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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tipoo - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
Nice machine it seems like. People may balk at the price, but a 27 inch digitizer like a Wacom almost costs as much as this machine, and doesn't have a fairly high performance computer inside either.That said, that's also why I wish there was a touchscreen-free version for less, I'm not artsy enough to need that, but a straight iMac competitor from Microsoft could be nice.
Seems a lot of people have been griping about lack of a 1060, but the 980M is near identical in performance.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards...
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
A 1080m would be preferred, in all honesty.tipoo - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
Probably wouldn't fit in here. The laptop TDPs aren't that much lower than the desktop TDPs in this generation as they're mostly the same chip with slightly lower clocks. The cooling design seems pretty elaborate as-is just for the 980M.DanNeely - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
TDPs for the mobile pascal are finally out, and a mobile 1070 might fit the TDP constraints. the 980M is a 100W part, vs 80/110/150 for the mobile 1060/70/80 GPUs. It's 10W more on paper; but nVidia has been more flexible with power vs performance on mobile parts before. Worst case I'd assume that like the surface book, they'd just slap a different model number on a cut power/performance model.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graph...
BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
I have to wonder a little where those TDP numbers came from because GeForce.com, the cited source, doesn't appear to have them listed anyplace I could find on a cursory search. If the numbers are accurate, then when I made an off the cuff estimate about the mobile 1080 TDP being not too far off the 180W of its desktop counterpart based on heat pipe counts extrapolated from a single pipe on a Dell Latitude D630 accounting for power draw from the dual PSUs of this laptop...http://www.anandtech.com/show/10795/the-clevo-p870...
...then I was pretty darned close to reality. Anyway, if those are accurate, the TDP is HIGHLY disappointing. 75W for the 1050? What's wrong with people? A midrange GPU used to have a TDP of 20W back in the 8600M GT days and a low end 8400M GS was a mere 11W. Those GPUs were in much thicker, relatively less cramped laptops too so cooling them was easy. While it's nice to see Intel lowering TDP as technology improves, Nvidia (AMD too) continue to increase TDP despite node shrinks. It's a good time to exit computer gaming entirely and sit it out until GPUs hit the same TDP peak and then decline the CPU industry discovered years ago.
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
I am curious as well. the 1050 mobile pulling 75 watt would make no sense, as the 960m was only a 55 watt part, and the 1050ti is not only faster, but fits in the same power envelope. The 1050 is much more likely to be a 30 watt part.Icehawk - Sunday, January 22, 2017 - link
Huh? Since Maxwell power #s have been getting smaller, I can run a gaming rig off a 450W supply instead of a 600+.BrokenCrayons - Monday, January 23, 2017 - link
"Since Maxwell" is not a very long history. Besides that "can run a gaming rig" isn't a very specific measurement. SLI? Low end GPU? High end GPU? CPU TDP? Number of hard drives? Other components in the system? Look a bit deeper. In addition to that, I've NEVER run a "gaming rig" off more than a 400W PSU. That doesn't mean much of anything though without me offering a long history of computer hardware configurations that can quantify power consumption. In addition to that, most people usually purchase more power supply than they really need because they're caught in marketing hype and overly conservative vendor recommendations. I've seen quite a few 1KW power supplies feeding a 95W processor and a single midrange graphics card for when 350W would be entirely sufficient.fanofanand - Monday, January 23, 2017 - link
You couldn't be more correct. I got swindled by the MOAR POWER hype on my first build, ended up with a 700W PSU to power a single HDD, a Q6600, and an 8800 GTS. I could have gotten by with 400 EASILY.BillBear - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
A Wacom Cintiq continues to work after you purchase upgraded computer hardware, so you aren't stuck with an outdated CPU and GPU.Also, the Cintiq has double the pressure sensitivity, adds tilt sensitivity that the Surface lacks completely, and most troublesome, there is a distinct lag between moving the pen and seeing your input on the screen when compared to Wacom's professional solution.