Microsoft Surface Studio

That must be fun when your wife finds it. “Who’s phone is this?!” “It’s not what you think dear…I’ve been seeing another operating system”

The more I read about this new collection the more I like it. I might need to put my Apple fanboy status in check :slight_smile:

I’ve used my Surface Pro 3 for the last 2 years for freelance and school work. We have Cintiqs available to us at school, and the first time I used one I was actually disappointed with the experience. I still default to working on my Surface, and I’ll probably pick up the Dial, as I can see it filling certain gaps in my workflow. So Surface Studio = big Surface Pro, I’d be all in (if I weren’t a starving student :smiley: )

I’m a huge fan of what microsoft has built, visually I’d go as far to say it looks better than a mac. But… the pen/stylus is sooooo far behind apple’s that it completely turned me off on the rest of the computer.

I handed my Apple membership card in last year after 10 years of Mac. A lot of what drove me to the Mac in the first place seems to have been fixed in Windows. Decent file search, better window management (you can finally scroll on a window that’s not in focus), more stable and just cleaner all around. I find Mac OS still more polished but it seems the last versions have been getting quite rigid in the way the cater to simple needs. I felt like I was trying to workaround more than enjoying thoughtful design. Also, for most 3D work, most of us don’t have much of a choice but to Bootcamp into Windows anyways…

Anyone have a contact in Microsoft’s device team? :unamused:

No sass taken. Sure a Cintiq would probably work great for me, but this seemed pretty great as an all-in-one. Plus the Dial seemed really impressive.

I’ve since read a really interesting article that interviewed some designers. They all basically said the same thing, I still like my Cintiq. Plus, one thing I didn’t catch is that there’s not much upgrading these things.

What do you mean? It’s just like anything else. Illustrator tools + Hotdoor CADTools. When you’re in the sign industry, it’s pretty standard.

I’ve since read a really interesting article that interviewed some designers. They all basically said the same thing, I still like my Cintiq. Plus, one thing I didn’t catch is that there’s not much upgrading these things.

That is the biggest hurdle I see with these. Sure up front it may cost the same as a Cintiq plus a work station, but being able to upgrade the work station as time goes on seems to be the best route, without having to replace the Cintiq as well. The specs don’t look all that powerful even at the upper end models.

For the puck, I thought I heard they only work with certain programs, none of which are adobe, but I may be wrong. If that is the case though, that’d be too bad since CC is pretty much an industry standard.

I have three friends from my alma mater BYU who work there. Two are ID, one is UX (funnily, the UX person is the woman in the beginning of the Surface Studio video, very smart and talented). Trng of these boards and of MinimallyMinimal fame also works there. He and one of my friends did the new Deiter Rams Xbox One. However, I reached out last year and I don’t think they do deals like that since the Surface line became so popular. :wink:

I love everything Microsoft is doing lately. The only drawback for me with the studio would be the pen. The latest gen Surface Pen (with the paper clip style clip) is actually quite good, just the angle is a bit limited by the step holding the nib. But that won’t be a deal breaker for everyone. My next tech product will either be a Surface phone if they launch one in the next 6 months, or an entry level Surface Pro 5 for my wife to replace our ancient 2011 MacBook Pro.

I love the idea and would like to try one.

Usually I do not comment on marketing, however I feel that I want to give myself permission to do so, as I think that it is a mistake to market it as a competitor to a Mac. It feels like they want to target Mac users which I think is a bad idea, as a Mac is a Mac because Apple is good at making one, Microsoft is good at making Windows computers and I personally much prefer using Windows than Mac. I like it’s interface and I have grown accustomed to it. But I think that Microsoft has to embolden it’s identity and not keep fighting it’s image with Apple. Why do they feel the need to call it a Microsoft Surface Studio? It is like following the trend of the Apple iPad or the Samsung Note. If they drop the Surface for instance and call it a Microsoft Studio it will give it a much bolder image and I would certainly be prouder to own one than own something that resembles a Mac.

Just my humble opinion about the marketing aspect.

Again I would love to try one.

The more I look at this the more I like it. At first I didn’t like the fact that it’s all in one, can’t upgrade down the line. But PCs are just terrible in so many ways. They’re big, ugly, dust catchers, and cable management is always a mess. I think I’d sacrifice upgradability for a clutter-free aesthetically-pleasing workplace. My only concern is how good the pen is, which sounds comparable to wacom.

Wacom could use the competition, I’ve been disappointed with them as of late. My Cintiq companion died after just a f#@cking year, while my 10 year old intuos is still kicking.

I don’t understand why they didn’t show the ruler in their release video, it looks like an amazing tool for the wheel. Something I’ve wanted in photoshop forever. https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/getting-started/meet-surface-studio-surface-dial (ruler part is @ :32)

Pretty sure they demoed it with PS.

For over $5000 Australian dollars, I’d want 64gb of ram like my current work pc has so I can do modo renderings while running solidworks.

My 3 year old work pc is a i7 4930K 3.40GHz with 6 dual thread cores, so I can run renders in modo whicle 3d modelling in solidworks and having photoshop and illustrator open at the same time.

Does this compare on a technical level?

Other than that, I’d be pushing it to the extreme to get approval for this at work and would have to justify the investment with some performance improvement matrix. Also, there’s no way I am spending that amount of money for a home set up.

All I see here is a slightly rearranged Wacom variant. The dial may be neat, but unless the pixels have been brought to the surface of the glass, and the tooth of the screen truly feels like the media the tablet is simulating, it’s not like they’ve solved the very major feel versus output issues tablets introduce to the otherwise direct act of drawing/sketching. I guess it’s one way to spend money, or put heavy metals into the waste stream someday.

A new i7 will still be plenty fast for most usage and heavy multi tasking. If pure render times are the concern then a hex core is generally going to always out perform it’s quad core counterparts. For most single threaded processes (which is everything besides rendering) then you’d get better performance out of the newer chip even with fewer cores - and to most people the overall performance gap will be imperceptible given how fast modern CPU’s are.

But it’s not a crazy workstation class machine with dual 12 core CPU’s, ECC ram and a 6 gig Quadro card. For almost the same price as a 27" Cintiq though, having a decent PC built in is not bad. Will certainly be decent enough for playing games, or VR experiences with the GTX 980.

You might want to give it a try - especially with the tip set available with the pen - I’ve been pleasantly surprised using SBP, Leonardo and Drawboard PDF.

I’ve gotta disagree. Despite the Pro 4 pen being a solid upgrade from the 3, my gut reaction to using it is that it’s still the worst out there by a mile. Feel, performance, look, and perceived quality/durability are sorely lacking compared with the Apple Pencil and Wacom styli from even two or three generations back. It’s what kept me from a SP4 when I was looking at splurging on a new tablet.

That being said, I’d love to get my hands on one of these rigs. Microsoft has been doing more interesting things with hardware than anyone the past few years, and this fits firmly into the category of “Ooh! I instantly want to try that.”

Do I need a $3000 desktop with a monster touch screen? Absolutely not. Do I want one? Absolutely.


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I think where MS is getting this Surface series “right” is the ability to handle my ENTIRE workflow - if I wanted a $2500 awesome sketch pad with all its intent based around making me feel warm and cozy while pushing a stylus around I’d have stuck with Wacom, and if I needed just a light duty recreation tablet with only a mobile OS and an awesome pen I’d have gotten an iPad Pro, but I need a workhorse that is a tablet, a laptop and a desktop computer, runs Outlook and all my MS Office apps, merges all data from my phone to my laptop to the cloud all at once, runs SolidWorks, let’s me not just open eDrawings but capture and sketch notes and drawings into those captures in a single step, lets me run all my photo and graphics apps AND lets me sketch with ease in SBP, Leonardo and other apps as either a flip screen laptop (if I’m going to need Nvidia muscle and extra battery runtime) OR just as a super light tablet otherwise. So if the pen is 8% less rewarding than Wacom, it’s an easy 8% to live with because they’re addressing all my other needs as well.

Here’s a good article in the MIT Tech Review this month; Microsoft Is Looking Like the New Apple | MIT Technology Review

wwow… look so cool. I’d never thought Microsoft could make some thing fashionable like this (i dont know abt its spec but i think it looks much better than Mac)

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