Microsoft's Surface Studio Is Designed To Redesign

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Article really needs to point out this is not meant for regular people at all. It's meant for that 1% of artists who work in design houses who regularly spend $2,000 on color accurate monitors by themselves, let alone complete AIO. So for this demographic the prices are in line with the norm.

The Cintaq 27QHD, a main stay artist touch/pen display costs $2,799. This is the industry standard for digital artists.

This also makes sense because this way Microsoft isn't stepping all over its OEMs. The only one in danger from lost sales here is Apple whose iMacs have been the mainstay of design firms for decades and Wacom whose touch monitors are really the only option artists have had for a long time.
 

kittle

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looks like 80% of the cost of this thing is the display. A 4k (5K??) 28-inch display is nothing to sniff at, especially when its a touch screen.
 
Yea I agree with WHY_WOLF. This isn't your normal everyday machine. Not even for gaming. It is aiming towards graphics designers and honestly knowing a few myself they would drool over this thing. That floating dial? Wow. I love the design and would buy one if i could just because it looks amazing to me.
 

atheus

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Weird, all these brand new systems have graphics cards that start with a "9". Why would anyone expect to be able to sell an obsolete computer for 3-4k?
 

falchard

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That's looks awesome. I can understand them not using a 1080m considering it's not out yet and they would need time to test the hardware. It's also probably meant to be silent, so using a hot card like a standard desktop GPU might not be appropriate. The price premium for that GTX 980m is a little steep. It's around $500 more factoring in the additional hard disk space and memory.
The display is quite impressive for this task. 3:2 color accurate display with touch capability. It's features mimic what was seen with Microsoft's surface table shown years ago using the dial. It would work excellently for artists and production in general. The hardware itself allows for usage of more serious software like 3D design. Now if only they could offer the monitor on it's own so I can pair it with some real hardware.
 

RonK5555

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If I Read the specs correctly there is one 1 gig NIC (no link aggregation or 10 Gig), usb 3 (No usb 3.1/thunderbolt). How does one connect to to high speed networks or high speed DAS to move large files such as would be necessary in video editing?

Did I miss something? If not what were they thinking. There is no way to use any addin cards.
 

d_kuhn

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That display is definitely lust worthy - the system as a whole is pretty targeted to stills artistic work. The limited network connectivity isn't a problem unless you move to video editing - 1gbe is plenty for stills editing or art development. Same for the hybrid drive - I personally don't know why not just put an M.2 SSD in it... but again we're not talking huge many gigabyte files so it will likely perform fine. I WOULD like to see a video version of this system with big SSD, TB2/10gbe, and fast desktop gpu.
 

hannibal

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Yep this is the ultimate drawing board for designers and artists!
Would definely like to have for cad drawings and picture editing and Photoshopin in big scale.
And for that, this is allmost cheap. I would not mind if there would be a version with the same screen but separate Computer part so that you can modify the hardware in the future and include those new AMD professional graphic cards with build in ssd for really big pictures and video content!
 

Jeff Fx

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>You set the dial on the touchscreen display and then rotate the dial clockwise or counterclockwise to alter the images on the screen.

So you cover part of the screen with a dial instead of using a control object displayed on the screen, or using a dial that does not cover the screen? Is that insane? It seems insane to me.
 

Jeff Fx

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It seems to be aimed at high-earning design professionals. The price won't be an issue to them if the tools they prefer are Windows-based. I'll keep building my own bulky, but powerful, and reasonably-priced workstations.
 

d_kuhn

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I also build bulky but powerful workstations for hard use... but I hide them :). I can appreciate something as aesthetically pleasant as this... even if I couldn't justify the price tag.
 

Jeff Fx

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Same here. It would look nice on my desk, but I can build a PC and buy a nice 3D printer for the cost of this device.
 

aylafruta

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At this sophistication level using an hybrid hard disk does not fit at all. A smaller SSD does the work better and lot faster. More rugged, last longer, does not heat up,... just take a look of what Apple does. Big mistake. Maybe the graphic card is another.
 

alidan

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What you are missing is simple. you never use the whole screen, if you need something behind it, you move it, a physical object is always more intuitive to use then a digital one. What this really comes down to is how useful the thing is over all and what you can have attached to it.

Not to mention, a wacom monitors start at around 2000$ shipped, a comparable computer is around 700-1500
and this screen isn't even the 99.7% adobergb ones, they are the 92-97% i forget where it bottoms out.
the more expensive screens are around 2900$ shipped, just shy of one of these, and is about 1/4th the screen real estate.

this kicks the crap out of wacom's offerings buy a significant margin.
cant wait to see how wacom responds.

The only concerning thing about the surface studio is if it can be used as a monitor, because wacom, you can typically buy it once and use it till its broken, but a pc, especially in a professional realm, is a bit more disposable.

would love to see a stand alone monitor with a sleek companion computer, maybe something that can easily be back mounted.
 
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