Almost £5k for a deskslab: Microsoft's Surface Studio 2 hits UK Well-heeled Brits can now slide their sticky fingers over the screen of Microsoft's flagship deskslab, the Surface Studio 2. The thing was announced back in October 2018, at the same event where Microsoft surprised the world by unleashing the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. The resulting furore over the cursed update's testing …
It doesn't compare well in price to Apple's iMac 5k; that starts lower in specs but also much lower in price. Then again, I suppose there must be people who want a 28 inch touchscreen for some reason, and Apple doesn't have that. I'm sure people have a reason. I don't know what it is, but it will come to me, maybe.
In the general scheme of things, both of these machines are much more expensive than will be needed by pretty much everybody. They price themselves out of consumer range, don't include enough processing power to run all the games that serious gamers want to play, and are too screen focused for the massive data processing people. I can see something like this being used by serious graphics users, but that's not a big market, and plenty of them have been satisfied with less.
Then again, I suppose there must be people who want a 28 inch touchscreen for some reason, and Apple doesn't have that. I'm sure people have a reason. I don't know what it is, but it will come to me, maybe.
They really, really like a greasy screen? It's nigh impossible to prevent that with a touch screen, however much you wash your hands and keyboard..
I find it annoying enough to keep the seven inch screen of the tablet I use primarily as an e-book reader clean. Just a few swipes is enough to put distracting rainbow streaks in the place my thumb "turns" the page. And a game or two of "Jewels" turns my screen into a reasonable facsimile of a petrol station forecourt after rain.
I hate to think how a 28" screen would look after a CAD/CAM session.
I find it annoying enough to keep the seven inch screen of the tablet I use primarily as an e-book reader clean. Just a few swipes is enough to put distracting rainbow streaks in the place my thumb "turns" the page
Now you know why all my portable devices have a matte, oleophobic protective screen. I found I'd ended up with an almost compulsive gesture to wipe especially my phone after a call, and I *know* I have clean ears as I shower daily :).
Me! Me! I have a reason, I use the pen input for drafting work as an engineer. Touch is just an added bonus that I don't really use too much, but when I have the pen already up to the screen, it's nice just to tap UI elements with a spare finger rather that reaching down for the mouse or moving the pen across the whole display.
It's bloody expensive and I far prefer desktops I build, but it's actually cheaper than building your own.
https://us-store.wacom.com/Product/wacom-cintiq-pro-32-creative-pen-display-touch#/undefined1
This is the only >24" pen display worth its salt, and it's more expensive than the entire Surface Studio despite using the same pen and digitizer system.
I can't see someone with a big desk and big leather chair suitable for comfortable leaning back wanting to lean forward enough to use their fingers/thumb on a touchscreen! Tell you what, how about a remote device for controlling the cursor, let's call it a mouse!
If you earn 6 figures, or are paying an employee 6 figures, whether a PC costs a grand or 4 grand is largely immaterial and you DO get nice design (packaging) for the money which some people care about. It's a fairly cheap way to make someone feel important :)
It's a niche kit for rich people, but there are after all a lot of rich people.
I think machines like this are a direct response to the fact that most people are keeping hardware longer. In the past upgrading anything (a phone, a desktop/laptop, TV, etc) always tended to bring huge differences and benefits. We've got to a point where the device you bought a few years ago is still perfectly good enough and there's no advantage - perceived or otherwise - in upgrading. It does make me wonder who the target market for these things is. But I guess there must be people willing to buy them.
Au contraire mon ami, machines like this are a direct response to seeing the likes of Apple (read Apple!) being able to sell machines at significant margins compared to their competitors and Microsoft wanting to jump on that bandwagon.
I completely agree with you the real world advantage of upgrading to the latest tech is fairly marginal nowadays with the likes of computers or phones, as we have got to the point where outside of 'power users' even three year old kit can easily do 99% of tasks.
As for the target market, I would say firmly planted in the 'large disposable income, keeping ahead of the Jones' group that Apple target. Working in an academic field, I hear on occasion of staff buying Apple computers from their budgets then complaining that a specialized bit of software only runs on Windows!
I've always thought Microsoft labelled hardware was pretty solid, unlike their wretched software --- however on the spec page the only difference given between models 2 and 3 is 1TB SSD or 2TB SSD for another £500.
Since a 1TB SSD can be had for £120 and a 2TB SSD for £250, from Ebuyer, it looks like their maths is as poor as their OSes...
For more than a Z4 or Z6 workstation with Xeon processors and Quadro GPU hardware, the pricing on this thing is insane and it doesn't look like its all that serviceable given how small the chassis is. I mean I could be wrong, there are small form factor PCs out there that are just as easy to work on as a traditional tower but I don't know for certain and I'm not likely to find out, since most people I know would buy the workstation, a gaming PC, or a Mac instead.
Its obviously targeting the more money than sense and form over function crowd like a good deal of Apple's garbage, and while the tilty display thing is sort of interesting, it looks like its something that can get messed up easily and definitely not worth almost $5k for older hardware.
That's not a competitor of muscle workstations, nor consumer hardware, it's more a device aimed at people for which a "convertible desktop" with pen and disc input make sense (or just to show off, off course). If you're a designer, architect, graphic artist, engineer, etc, this can be useful, at least to impress customers, even if the heavier work could be done (maybe by other people) on other hardware.
Yes, accepted to a point (it's effect are widespread in advanced states) but it doesn't scan quite as well with any other lazy acronym, hence my lazy use of this one to suit my point.
I know it's not clever but thought it made the point with the tiniest degree of humour.
Just saying!
Mine the one with the Bernard Manning joke book in the pocket.
That's part of the brand image. I mean they have looked at Apple and realized that "products that people can work with" has very narrow margins. Instead you position yourself as a company selling fashionable accessories. Allow people to distract from their lack of talent by giving them something they can believe it makes them a better person.
Being expensive both to buy and to maintain was a basic design goal not an accident.
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