Microsoft's Surface Studio Is All Beauty and a Little Bit of Brains

It's been a long time since I've been

excited about a desktop PC.

I mean it's 2017 and desktops haven't been cool

since like the Bush Administration,

but then this happened.

This is the Microsoft Surface Studio.

It's a desktop for people who draw and design

and make videos and generally do things other than

just use a mouse and keyboard on their computer.

It is a desktop PC, but it's also a drafting table.

It starts at $3,000 and goes up quickly from there.

That's a lot for any computer.

But if you were ever gonna yell,

shut up and take my money at a computer,

it'd probably be this one.

I mean, come on, look at it.

It's actually not quite as powerful

as you might expect, given the price.

It starts with a Core I5 Processor, 8 gigs of RAM,

and a terabyte of hybrid storage.

Those are laptop specs,

and not even particularly impressive ones.

You can spec it all the way up to crazy things

like 32 gigs of RAM, but even the $4,200 model

still doesn't have all solid state storage.

The saddest spec is the graphics.

You're getting a good in-video graphics chip,

but not the newest one, and you'd want all the power

you can get just to make this screen run smoothly.

It's 28.125 inches, 4800 by 3200 in resolution.

As is, you can play most games, as long as you're not

on super high settings.

But this is never going to be a VR machine

or even an awesome way to play Resident Evil 7.

And in case it's not obvious from the design,

you can't open and upgrade this machine.

For normal use, even apps like Photoshop,

there's plenty of power here

and this screen is really remarkable.

It is a 3:2 aspect ratio, which means it's a little taller

than your average screen.

This thing is, to use a technical term, stupid huge.

You could see a dozen apps at a time if you wanted.

But I really like just putting one app full screen

and working in it.

It's peaceful, you know?

Just as cool as the screen itself, is what you can do on it.

When you have it up like this,

it feels like a normal desktop,

but you can slowly pull it down into that drafting mode

and the giant touchscreen just comes right up under you.

You can use the included surface pen or your fingers

and it just becomes the biggest tablet you've ever seen.

The Studio's hinge holds it pretty steadily at any angle,

which is really impressive.

And the whole process just feels so intuitive.

You sit down, use the awesome Windows Hello feature

that logs you in on face recognition,

then pull the screen towards you and go straight to work.

As you can see, the whole minimalist

brushed silver aesthetic looks pretty great on your desk.

Since the screen has to move up and down so much,

all the computer-y parts are actually in the base back here.

That's where all the ports are too, in the back.

It's nice to have all those ports, but it's super awkward

that they're all all the way back here.

Sadly though, that's just par for the course

for these beautiful all-in-ones.

When it's down like this is really where the Studio

becomes something new and different.

It's meant to be touched and drawn on,

swiped around and made all gross and fingerprint-y.

I've put ours on a desk in our office,

and people just kept wandering over to it,

grabbing the pen and just going to work.

We all found some pretty interesting bugs

in apps like Photoshop and Illustrator,

where little things don't work the way they should.

But it all seems like normal bugs

after a new thing comes out.

In general, the whole setup is amazingly powerful

and accurate and just fun to use.

In keeping with the focus on creatives,

Microsoft also released a new accessory, the Surface Dial.

The idea is that you'll be able to change settings,

tweak colors, and all of that, so that drawing

and working becomes a two-hand touch kind of experience.

It's really clever, but not many apps support it yet,

so I just use it to change volume in Spotify,

which is probably not worth the 100 bucks just yet.

For a lot of people everything about the Surface Studio

is total overkill,

but it's the beautiful, wonderful, I want it really bad

kind of overkill.

And if you're an artist, or an architect,

or just someone who's happier with a pen than a mouse,

the Surface Studio's sort of perfect.

It's cheaper than buying an iMac

and one of Wacom's Cintiq tablets,

which is what a lot of people already do.

And this is better than that.

It's more integrated, more natural,

it's the best monitor I've ever used.

With the touch and the hinge and all those freaking pixels.

There are some bugs in the whole setup,

plus some first generation weirdness

that Microsoft has to work out, like those graphics.

But Microsoft set out with the Surface Studio

to build a device that creative people will love,

that they might even consider buying over

whatever Apple product comes out next.

And you know what, they kinda nailed it.