine each one individually to see how the Surface Studio performs when set to each color space.
sRGB
On the sRGB tests, the grayscale and saturation tests were done to the new 2017 standard of 4-bit steps rather than 5% and 20% steps respectively. This gives a better picture of what the display is doing, and a much more accurate gamma result.
Grayscale
Microsoft nailed the gamma, which should be 2.2, and it very nearly is. However some errors creep up in the grayscale as the image gets closer to 100% white, with the red levels too high, and green a bit low. Overall, it’s still a very good average result, but not perfect. Notice how far they have come since the Surface Pro 3.
Saturation
Once again, other than the white level errors at 100% white, the saturation result is fantastic. An overall error level of just 1.36 is very strong, and the individual color traces show that there are no real issues with any of the primary or secondary colors when set to sRGB.
Gretag Macbeth
This test is the most comprehensive test, covering a large number of color points, including the important flesh tones. Here, again, the Surface Studio ends up with a fantastic result, and other than a single color, most of the errors are less than two, with many much closer to one. The sRGB results have started off very strong.
DCI-P3
Grayscale
When testing for the DCI-P3 color space, the gamma changes to 2.4, and the Surface Studio correctly hits this gamma as well. Across the entire grayscale sweep, the red, blue, and green levels are very consistent, and the average error level is just 1.27, which is outstanding. The display hits this new gamma and white point almost perfectly.
Saturation
Continuing its impressive results, the Surface Studio is practically perfect on the DCI-P3 saturation sweeps. The blue results and 100% white are the only real issues, but neither of them are really much of an issue at all.
Gretag Macbeth
An average error level under one is a great result again, and although there are a few individual colors that jump up to dE 2000 of three or so, almost every color tested is well under one.
Vivid (P3 D65)
Grayscale
The P3 D65 gamut moves back to a gamma of 2.2, and the Surface Studio nicely hits that. The error levels on the grays are all very low, with only 97.3% white jumping over the two line. The D65 white point is also almost perfect, with the red just a bit higher than it should be, but not to a level that would be very noticeable.
Saturation
The saturation graph is amazingly accurate. Only 20% yellow even crosses the one mark, outside of white and black.
Gretag Macbeth
Finally, the Gretag Macbeth test continues the trend of fantastic display calibration on the Surface Studio. Just a single color tested has an error level over three, with pretty much the rest of the tested colors showing an error level of under one. It is a pretty fantastic result.
Display Conclusions
It’s difficult to not be impressed by the work put into the Surface Studio’s display. Here we have a display with an ICC profile for sRGB, DCI-P3, and P3 D65, and in every gamut, the accuracy levels are near, if not the best, that have ever been tested on this site. It is a fantastic achievement, and a testament to what can happen if a company decides to focus on quality. There is no doubt that the Surface Studio’s display is the stand-out feature on this PC, and Microsoft has taken the time to individually calibrate each display to one of the highest levels of accuracy possible.
The fact that this display also features ten-point multitouch, and pen support, as well as having accuracy that is top-notch, makes the Surface Studio arguably the best computer display targeted towards consumers and prosumers. Combine that with the excellent 3:2 aspect ratio, the high pixel density, and practically perfect display scaling, and it would be hard to find any faults with this display. It truly is a masterpiece.
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hoohoo - Sunday, January 29, 2017 - link
It is very nice but the price as tested is completely ridiulous.It is essentially a high spec laptop packaged in a big screen. If Asus os such were to step up it could offer the same thing for half the price.
Septillion - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
So the vivid color profile aka P3 D65, is practically identical to Apple's Display P3 color profile? Same P3 primaries, D65 white point and 2.2 gamma.darwinosx - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link
I use a Mac laptop at work and also have one at home. We have a lot of pro-Microsoft people at work including my boss who is the VP of software development. We also are working closely with Microsoft on a major project. Many of the people I work with got a Surface Pro 4 thinking they would really lie it but all of them are sick of all the issues and the service desk finally stopped allowing them because of all the issues. Several of the developers, including my boss, have Mac laptops on order now.lcf/bill - Thursday, February 9, 2017 - link
Nice to see a timely review of a product.At this point, it is looking like the Touch Bar Macbook Pro review may not be out before the hardware is revised.
IamDavid - Saturday, February 11, 2017 - link
I want to purchase the top level version but I need the ability to connect the audio to my Home Theater system. I only see a 3.5mm audio port so I assume at best I'd have stereo? Any options for have full HD audio out?macmhathain - Saturday, June 17, 2017 - link
I find this product fascinating. I'm not sure I agree that Microsoft tries to add something interesting in every computer since the Surface - they add touch to desktop PC - Suface, Surface Pro, Surface Book, Surface Laptop, and Surface studio. But, he addition of touch to a desktop PC does some very interesting things which are natural outgrowth of touch - 2 in 1 with detachable keyboard, UI that switches between desktop and tablet mode, pen support. All of these are natural outgrowths of the decision to put touch on desktops. The problem is that comes with trade-offs. The most important is cost. the Surface studio is $4000 - that would pay for an amaizngly speced out Mac or and an epically speced out traditional PC. I have heard the surface studio is slow (I don't own one but have played with it in store and based on Leo Leports comments) but what one would expect from the hardware that powers that screen (and the decision to put it into a tiny box). My wife is a professional photographer - and she really needs power in her computer. the size of her imports, running lightroom, photoshop, and a brower continually and switching between them need a powerful computer not to be slow. So the surface studio, even if it would be awesome for the occasional very precise artistic edit, wouldn't work well for the day to day grind of a photographer - and I expect the dame problem for a video editor, or graphic designer would have the same problems with lack of power. Why not attach that amazing screen to a giant box filled with i7s a ton of fast RAM and a huge SSD and a bunch of fans? sure it would cost a lot more like $10,000 - but it would do the job it is supposed to do well, unlike now where it is crippled by a trade off for aesthetics and to keep the price low (you could put at least a few better parts in the little box like a great SSD which would have helped and kept the aesthetics). I am fasciated to see who will be right. Microsoft with desktop computers need touch, or Mac that desktops needs mouse and keyboard and touch based "tablets (although a 27" ipad would be an interesting device for photo editing if it were fast enough and had enough storage)" are the only things that have touch. For me buying a computer in exchange for the additional cost for the touch screen, I'd rather have that money spent on more RAM or a better CPU or a faster SSD.Danilushka - Saturday, April 7, 2018 - link
Such a shame: Microsoft takes an innovative leap past Apple but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory sabotaged by it's buggy unreliable aged Windows operating system and poor quality control.No wonder Apple isn't rushing out large touchscreens: the competition just cannot deliver on them.
Unfortunate because competition keeps vendors innovating.