26 ms·

Microsoft Surface Studio

599 points by 1st1 10y ago

Roboprog 10y ago
$3000? It had better be really something. I wonder how well VST synth modules work on it? I like my iPad synth toys, but they are not compatible with Mac.
deleted 10y ago
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1st1 10y ago
I have to say this is the first time in years when there's a feeling that MS has outpaced Apple. The product looks amazing.
- 1st1 10y ago
  Can't wait to install Kaspersky on it! :)
  - marsrover 10y ago
    Maybe there's some scenario I'm missing out on, but I've never had any issues just using Windows Defender.
    - 1st1 10y ago
      That was irony :)
      - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
        That was sarcasm. Irony is that you've confused one with the other :)
        vezycash 10y ago
        I'm sure he's being serious. I've stopped using other antivirus since Defender came on board. Whenever I buy a new laptop, the first thing I do is uninstall Norton and activate defender.
        martin_bech 10y ago
        The guy kidding, was the one who wanted to install Kaspersky
  - devopsproject 10y ago
    uBlock Origin + Windows Defender = pretty good defence for people who don't click yes on everything that pops up
    - vezycash 10y ago
      + unchecky It protects from toolbars, addons and other bundlewares of free software.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Yeah this seems to aim straight at the complaints that Apple has been ignoring the creative segment of their market.
  - seanalltogether 10y ago
    Both digital illustrators I know work entirely on PC's these days simply because the tooling there is more flexible. I have no doubt they will migrate to this device over time.
  - jordache 10y ago
    Apple these days are designed for optimal usage of iTunes and Safari. It is no longer the platform of choice for creative content creation.
    - lucisferre 10y ago
      Surprisingly, two of the worst pieces of software that come with OSX. I would love it if they were really optimizing anything about iTunes.
      - jordache 10y ago
        if they can optimize iTunes it would represent as a momentous shift in general computing.
        nof 10y ago
        Indeed. Coreaudio is much than whatever it is on Windows. Easier to sync software and lower latency overall.
      - csomar 10y ago
        Indeed. Safari is lagging behind, it's like IE in the old days. iTunes is the shittiest App I have interacted with in the OSX eco-system.
      - spike021 10y ago
- mozumder 10y ago
  As an Apple (Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, PowerBook, PowerMac G5) user for 15 years, of photo processing & inDesign layout, I agree. XCode & iOS development is going to keep me on Apple for now, though, but the Linux subsystem for Windows is really appealing. The BSD Unix environment is the whole reason I went with Apple in the first place. OS X is basically a Unix workstation & perfected anything the Linux desktop wanted to be. Surprised MS went with nVidia 980s instead of 1080s, & Win 10 still a little clunky compared to OS X.
  - usaphp 10y ago
    > "Surprised MS went with nVidia 980s instead of 1080s" It's not even 980, its 980m which is significantly slower than 980, nevermind 1080. And the 980m only comes in the $4199 option, that's ridiculous...
    - Ant5do 10y ago
      Okay, seriously. The iMac comes with a 395x mobile gpu. It's pretty comparable to the 980m. The 1070m and 1080m don't exist yet. If you guys actually knew more about hardware than nothing, maybe you'd realize that it's not possible to get a 1080m. iMacs and Macbook Pros (top of the line 15-inch with dGPU) have always used mobile GPUs. Also, illustrators/designers don't need dGPUs. That's why the designers/illustrators at hte tech companies that you work at can use macbook 13 inch laptops and 15-inch laptops without the dGPUs
      - mhermher 10y ago
        NVIDIA got rid of the m distinction for the new gen. Razer (and I believe others) have already put a full "desktop" geforce 10xx in some of their laptops.
  - TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
    > the Linux subsystem for Windows is really appealing In theory. To anyone who feels that way, please try it out for yourself before making a leap. I thought it would let me develop Ruby on Rails under Windows like I could do on Linux or macOS. I discovered a whole bunch of unimplemented features that prevented this. After a couple of months of commenting on bug reports and watching and trying, I gave up. I'll check back later. YMMV.
- jshen 10y ago
  My thought is that it doesn't matter because MS missed the mobile market. People will default to the products that best integrate with their phones, and that will be iPad Pro or .... whatever the android space has to offer.
  - WayneBro 10y ago
    Do you think a lot of people care about PC/phone integration? I don't see it outside of "contacts and email" which is already fully integrated everywhere thanks to the cloud. People don't buy Macs because they work well with an iPhone as far as I can tell. They buy Macs for all sorts of other reasons, but that doesn't seem to be one of them. Every corporate office in the world is running Windows. I'm pretty sure people are going to continue buying whatever they use at work, so unfortunately for HN, Windows is here to stay...(sorry!)
    - swang 10y ago
      I just installed macOS Sierra and have up-to-date iOS 10.1. I still cannot get handoff working. From reading the reports this is not just me. At least Chrome still syncs.
      - prawn 10y ago
        Similar experience here. I use iPhone, MBP and iPad. Originally thought that having everything under one umbrella would be a huge help, but the reality is the syncing is such a pain that I never do it. Took me many, many months to even get AirDrop working between my own devices. iTunes is very frustrating to use in managing iOS devices.
        swang 10y ago
        one of the things that apple didn't pointed out is that there are 2 versions of airdrop. i didn't know this and had an older version of osx that wouldn't sync with my iphone. no error message either.
    - honkhonkpants 10y ago
- romaniv 10y ago
  This seems to compete with Wacom Cintiq more than any Apple product I'm aware of.
  - smilekzs 10y ago
    And it's based off NTrig tech, too. Competition is good ;)
  - nkassis 10y ago
    I think that's part of the point the parent. This is a combination of an iMac and Cintiq. Something Apple currently doesn't have a answer to.
- ryanSrich 10y ago
  The indie tool market has a much stronger foothold today than they did a few years ago. Adobe, Autodesk, etc. still reign supreme, but that's slowly changing. They are being overtaken by smaller, more niche products. See affinity, sketch, figma, etc. Unless Microsoft can woo these companies into building apps for their platform, I don't see MSFT making a dent with this market.
  - ebalit 10y ago
    Affinity Designer for Windows [1] is currently in beta. Figma is available for Windows too [2]. 1: https://affinity.serif.com/fr/windows/ https://affinity.serif.com/fr/windows/ 2: https://www.figma.com/downloads https://www.figma.com/downloads
- rsync 10y ago
  "I have to say this is the first time in years when there's a feeling that MS has outpaced Apple. The product looks amazing." That is what I came here to say (as a mac user who uses only apple computers, currently[1]). See this animated gif from the article: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kFQXkfWYVYCRnSfXpAhRBTVXH4M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7350333/dial.0.gif https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kFQXkfWYVYCRnSfXpAhRBTVXH4M... Now ... I don't know what that's about and I am pretty sure that's an action I will never use, but that's something new and interesting. That's innovation. [1] 11" macbook air, mac mini HTPC and 2009 mac pro as primary desktop
  - prawn 10y ago
    Presumably you can use the jog dial off-screen and for any number of things, in which case it would be useful to almost everyone for volume control, scrolling through lists, adjusting values in control panels and so on. Obviously video editors use them, but I know of professional photographers who find them really useful in moving through a catalogue while editing photos too.
- draw_down 10y ago
  They got whupped bad in the mobile market, and PC market has been stagnant/in decline for some time now. They have to come up with something.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > PC market has been stagnant/in decline for some time now. They have to come up with something. Quick, someone page Apple because Mac sales are declining even faster than the market. Surely they have to do something, that's the only possible motivation /s
    - draw_down 10y ago
      Yeah, if only they had another product which makes tons of money............. hmmm................ I wonder what it could be......................
digi_owl 10y ago
As a reminder, Pixelsense means that the whole screen is a short range camera. Put a QR code or similar on it and Windows can read it and react accordingly.
- martin-adams 10y ago
  What?! I have a Surface Book and you're telling me the screen is a short range camera? Do you know what I would need to test that out?
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    They didn't use that tech in the surface book (AFAIK).
- blackoil 10y ago
  That was the technology of original Pixelsense, now MS is just using the brand name for high quality display like 'retina' is for Apple.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    It would be careless of them to water down the brand like that, after having developed the technology in the first place.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      The current use of "Surface" itself is an example of Microsoft watering down a brand in much the same way; it might be careless but it's absolutely consistent with Microsoft's past behavior.
      - swang 10y ago
        Surface originally was a large windows tablet that doubled as a "table" it also had fancy sensors underneath that allowed you to do a couple of cool things and other way cooler things that never came to fruition. Seems like it would have died off as a huge blundering $10k per table mess by Microsoft. Or as a badly thought out Windows RT Surface tablet. I would have liked another Surface table (one that actually got better support than a few WPF/Windows widgets) but I'd say now Surface is a huge brand for Microsoft with laptops/desktops.
rufugee 10y ago
If it will run Linux, I'll buy one immediately...
- blackoil 10y ago
  At minimum Ubuntu in Windows will be there.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    That is not what a Linux user usually means when they say "If <device xyz> will run Linux". Windows Subsystem for Linux doesn't support (officially, or even cleanly) any graphical Linux apps, for one.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  r/surfacelinux will be the place to watch for info on that. The other Surface models are mostly workable.
- virtualritz 10y ago
  +1 I couldn't imagine why it wouldn't run Linux. :) Only blocker I could see for myself is GPU upgradeability.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  If you run Linux on your desktop, even if it's not your main motivation, I assume you have a basic idea as to why it's likely a bad idea to trust a product from Microsoft. Please don't fund their efforts to lock-down the PC market.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  And spend $2,500+ on what is essentially a fancy display? I doubt that any distro or app would support the gadgets that this comes with.
- 10y ago
justinsaccount 10y ago
Would be nice to be able to buy that and the display separately.
- thecolorblue 10y ago
  I agree. I got an all in one from dell 5 years ago and the only reason I keep it around is that it has an hdmi in. If I could use the display without booting up the computer, I would.
- Slippery_John 10y ago
  I've been in need of a new monitor for a while, this would be perfect! I really don't want to pay for the computer bits that I won't need though.
laurent123456 10y ago
With its Subsystem for Linux aimed at developers and now this desktop PC for designers, it seems Microsoft is quickly catching up with Apple. Now if they could release a good alternative to the MacBook Pro that would be great.
- marsrover 10y ago
  I have 2010 MBP, 2013 MBP, and Surface Book that I've had since Feb. I never use my MBP anymore. The hardware is great, it looks very sleek (in my opinion) and I am a big fan on Windows 10, which seems to run very well on it (no issues thus far). edit: if you asked me 5 years ago if I would ever be happy with Microsoft, I would have laughed.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    FWIW, Windows 10 runs really fast on your two MBPs, if you can get past the keyboard layout while using Windows. This is highly subjective, but my experience running Windows on Mac hardware was that they felt snappier than OSX on the same machine.
    - Griever 10y ago
      I use Win10 on my MBP as well, and I'd say I use it 95% of the time at this point. Definitely runs snappier than OSX, and now with the Linux subsystem running, I rarely have a need to go back. I only wish Apple would open source BootCamp and allow others to try and fix the few issues that it still has, namely around battery consumption. Highly unlikely they would ever do that, but one can dream.
    - marsrover 10y ago
      Yeah, I have noticed this as well. In fact, I don't have OSX on my 2010 MBP pro at all. It only has Windows 7 on it.
- brian_herman 10y ago
  Surface Book? It has a touch screen, high dpi display, and you can configure it with an dedicated graphics card.
20tibbygt06 10y ago
Starting at $2,999 to $4,199 Product Page: https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-Studio/productID.5074015900 https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface... *Surface Dial included edit: as pointed out below you do get a Surafce Dial with the purchase of the studio. I originally looked at the "what's included" section where the dial was not listed.
- IBM 10y ago
  Couldn't believe that was the price. Do they honestly believe this is going to sell? This really just shows you what a bargain the 5K iMac is.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    IMac does not come with a pen. This is a draughtsmans tool.
- timdorr 10y ago
  Says right at the top of the page "Get a Free Surface Dial". So, I assume that's included.
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  It seems to me, from the naming (Studio) to the price, that this is purely a professional tool and not a high-end home computer. Microsoft has plenty of partners to compete with the iMac. Now those partners can look into the Surface Studio as something to aspire to.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    The 3:2 aspect ratio probably makes it less consumery as well.
    - and0 10y ago
      Surfaces (Pro and standard) have been 3:2 for a couple years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_3 Not refuting your implication necessarily, but worth knowing their flagship (standard and high-end) devices have been 3:2.
KayL 10y ago
It looks great!! But no ethernet port, only 4 USB3. Absolutely not enough for a high-end PC user. It's a bit pricey. Looking forward to see they sell the display apart.
- nkw 10y ago
  It has an ethernet port: http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/10/26/13380462/microsoft-surface-studio-pc-computer-announced-features-price-release-date http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/10/26/13380462/m... http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/microsoft-announces-surface-studio-all-in-one-touchscreen-pc/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/microsoft-announces-s...
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Microsoft's official tech spec page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/tech-specs https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-stud... Connections & expansions 4 x USB 3.0 (one high power port) Full-size SD ™ card reader (SDXC) compatible Mini DisplayPort Headset jack Compatible with Surface Dial on-screen interaction* 1 Gigabit Ethernet port
    - KayL 10y ago
      Thanks. Too bad it doesn't show on this page: https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.5074015900 https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/product...
      - canucker2016 10y ago
        If you look at the "Compare Surface Models" section below the "Tech Specs" section, you'll see the following listed under Surface Studio in the last group titled Ports: Four full-size USB 3.0 Ultra-High Speed Full-size SD card reader Headset jack Mini Displayport Ethernet
        10y ago
artursapek 10y ago
The hardware quality gap between Windows machines and Macs is closing quickly thanks to Microsoft's investments lately
- klintwood 10y ago
  I would actually say it's widening.
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    Why don't we at least wait one day for the big Apple announcements tomorrow before making this proclamation one way or another?
- sirn 10y ago
  I'm not sure about that. I have the Surface Pro 3, and the recent battery issue[1] (that basically require SP3 to be plugged in all the time) still left bad taste in my mouth. If this was an isolated case, I probably wouldn't be too disappointed, but it affects everyone with the same battery model, and as of today, the problem is only half fixed[2]. Surface Pro 2 also starting to have the same problem[3]. Which is really a shame, because I really like the Surface form factor. I'm not saying who is better, it's just that hardware products are really hard to get right, especially when quality is the metric. :( [1]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdrivers/surface-pro-3-battery-degradation/783f6a00-19ba-4dcf-a828-0ad87751e15a https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s... [2]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdrivers/surface-pro-3-with-lgc-lgc-battery-degradation/f4fc3ec9-0771-46a3-8282-eaf588a7457e https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s... [3]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro2-surfhardware/battery-life-on-surface-pro-2-running-windows-10/e07b9bad-d253-408a-a0f8-492552f662c9 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro2-s...
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Quality? No, this is the one place where Microsoft still falls down. There were a ton of problems with the Surface Book and SP4 (judging from internal Yammer discussions when I was there). Innovation? Yes! Now if Microsoft could just execute better, I wouldn't be so afraid of buying this (because I really want it!).
schuke 10y ago
Absolutely love all Panos Panay's demos. It's truly "Nobody Does It Better".
dorianm 10y ago
They can do all the marketing they want, I just feel like this is gonna be the buggiest thing I ever used if I tried it.
- smrtinsert 10y ago
  How's that? I tried an surface pro a while ago and the touch screen worked fine. They had some issues to work around scaling, but iirc those are mostly sorted out. Frankly it looks amazing.
  - carlg 10y ago
    I'm on a Surface 4 right now. Wife has a surface 3. The 3's never got sorted out (sleep of death, etc). The 4's have gotten better, but still are very buggy, especially if you try and dock with low-dpi monitors. It's a shame because the performance and screen are stellar.
  - newjersey 10y ago
    https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/78392/microsoft-issues-firmware-updates-surface-book-surface-pro-4-2 https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/78392/micr... Microsoft has a bad track record with computers. There is no way to whitewash this or to think any other first generation hardware won't be fraught with problems. My advise is wait.
  - komali2 10y ago
    I'm an avid surface user, which doesn't make sense because 90% of my tweet history is me yelling at Microsoft that a windows update is preventing me from giving a presentation, again. So, as much as I love the platform, the issues for me are 1. Windows 10 updates are not sane. They do not schedule properly, and do not try to tell me otherwise because I have invested probably 40 hours total at this point trying to sanely schedule them. If you disable them, your build of Windows will go out of date and your machine will reset randomly until you turn them back on. Also, on a surface pro, updates take ~30 minutes to 6 hours. I joke not. So result: I'll roll into work at 8, have a presentation at 9, pop open the machine, and see "windows is configuring your update.... 39%" and know that I won't be working on that machine until after lunch. Maybe. 2. Random, impossible to track, unrelated bugs. Plugging in a second monitor causes all sorts of weirdness. It gets stuck in tablet mode. It'll refuse to go into tablet mode. The task bar will refuse to go away in fullscreen mode for some apps until a reset. It'll forget my office app credentials. Onenote will crash a hundred times. It'll soft-eject the microSD card randomly, but usually in the middle of a file transfer. Keyboard won't be recognized. Pen tip will fall out and they'll charge you 12 bucks for a replacement pack with 3 inside, 2 of which you'll instantly use. I love the surface because it perfectly fits my needs, but damn do I also hate it.
protomyth 10y ago
The video at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/surface-studio https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-stud... is a bit more informative and shows the Surface Dial in action. I looks like the graphics from an old Blackberry this is the future video[1]. Very cool, since Microsoft's version makes sense and Blackberry's was confusing. 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KLm4SErdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KLm4SErdQ
- nogridbag 10y ago
  Here's a direct link to the video mentioned above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMLA8YIgG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMLA8YIgG0 Looks amazing. Edit: See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMklcdzcNcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMklcdzcNcU
- revelation 10y ago
  That dial is bizarre. I have two hands, why would I replace one amazing hand with a heavy, large screen obscuring piece of machined aluminum to do something that my hand could already do?
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    Haptic feedback. The implication in the videos is that people are often manipulating the Dials with their off-hands without needing to look to back at the Dial. It's like a well worn knob in your car you don't even have to glance at while you are driving. Also the videos show it both on and off the screen as users have different needs to work with it.
  - kevingadd 10y ago
    Precision and extra inputs that you can't get with touch gestures.
  - animal531 10y ago
    I wasn't sold on it with the colour changing demos, that seemed a gimmick at best. The haptic feedback basically just makes it an on-screen mouse which is within easy reach, which is cool, you don't have to search for e.g. ctrl+z or a button off to the side to undo. But what really got my attention was the ruler. That opens up a natural way of drawing lines which just work, as compared to either using an actual ruler on your tablet (which hopefully works), or selecting a line tool and guesstimating the line you want (which you then adjust afterwards) etc. I'm looking forward to see what other uses for it they can come up with.
rubber_duck 10y ago
Nvidia GTX 9xxM - from what I understand 10xx cards offer the biggest difference in performance generation-to-generation seen in a while on the mobile side - the 10xx mobile versions are basically identical to desktop versions, 9xx are not even close - so why put last gen mobile tech in to a high end professional desktop product ? Especially considering the likelihood of VR proliferation in content creation - I couldn't justify buying this just because of that considering the price tag.
- yread 10y ago
  I was also wondering about that. They probably had to do a lot of customizations on the board to fit it in such a tiny place and cool it effectively. Designing such things can take quite some time. It is a shame, though
- kybernetikos 10y ago
  Not to mention that driving a 5k screen well is going to take some heft.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  I imagine the protracted development time is at fault. The guy from Penny Arcade wrote a blog post where he said that he tried a prototype a year ago, so presumably this has been in development for at least a year and a half. Probably the 9xx was the best they had at the time and when the 10xx was released they were too far along in development to swap it out. The next one should have it though.
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    >The next one should have it though. Yea for me this is a skip until they update the hardware - it's just too expensive to have to replace in a year.
Osiris 10y ago
it's interesting that they didn't announce the actual screen resolution, just the number of pixels. I found the answer in the ars article : 4500x3000
alva 10y ago
Surface Dial looks very, very cool. Innovation in the HCI space is greatly welcome. Could not find any info on whether you can use 2 at the same time. That could have some incredible applications!
- slantyyz 10y ago
  Reminds me a lot of the Griffin PowerMate. https://griffintechnology.com/us/powermate https://griffintechnology.com/us/powermate
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
fudgy73 10y ago
I think I'm sold at 3:2 display.
guelo 10y ago
I'm not sure why you need the world's thinnest LCD for a desktop, it's not like you'll be mounting it on a wall or something. By the way, that presenter is a pretty good actor, but he was trying way too hard in a way that was distracting. The way he called out someone in the audience at one point made it seem like he has standup comedy experience and was trying to connect with the audience but it made no sense.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Maybe you don't need the #1 thinnest, but it's meant to be folded down as a drafting table.
- Osiris 10y ago
  When he started introducing the Studio, he said a lot of words and by the end my first thought was he was just spouting buzz words and it didn't feel at all coherent or have anything to do with the product. It felt like he was just repeating words over and over again as a stall tactic to increase suspense. The presentation was a ton of fluff.
  - xenobioticants 10y ago
    Aka every Apple presentation ever. Those are filled to the brim with hyperbole ('magical', 'courageous', etc.) yet everyone somehow considers them the golden standard.
    - mwfunk 10y ago
      They're the least cringey maybe, I don't think anyone considers them to be high art or anything though (certainly not in the last 5 years). Large PR events for the mass media are always going to be at least a little cringey, no matter who's giving them. 'Courageous' is going to be used sarcastically for the next decade, no matter what computers people prefer.
- itaysk 10y ago
  It might matter if you touch, lift, hold, move it a lot. This is not ordinary desktop screen
Osiris 10y ago
The two things that Macbooks have had over Windows laptops, in my opinion, is high resolution screens and a fantastic trackpad. Windows laptops, even on the high end, still tend to screens no better than 1080p and crappy touchpads. My wife hates the touchpad so much she always uses a mouse and has the trackpad disabled. I just got an HP Elite x2, which is basically a Surface Pro and I really like the pen and touch input. Apple pioneered touch on the iPhone, but continues to refuse to add it to <del>OS X</del> macOS.
- raesene6 10y ago
  So I've not tried enough windows touchpads to comment on that, but from what I've seen there's quite a few Windows laptops with higher res screens than 1080p e.g. Dell XPS 13 - can have a 3200x1800 screen Lenovo Carbon X1 - can have a 2560x1440 screen HP Elitebook G3 - Can have a 2560x1440 screen Microsoft surface book - 3000x2000 screen Microsoft Surface Pro 4 - 2736 x 1824 screen
  - Osiris 10y ago
    I didn't mean to imply that there are none. I meant that they are incredibly rare if you consider the number of Windows laptop models available. The vast majority have either 1366x768 (low end laptops) or 1920x1080.
    - raesene6 10y ago
      sure, it's just that you said that even "high end" windows laptops didn't usually have better screens when from what I've seen pretty much all the top Windows laptop brands have high-end models with better screens. A couple of years ago, sure Windows laptops tended to have terrible screens, but that problem seems (to me) to have largely been resolved these days, for high-end devices anyway.
    - xenobioticants 10y ago
      But you can't compare Macbooks to $500 laptops. You need to compare them to ultrabooks like the XPS 13, where you'll see that the gap isn't so big.
gshakir 10y ago
$3K is very expensive. Looks like they are catering to the iMac market. It should be interesting to compare with tomorrow iMac release lineup.
- romanovcode 10y ago
  Well it is definitely better then current iMac. Will see tomorrow indeed.
mhomde 10y ago
I can't but feel sad that Microsoft somehow is dropping the ball on mobile despite them having been, briefly, in a prime position to succeed. They've executed well with their "One platform"-strategy. UWP is great and with the new composition API their finally moving into being able to compete in the modern software arena. Meanwhile on the hardware side Panos is basically doing what Apple should have been doing if they had any creative leadership left... but it doesn't matter, for some reason they've seemed to abandoned mobile despite having all the pieces in place. Their mistreatment, lack of support and quality assurance of the mobile side of the platform has been dismal. It's very weird, obviously they can do hardware, they have the ecosystem to back them up and the API teams have been doing some great stuff when it comes to w10, yet they've seemed to given up on mobile. I must say I don't understand it, how can such a big player as Microsoft abandon such a strategic area of their ecosystem? I understand that it's hard to be a profitable in the harsh reality of consumer electronics and that the money is in business... but yet, if you're not in mobile you're leaving a gaping hole in your ecosystem that leaves the other parts vulnerable. I don't understand why they don't simple pour resources into mobile with the same enthusiasm as tablets/laptops and gaming. Something must be off with the leadership or I'm missing something
- Osiris 10y ago
  They were in mobile from the beginning with Windows CE. Balmer thought the iPhone was a joke and they so they didn't try to adapt. By the time they did, Android and iOS had hundreds of thousands of apps. So they are in a catch-22, they can't gain marketshare because they don't have enough apps and no one will write apps for it because they don't have any marketshare. I think their strategy so far is good. Get Windows working well on various form factors, move from Desktops to Laptops to full PC tablets. With those in place, they'll see developers writing UWP apps that will work not only on big screens, but can be scaled to smaller screens, giving them the apps they need to move down into the small tablet and phone spaces.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    The saddest part is maybe how close they where: I so wanted it but waited and waited for a waterproof Nokia and then ended with a Sony Z series and later a Samsung something waterproof flagship. Others waited for instasnapsomething but I almost can't care less I think as long as the platdorm has a couple of good alternatives for notes and calendar + Whatsapp and Telegram. Now I almost feel bad for not supporting them. Who would have thunk for someone who used to despise all their products until some 4 years ago :-/ (since early 2000s).
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afshinmeh 10y ago
the website feels like someone has copy-pasted apple.com/imac and changed the pictures using Microsoft Frontpage
- pmelendez 10y ago
  I guess you are talking about the website? Because the product couldn't possible be more different than the iMac, if any the product feels like an iteration over the Dell XPS 27 line
  - afshinmeh 10y ago
    yeah. I haven't used and won't probably use this device but marketing wise, it's exactly same as what Apple does. that makes sense to get downvotes though since 99% of this thread's audiences are Microsoft zombies :)
    - pmelendez 10y ago
      I am writing this on a MacBook Pro so I don't describe myself as a Microsoft zombie (I didn't downvote you either) and I find this machine way more appealing than an iMac. I have a marketing filter in my mind so I couldn't care less about the design of the website.
      - afshinmeh 10y ago
        true, a friend of mine is using Surface 4 and he's really happy. as I said, I'm not sure how good or bad this device is but at least marketing wise, they are doing exactly same as Apple.
- gshakir 10y ago
  It does looks like iMac clone. As they say, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
gxs 10y ago
As a side note, it's amazing to see that despite everyone ragging on apple and claiming superiority to them, they all copy their advertising style. The copy on the google pixel site and this site are both very obviously apple-ish. edit: down vote away, doesn't change the fact that these websites scream "we want to be apple". Though I will say, the tides are changing for apple judging by the amount of people hurt by this comment.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Even Apple's biggest detractors frequently, publicly give credit to Apple's marketing proficiency (heck, the most common thing for the biggest detractors to say is that Apple is all marketing.)
- jordache 10y ago
  you mean the CGI flybys of the unit being virtually constructed? Yeah APple pioneered that idea, I actually didn't like that part of the surface PC promo.. Like who cares what the internal hinges look like!? They need to stop doing close flybys of irrelevant subjects The usability portions of the video were awesome though
  - ashark 10y ago
    The copy's very Apple-like, though it occasionally stumbles in the attempt, as with the header "Runs Office & Windows perfectly."
  - mxfh 10y ago
    Exploded views are not something Apple invented or pioneered, they surely polished them to new marketing levels, yes. They are a staple for product designers, so Apple's Jony might have pushed for their repeated use. also there was this 2002 art installation http://www.influx.co.uk/blog/damian-ortegas-cosmic-thing/ http://www.influx.co.uk/blog/damian-ortegas-cosmic-thing/
    - jordache 10y ago
      i should have clarified, they hugely popularized their usage for marketing towards consumers.
novaleaf 10y ago
Pretty. Going after the mac market for media creation is a smart move, as that's a big driver of the mac's appeal over windows
zk00006 10y ago
beautiful
- zk00006 10y ago
  Downvoted for what?
  - ggregoire 10y ago
    I didn't downvote you but "beautiful" is not really a constructive comment. :)
    - zk00006 10y ago
      There is a difference between downvote and ignoring the comment.
jordache 10y ago
this is true innovation. mean while.. an OLED stripe.. aghem.. a Razer keyboard
- j2bax 10y ago
  You wouldn't be the first to try to predict "true innovation" vs. waste of time or poor execution.
- Bytes 10y ago
  I agree, Microsoft has been really leading in innovation over the last few years, with the surface book last year and the studio this year. I have been really let down with Apple lately and their lack of willingness to innovate. Hopefully we will see something truly innovative from Apple on Friday, but I doubt it.
usaphp 10y ago
Poor Cintiq is losing more and more market share with these sort of products.
- jordache 10y ago
  who builds the touch/stylus technology for MS? I thought the earlier surfaces had wacom technologies inside?
  - bsimpson 10y ago
    They bought Wacom's competitor when they launched the portable Surface; I think it was called Ntrig.
- j2bax 10y ago
  I haven't seen any sort of mass exodus from Wacom in the pro market yet. Wacom makes highly specialized hardware for graphics professionals. I don't think any fly by night piece of prosumer hardware is going to make them lose TOO much sleep.
  - j2bax 10y ago
    Additionally, I think they'd likely be far more concerned if Apple released an iMac like this (which I wish they would). Reason being, most graphics pro's are already on iMacs and if they suddenly had the drawing capabilities and form factor built into their go-to system, they might have less of a need for an additional piece of hardware (Cintiq, Intuos). Apple is known to pay attention to the kind of details artists care about in implementation.
pjmlp 10y ago
Love it. It even has a version of their ergonomic keyboards, something that I cannot really understand with Apple, how can one even manage to program in such flat keyboards. Apple, one of the first companies to introduce ergonomic keyboards to the world.
- itaysk 10y ago
  ^ this
  - jeron 10y ago
    ^ Pointless/Low effort comment
    - sctb 10y ago
      Let's not do any of this here, shall we?
- Osmium 10y ago
  > how can one even manage to program in such flat keyboards Aren't keyboards that allow your hands to rest flat more ergonomic? I thought keyboards that slope upwards cause potentially harmful bending of the wrist?
  - jahewson 10y ago
    If you look closely at a good ergonomic keyboard (such as Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic) you'll notice that the keyboard actually slopes downwards, away from the body. You're correct to say that an upwards slope is harmful, but so too is a flat surface. The best position is to have the elbow extended at more than 90 degrees, and the wrist straight - hence the downwards sloping keyboard. You'll also notice that the keyboard's wave shape raises it in certain places to match the hands, this is to allow your wrists to relax more, because the karate chop position is neutral, whereas hands flat in front is actually using your muscles to hold that position - the slope helps to relieve this by allowing the wrists to be 30deg or so closer to neutral. The split in the middle of the keyboard prevents the hands from having to pivot outwards at the wrists on the horizontal axis to align with a straight row of keys, again allowing them to remain in a neutral position instead because the two halves of the keyboard are aligned with the natural arc of your reach.
samfisher83 10y ago
Is there a price anywhere on the page or am I just missing it? Edit: Its mentioned on other site 2999.
deleted 10y ago
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dmtroyer 10y ago
But does it have a USB port?! In all seriousness, pretty cool.
PaulHoule 10y ago
Microsoft is moving in on Apple's turf.
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uniclaude 10y ago
As with other recent Microsoft devices, I feel like: - This computer looks very good - The specs look more than decent (skylake, 32gb ram...) ...but - It's going to be poorly distributed (at least where I live, in Asia). I'm not even expecting a synchronized worldwide release. - I'll have a hard time working in an Unix-friendly environment (the only reason why I bought macs so far) - I wouldn't be surprised if it's insanely overpriced in Asia (like the Surface Book is) So I'm pretty sure I'll unfortunately have to pass, and so will most people I work with. The Microsoft buying experience is horrendous, and that's too bad now that their OS sounds OK, and their hardware is probably the best PC hardware you can get.
- kybernetikos 10y ago
  > - I'll have a hard time working in an Unix-friendly environment (the only reason why I bought macs so far) The new Windows Subsystem for Linux is actually pretty good.
  - drewmate 10y ago
    I agree, I expected loads of compatibility issues and weird bugs, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Integration with apt package management is solid and has so far worked like a charm. My only complaint is that I had to opt in to the bleeding edge test versions of Windows 10, so my computers keep restarting themselves (often deleting registry settings like keyboard remaps and custom global hotkeys in the process) practically weekly. Anyone know of a way to keep my bash shell without having to (practically) reinstall Windows every week?
    - nozzlegear 10y ago
      The latest update to the OS, Windows 10 Anniversary (I think?), includes the WSL. It doesn't have some of the latest features that you'll find in the insider preview, such as file watchers or launching Windows programs, but it's personally got everything that I need to build JS apps.
gthtjtkt 10y ago
$2,999 and the best GPU option is a last-gen mobile card? The default 965M is a crappy budget card (half the performance of the 980M), and if you want the 980M you have to pick the $4,199 configuration. And hybrid drives!? This thing starts at $2,199 and you can't even get a full SSD? I know 2D designers probably won't mind the GPU, but they could definitely benefit from a true SSD. Hell, the recently announced Razer Blade Pro has top of the line everything (including a desktop GTX 1080 GPU, 1TB SSD, and 4K screen suitable for photo/video editing) and it still costs less than the 980M Surface Studio: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/razer-blade-pro-laptop/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/razer-blade-pro-laptop/ I must be missing the value proposition here because that price seems absurd, especially for a computer presumably geared towards professionals.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- thisisdallas 10y ago
  > I must be missing the value proposition here The screen.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - IBM 10y ago
    Lower resolution than a 5K iMac
    - thisisdallas 10y ago
      That's true? That doesn't mean it's not still a good screen though.
    - mmanfrin 10y ago
      Is the 5K iMac a touchscreen?
      - 10y ago
jlebrech 10y ago
now if I just code like in Shenzhen IO on it, i'd buy one.
sergiotapia 10y ago
A shame the OS is just terrible. Windows 10 is so hostile to me as a user, constantly pestering me about updates or missing DLL files. Bleh. I installed Plex in January, today after not booting my machine for about a month, I wanted to watch a video and got some random DLL missing. How a DLL can go missing while the box is turned off is a mystery to me, but there you go. I don't trust my Windows box. I trust my iMac much much more.
- jsafari 10y ago
  The last time I had such an issue with my (fleet of) Windows machines goes back to XP days.
  - sergiotapia 10y ago
    Cool, not my experience though.
- guardian5x 10y ago
  Windows pestering you about missing DLL files? Sounds like a rather exotic problem.
PascLeRasc 10y ago
http://i.imgur.com/OZ3fLPZ.png http://i.imgur.com/OZ3fLPZ.png What happened at 2:25-26 with a Mac named Studio Admin?
- jxy 10y ago
  Good catch. Guess someone in PR likes to use mac?
math0ne 10y ago
I don't understand who this product is for, someone who is not a PC enthusiast but has 3000$ to spend on a PC? I guess the target audience is like high end design studios that need to outfit their stylish new office with matching computers that no one will ever use because all the real work happens at home on people's macbooks at home. That said I love the dial thingy, I think it has some great ideas behind it and is potentially also a nod to the incredibly popular Griffin powermate which I believe is still a popular product.
- mxfh 10y ago
  Just look at who buy's Wacom Cintiq digitizer screens or color proofing monitors anywhere above USD 2k per unit, there is a market, it's niche, but a market.
- fsloth 10y ago
  The target market is not a PC enthusiasts but creative professionals.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    >> The target market is not a PC enthusiasts but creative professionals. I would also add that another target market is other Windows PC makers. In the same way that the Surface and Surface Book showed what touch-based Windows devices could be, I imagine that Lenovo, Dell etc. will probably get some inspiration from this product and produce their own variants for a bunch of different market segments.
IanDrake 10y ago
At the end I really expected him to unlatch the screen from the base and walk away with it. I have no good reason to expect that and I can't imagine that feature would be very useful at this size, but I still expected it for some reason.
elorant 10y ago
Well hell did froze. Who would have thought that we’d live the day that Microsoft is launching a product specifically aimed at designers. This was supposed to be Apple’s turf for decades.
ggregoire 10y ago
The video does an amazing job, the product looks great. I've never tried a Surface: do they have a special screen technology to avoid the fingerprints?
- kevingadd 10y ago
  The surface book picks up fingerprints pretty steadily, but it's not as bad as other devices I've owned, and they're very easy to clean off.
danso 10y ago
I probably won't buy one of these, just as I didn't buy the first iteration of the Surface, but will definitely consider future iterations. If anything, these products greatly boost my estimation of Microsoft as a brand. If I were still more in my photography/design days, I'd have a hard time resisting buying the Surface Studio (assuming its reviews aren't disastrous. For the past decade I hadn't contemplated buying anything else besides Apple when it comes to PCs. Microsoft has made a great case for how much innovation can still be done in this field.
jarjoura 10y ago
At first I applauded Microsoft for continuing to advance the desktop computer market. This is something I wish Apple would continue to invest in but is clear they're moving towards building machines for the engineers to build iOS software. However then I jump into the Microsoft store and check it out... $4,199.00 for the high-end option gets you a hybrid drive, probably connected over an older SATA bus and a graphics card from last year? USB 3.0 only and no Thunderbolt? Is this a system that was designed last year and it took a full year to get to production? Sorry if I'm being bitchy, but to me this is typical Microsoft only going the 80%.
- kevingadd 10y ago
  You need to understand the market they're aiming for: This acts as a replacement for the somewhat common Cintiq + PC pairing (very expensive), and also happens to serve some other useful purposes, all as one unit. Plus it introduces a new interaction model and good hardware design. Definitely very expensive, but actually price-competitive vs alternatives.
- MAGZine 10y ago
  Why, pray tell, would Microsoft include a thunderbolt port, an apple standard, on their device? It had licensing issues before, not sure if it still does or not—wouldn't be surprised. I'd want a USB-C port before I'd want a thunderbolt port!
  - izacus 10y ago
    While thunderbolt isn't an Apple standard (it's Intels actually and HP laptops for example ship with it), the hardware on Thunderbolt that's actually compatible with Windows is rather rare and doesn't make all that much sense in comparison to just using USB 3.0
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    Thunderbolt is an Intel standard, Apple was just an early adopter.
randomsearch 10y ago
Apple release iPhone 7, which is then eclipsed somewhat by Google Pixel. MS announce this immediately before the MacBook announcement. Conclusions are that (a) Apple are leaky and (b) rather than _avoid_ Apple announcements, their competitors are now happy to compete with them. A bad sign for Apple.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
That looks pretty awesome, and it makes the iMac seem even more tired which I assume was intended. It is startling to have a story about IBM extolling the virtues of Macbooks for business and Microsoft launching a platform targeting designers, it really is amazing. But setting all of that aside for a moment.... The screen. Clearly that is the thing which makes this announcement. For me, the 3:2 aspect ratio is so more reasonable for computers than 16:9. And having a zillion pixels is wonderful although my CAD package (TurboCAD) still doesn't deal well with the high DPI screen off the Surface Book, I'm sure it would look silly on this machine. My experience with the Surface Book tells me that the PixelSense technology is really great for drawing. I have both it and the iPad Pro and not too surprising, at twice the cost, in my opinion the Surface Book's drawing experience is better than the iPad's. I base that opinion on precision of the drawing, expressiveness, and the response time. Touch. Microsoft is really doubling down on the whole touching thing and so far Apple has stayed away from it with its compute platforms. That is both a strength and a weakness. The rest of the ecosystem doesn't always understand what to do, so you get controls that are too small to use your finger on sometimes, and odd sort of multi-monitor experiences where things appear on one screen and then when you resize them they jump to the other and try to adjust for "touchiness". If the tools people can get their act together, and by that I mean the designer tools (I for one would love to see a schematic capture and board layout system that was touch enabled and pen enabled) then I think it is only good news for Microsoft, if they can't, then Apple will look really smart at not adopting a "gimmick". Either way these things are hugely fun to use and play with.
- ramenmeal 10y ago
  I'm glad someone brought up the aspect ratio. That display looks so much more productive than 16:9.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    As a side note, I've actually never understood why the industry converged on 16:9. It's pretty much only good for watching movies. I really miss 4:3.
johnwheeler 10y ago
It's hard following behind Steve Jobs and Apple, but I gotta give this guy props on his salesmanship.
codingdave 10y ago
This concept seems to "re-surface" very couple years, and I just cannot get over the first time I saw it... well, saw the mockery of it, at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY
- amlozano 10y ago
  It is all birthed from the desire of software engineers who play dungeons and dragons and want a programmable gaming table. When I interviewed at Microsoft I played with one of those tables, and there was definitely a dice roller app. No lie I would love to own one of those tables.
eeyepieinthesky 10y ago
Dear Microsoft, Could I just have that display please? Thanks.
Keyframe 10y ago
DCI-P3 monitor for that price, hot damn! I wonder if it's 100% coverage?
silverlight 10y ago
If I could get this screen (along with it working with the pen and the other accessories) but hook it up to my existing desktop I would be all over it. Even if it was still $2,200. But a 980M is just not going to cut it as my primary graphics card...
- bluedino 10y ago
  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1113579-REG/wacom_dtk_2700_cintiq_27qhd_27_interactive.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1113579-REG/wacom_dtk... There you go
ralmidani 10y ago
I can kind of understand the need for non-upgradable phones and laptops, since they are more useful when they're thinner and lighter. But stationary devices like this and Apple's iMac are unnecessarily wasteful.
ommunist 10y ago
Win10 is too clunky, otherwise the offer is very compelling. But not enough to switch.
qihqi 10y ago
As a software eng. this is not something I need. I have realized that because computers are designed and programmed by engineers, we had what we need from the very beginning. I am glad that now its designer's turn to get some tools.
- criddell 10y ago
  The touch input I don't care about, but I definitely want that display. How can anybody that works with text all day not want more pixels and sharper text?
  - jack1243star 10y ago
    I actually like coding with bitmap fonts very much, which becomes too tiny if shown on a high-dpi screen.
    - criddell 10y ago
      Doesn't that mean you just have to pick a larger size for that typeface or turn on scaling? Now that I think about it, a 28" 4500x3000 display will definitely have scaling turned on. Bitmap fonts should still work just fine, right?
d3ckard 10y ago
Great hardware, interface ideas look really interesting too. This could actually be some vision that can get mainstream in the future. I would seriously consider buying one, if not for one thing - OS. After recently installing Windows on Bootcamp I can honestly say that I hate the thing. It made me swear constantly for 15 minutes. I wish MS finally wrote a new OS from scratch. They seem to have the right idea about where to go, but Windows looks like a 40 year old after series of plastic surgeries - it's supposed to look young and modern, but after you get passed the surface you can see all those menus that are almost two decades old.
- hifigi 10y ago
  Everything Windows is so entrenched in eating its own dogfood, so it probably will never change. But what I wouldn't give for a ground-up POSIX-compliant Windows OS. It's stupid, it's unrealistic, but it would be so, so awesome.
  - d3ckard 10y ago
    For me it's not even about being unix-like (though sounds nice). I would just want them to get rid of all the legacy garbage and start from scratch. They have nice design language, good programming environment, multiple platforms - everything is dandy. The only problem is all the stuff left for compatibility reasons.
brandon272 10y ago
The feedback I am seeing for this product seems generally positive even with a lot of delight from some corners. It will be interesting to compare the feedback for this against tomorrow's feedback regarding the Mac announcement, a pillar of which seems to be the bar they've added to the Macbook Pro.
AaronFriel 10y ago
I would like to buy just the display, please. A 4500 x 3000 display? That sounds amazing for writing code.
mars4rp 10y ago
after reading couple of criticizing comments, I can't stop thinking how this people would have reacted if Apple released exactly the same product!!!
- mwfunk 10y ago
  Much more negatively, I would assume. I know I'm much more inclined to cut MS some slack just because it's exciting to see them try new and interesting things. They're still making the computer equivalent of concept cars here, so some degree of high price/low volume/odd choices is to be expected.
bitmapbrother 10y ago
$3000 for a machine with anemic specs is going to be a tough sell. Who exactly is this computer for? As for that puck device - I couldn't help but laugh when the presenter, dressed in all black as if attending a funeral, used it to emphasize how passionate his scribbles were on a document. Who does that? Who would ever do that? And more importantly, who ever thought this would be something you would even want to devote time to demo?
johnhenry 10y ago
A desktop with a rear camera? Interesting...
dingo_bat 10y ago
I don't care about anything else but how come today's high end computers start out with 8gb of ram? That was probably enough 2 years ago. Now it's enough for a net book. My phone has 4gb ram now. And they expect me to pay ~$2500 and get 8gb in a desktop?
hatsunearu 10y ago
I can't believe people are complaining about this thing! This is what the Studio is up against: https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Cintiq-27QHD-Creative-Display/dp/B00R7QJAHY/ https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Cintiq-27QHD-Creative-Display/d... Look at the damn thing, shitty (i presume) TFT display, no capacitive touch (i think), and no computer attached. This is a great value proposition to those kind of people. Though if this had a gaming tier GPU and a bit better specs this would be literally _the_ machine.
corv 10y ago
Even the table they presented it on looks like it was lifted from an Apple Store...

599 points by 1st1 10y ago

$3000? It had better be really something. I wonder how well VST synth modules work on it? I like my iPad synth toys, but they are not compatible with Mac.

deleted 10y ago

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1st1 10y ago

I have to say this is the first time in years when there's a feeling that MS has outpaced Apple. The product looks amazing.

1st1 10y ago
Can't wait to install Kaspersky on it! :)
- marsrover 10y ago
  Maybe there's some scenario I'm missing out on, but I've never had any issues just using Windows Defender.
  - 1st1 10y ago
    That was irony :)
    - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
      That was sarcasm. Irony is that you've confused one with the other :)
      - vezycash 10y ago
        I'm sure he's being serious. I've stopped using other antivirus since Defender came on board. Whenever I buy a new laptop, the first thing I do is uninstall Norton and activate defender.
        martin_bech 10y ago
        The guy kidding, was the one who wanted to install Kaspersky
- devopsproject 10y ago
  uBlock Origin + Windows Defender = pretty good defence for people who don't click yes on everything that pops up
  - vezycash 10y ago
    + unchecky It protects from toolbars, addons and other bundlewares of free software.
digi_owl 10y ago
Yeah this seems to aim straight at the complaints that Apple has been ignoring the creative segment of their market.
- seanalltogether 10y ago
  Both digital illustrators I know work entirely on PC's these days simply because the tooling there is more flexible. I have no doubt they will migrate to this device over time.
- jordache 10y ago
  Apple these days are designed for optimal usage of iTunes and Safari. It is no longer the platform of choice for creative content creation.
  - lucisferre 10y ago
    Surprisingly, two of the worst pieces of software that come with OSX. I would love it if they were really optimizing anything about iTunes.
    - jordache 10y ago
      if they can optimize iTunes it would represent as a momentous shift in general computing.
      - nof 10y ago
        Indeed. Coreaudio is much than whatever it is on Windows. Easier to sync software and lower latency overall.
    - csomar 10y ago
      Indeed. Safari is lagging behind, it's like IE in the old days. iTunes is the shittiest App I have interacted with in the OSX eco-system.
    - spike021 10y ago
mozumder 10y ago
As an Apple (Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, PowerBook, PowerMac G5) user for 15 years, of photo processing & inDesign layout, I agree. XCode & iOS development is going to keep me on Apple for now, though, but the Linux subsystem for Windows is really appealing. The BSD Unix environment is the whole reason I went with Apple in the first place. OS X is basically a Unix workstation & perfected anything the Linux desktop wanted to be. Surprised MS went with nVidia 980s instead of 1080s, & Win 10 still a little clunky compared to OS X.
- usaphp 10y ago
  > "Surprised MS went with nVidia 980s instead of 1080s" It's not even 980, its 980m which is significantly slower than 980, nevermind 1080. And the 980m only comes in the $4199 option, that's ridiculous...
  - Ant5do 10y ago
    Okay, seriously. The iMac comes with a 395x mobile gpu. It's pretty comparable to the 980m. The 1070m and 1080m don't exist yet. If you guys actually knew more about hardware than nothing, maybe you'd realize that it's not possible to get a 1080m. iMacs and Macbook Pros (top of the line 15-inch with dGPU) have always used mobile GPUs. Also, illustrators/designers don't need dGPUs. That's why the designers/illustrators at hte tech companies that you work at can use macbook 13 inch laptops and 15-inch laptops without the dGPUs
    - mhermher 10y ago
      NVIDIA got rid of the m distinction for the new gen. Razer (and I believe others) have already put a full "desktop" geforce 10xx in some of their laptops.
- TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
  > the Linux subsystem for Windows is really appealing In theory. To anyone who feels that way, please try it out for yourself before making a leap. I thought it would let me develop Ruby on Rails under Windows like I could do on Linux or macOS. I discovered a whole bunch of unimplemented features that prevented this. After a couple of months of commenting on bug reports and watching and trying, I gave up. I'll check back later. YMMV.
jshen 10y ago
My thought is that it doesn't matter because MS missed the mobile market. People will default to the products that best integrate with their phones, and that will be iPad Pro or .... whatever the android space has to offer.
- WayneBro 10y ago
  Do you think a lot of people care about PC/phone integration? I don't see it outside of "contacts and email" which is already fully integrated everywhere thanks to the cloud. People don't buy Macs because they work well with an iPhone as far as I can tell. They buy Macs for all sorts of other reasons, but that doesn't seem to be one of them. Every corporate office in the world is running Windows. I'm pretty sure people are going to continue buying whatever they use at work, so unfortunately for HN, Windows is here to stay...(sorry!)
  - swang 10y ago
    I just installed macOS Sierra and have up-to-date iOS 10.1. I still cannot get handoff working. From reading the reports this is not just me. At least Chrome still syncs.
    - prawn 10y ago
      Similar experience here. I use iPhone, MBP and iPad. Originally thought that having everything under one umbrella would be a huge help, but the reality is the syncing is such a pain that I never do it. Took me many, many months to even get AirDrop working between my own devices. iTunes is very frustrating to use in managing iOS devices.
      - swang 10y ago
        one of the things that apple didn't pointed out is that there are 2 versions of airdrop. i didn't know this and had an older version of osx that wouldn't sync with my iphone. no error message either.
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
romaniv 10y ago
This seems to compete with Wacom Cintiq more than any Apple product I'm aware of.
- smilekzs 10y ago
  And it's based off NTrig tech, too. Competition is good ;)
- nkassis 10y ago
  I think that's part of the point the parent. This is a combination of an iMac and Cintiq. Something Apple currently doesn't have a answer to.
ryanSrich 10y ago
The indie tool market has a much stronger foothold today than they did a few years ago. Adobe, Autodesk, etc. still reign supreme, but that's slowly changing. They are being overtaken by smaller, more niche products. See affinity, sketch, figma, etc. Unless Microsoft can woo these companies into building apps for their platform, I don't see MSFT making a dent with this market.
- ebalit 10y ago
  Affinity Designer for Windows [1] is currently in beta. Figma is available for Windows too [2]. 1: https://affinity.serif.com/fr/windows/ https://affinity.serif.com/fr/windows/ 2: https://www.figma.com/downloads https://www.figma.com/downloads
rsync 10y ago
"I have to say this is the first time in years when there's a feeling that MS has outpaced Apple. The product looks amazing." That is what I came here to say (as a mac user who uses only apple computers, currently[1]). See this animated gif from the article: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kFQXkfWYVYCRnSfXpAhRBTVXH4M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7350333/dial.0.gif https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kFQXkfWYVYCRnSfXpAhRBTVXH4M... Now ... I don't know what that's about and I am pretty sure that's an action I will never use, but that's something new and interesting. That's innovation. [1] 11" macbook air, mac mini HTPC and 2009 mac pro as primary desktop
- prawn 10y ago
  Presumably you can use the jog dial off-screen and for any number of things, in which case it would be useful to almost everyone for volume control, scrolling through lists, adjusting values in control panels and so on. Obviously video editors use them, but I know of professional photographers who find them really useful in moving through a catalogue while editing photos too.
draw_down 10y ago
They got whupped bad in the mobile market, and PC market has been stagnant/in decline for some time now. They have to come up with something.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > PC market has been stagnant/in decline for some time now. They have to come up with something. Quick, someone page Apple because Mac sales are declining even faster than the market. Surely they have to do something, that's the only possible motivation /s
  - draw_down 10y ago
    Yeah, if only they had another product which makes tons of money............. hmmm................ I wonder what it could be......................

digi_owl 10y ago

As a reminder, Pixelsense means that the whole screen is a short range camera. Put a QR code or similar on it and Windows can read it and react accordingly.

martin-adams 10y ago
What?! I have a Surface Book and you're telling me the screen is a short range camera? Do you know what I would need to test that out?
- digi_owl 10y ago
  They didn't use that tech in the surface book (AFAIK).
blackoil 10y ago
That was the technology of original Pixelsense, now MS is just using the brand name for high quality display like 'retina' is for Apple.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  It would be careless of them to water down the brand like that, after having developed the technology in the first place.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The current use of "Surface" itself is an example of Microsoft watering down a brand in much the same way; it might be careless but it's absolutely consistent with Microsoft's past behavior.
    - swang 10y ago
      Surface originally was a large windows tablet that doubled as a "table" it also had fancy sensors underneath that allowed you to do a couple of cool things and other way cooler things that never came to fruition. Seems like it would have died off as a huge blundering $10k per table mess by Microsoft. Or as a badly thought out Windows RT Surface tablet. I would have liked another Surface table (one that actually got better support than a few WPF/Windows widgets) but I'd say now Surface is a huge brand for Microsoft with laptops/desktops.

rufugee 10y ago

If it will run Linux, I'll buy one immediately...

blackoil 10y ago
At minimum Ubuntu in Windows will be there.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  That is not what a Linux user usually means when they say "If <device xyz> will run Linux". Windows Subsystem for Linux doesn't support (officially, or even cleanly) any graphical Linux apps, for one.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wlesieutre 10y ago
r/surfacelinux will be the place to watch for info on that. The other Surface models are mostly workable.
virtualritz 10y ago
+1 I couldn't imagine why it wouldn't run Linux. :) Only blocker I could see for myself is GPU upgradeability.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
If you run Linux on your desktop, even if it's not your main motivation, I assume you have a basic idea as to why it's likely a bad idea to trust a product from Microsoft. Please don't fund their efforts to lock-down the PC market.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
And spend $2,500+ on what is essentially a fancy display? I doubt that any distro or app would support the gadgets that this comes with.
10y ago

justinsaccount 10y ago

Would be nice to be able to buy that and the display separately.

thecolorblue 10y ago
I agree. I got an all in one from dell 5 years ago and the only reason I keep it around is that it has an hdmi in. If I could use the display without booting up the computer, I would.
Slippery_John 10y ago
I've been in need of a new monitor for a while, this would be perfect! I really don't want to pay for the computer bits that I won't need though.

laurent123456 10y ago

With its Subsystem for Linux aimed at developers and now this desktop PC for designers, it seems Microsoft is quickly catching up with Apple. Now if they could release a good alternative to the MacBook Pro that would be great.

marsrover 10y ago
I have 2010 MBP, 2013 MBP, and Surface Book that I've had since Feb. I never use my MBP anymore. The hardware is great, it looks very sleek (in my opinion) and I am a big fan on Windows 10, which seems to run very well on it (no issues thus far). edit: if you asked me 5 years ago if I would ever be happy with Microsoft, I would have laughed.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  FWIW, Windows 10 runs really fast on your two MBPs, if you can get past the keyboard layout while using Windows. This is highly subjective, but my experience running Windows on Mac hardware was that they felt snappier than OSX on the same machine.
  - Griever 10y ago
    I use Win10 on my MBP as well, and I'd say I use it 95% of the time at this point. Definitely runs snappier than OSX, and now with the Linux subsystem running, I rarely have a need to go back. I only wish Apple would open source BootCamp and allow others to try and fix the few issues that it still has, namely around battery consumption. Highly unlikely they would ever do that, but one can dream.
  - marsrover 10y ago
    Yeah, I have noticed this as well. In fact, I don't have OSX on my 2010 MBP pro at all. It only has Windows 7 on it.
brian_herman 10y ago
Surface Book? It has a touch screen, high dpi display, and you can configure it with an dedicated graphics card.

20tibbygt06 10y ago

Starting at $2,999 to $4,199 Product Page: https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-Studio/productID.5074015900 https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface... *Surface Dial included edit: as pointed out below you do get a Surafce Dial with the purchase of the studio. I originally looked at the "what's included" section where the dial was not listed.

IBM 10y ago
Couldn't believe that was the price. Do they honestly believe this is going to sell? This really just shows you what a bargain the 5K iMac is.
- fsloth 10y ago
  IMac does not come with a pen. This is a draughtsmans tool.
timdorr 10y ago
Says right at the top of the page "Get a Free Surface Dial". So, I assume that's included.
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
It seems to me, from the naming (Studio) to the price, that this is purely a professional tool and not a high-end home computer. Microsoft has plenty of partners to compete with the iMac. Now those partners can look into the Surface Studio as something to aspire to.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  The 3:2 aspect ratio probably makes it less consumery as well.
  - and0 10y ago
    Surfaces (Pro and standard) have been 3:2 for a couple years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_3 Not refuting your implication necessarily, but worth knowing their flagship (standard and high-end) devices have been 3:2.

KayL 10y ago

It looks great!! But no ethernet port, only 4 USB3. Absolutely not enough for a high-end PC user. It's a bit pricey. Looking forward to see they sell the display apart.

nkw 10y ago
It has an ethernet port: http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/10/26/13380462/microsoft-surface-studio-pc-computer-announced-features-price-release-date http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/10/26/13380462/m... http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/microsoft-announces-surface-studio-all-in-one-touchscreen-pc/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/microsoft-announces-s...
- protomyth 10y ago
  Microsoft's official tech spec page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/tech-specs https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-stud... Connections & expansions 4 x USB 3.0 (one high power port) Full-size SD ™ card reader (SDXC) compatible Mini DisplayPort Headset jack Compatible with Surface Dial on-screen interaction* 1 Gigabit Ethernet port
  - KayL 10y ago
    Thanks. Too bad it doesn't show on this page: https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.5074015900 https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/product...
    - canucker2016 10y ago
      If you look at the "Compare Surface Models" section below the "Tech Specs" section, you'll see the following listed under Surface Studio in the last group titled Ports: Four full-size USB 3.0 Ultra-High Speed Full-size SD card reader Headset jack Mini Displayport Ethernet
      - 10y ago

artursapek 10y ago

The hardware quality gap between Windows machines and Macs is closing quickly thanks to Microsoft's investments lately

klintwood 10y ago
I would actually say it's widening.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  Why don't we at least wait one day for the big Apple announcements tomorrow before making this proclamation one way or another?
sirn 10y ago
I'm not sure about that. I have the Surface Pro 3, and the recent battery issue[1] (that basically require SP3 to be plugged in all the time) still left bad taste in my mouth. If this was an isolated case, I probably wouldn't be too disappointed, but it affects everyone with the same battery model, and as of today, the problem is only half fixed[2]. Surface Pro 2 also starting to have the same problem[3]. Which is really a shame, because I really like the Surface form factor. I'm not saying who is better, it's just that hardware products are really hard to get right, especially when quality is the metric. :( [1]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdrivers/surface-pro-3-battery-degradation/783f6a00-19ba-4dcf-a828-0ad87751e15a https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s... [2]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdrivers/surface-pro-3-with-lgc-lgc-battery-degradation/f4fc3ec9-0771-46a3-8282-eaf588a7457e https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s... [3]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro2-surfhardware/battery-life-on-surface-pro-2-running-windows-10/e07b9bad-d253-408a-a0f8-492552f662c9 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro2-s...
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Quality? No, this is the one place where Microsoft still falls down. There were a ton of problems with the Surface Book and SP4 (judging from internal Yammer discussions when I was there). Innovation? Yes! Now if Microsoft could just execute better, I wouldn't be so afraid of buying this (because I really want it!).

schuke 10y ago

Absolutely love all Panos Panay's demos. It's truly "Nobody Does It Better".

dorianm 10y ago

They can do all the marketing they want, I just feel like this is gonna be the buggiest thing I ever used if I tried it.

smrtinsert 10y ago
How's that? I tried an surface pro a while ago and the touch screen worked fine. They had some issues to work around scaling, but iirc those are mostly sorted out. Frankly it looks amazing.
- carlg 10y ago
  I'm on a Surface 4 right now. Wife has a surface 3. The 3's never got sorted out (sleep of death, etc). The 4's have gotten better, but still are very buggy, especially if you try and dock with low-dpi monitors. It's a shame because the performance and screen are stellar.
- newjersey 10y ago
  https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/78392/microsoft-issues-firmware-updates-surface-book-surface-pro-4-2 https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/78392/micr... Microsoft has a bad track record with computers. There is no way to whitewash this or to think any other first generation hardware won't be fraught with problems. My advise is wait.
- komali2 10y ago
  I'm an avid surface user, which doesn't make sense because 90% of my tweet history is me yelling at Microsoft that a windows update is preventing me from giving a presentation, again. So, as much as I love the platform, the issues for me are 1. Windows 10 updates are not sane. They do not schedule properly, and do not try to tell me otherwise because I have invested probably 40 hours total at this point trying to sanely schedule them. If you disable them, your build of Windows will go out of date and your machine will reset randomly until you turn them back on. Also, on a surface pro, updates take ~30 minutes to 6 hours. I joke not. So result: I'll roll into work at 8, have a presentation at 9, pop open the machine, and see "windows is configuring your update.... 39%" and know that I won't be working on that machine until after lunch. Maybe. 2. Random, impossible to track, unrelated bugs. Plugging in a second monitor causes all sorts of weirdness. It gets stuck in tablet mode. It'll refuse to go into tablet mode. The task bar will refuse to go away in fullscreen mode for some apps until a reset. It'll forget my office app credentials. Onenote will crash a hundred times. It'll soft-eject the microSD card randomly, but usually in the middle of a file transfer. Keyboard won't be recognized. Pen tip will fall out and they'll charge you 12 bucks for a replacement pack with 3 inside, 2 of which you'll instantly use. I love the surface because it perfectly fits my needs, but damn do I also hate it.

protomyth 10y ago

The video at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/surface-studio https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-stud... is a bit more informative and shows the Surface Dial in action. I looks like the graphics from an old Blackberry this is the future video[1]. Very cool, since Microsoft's version makes sense and Blackberry's was confusing. 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KLm4SErdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KLm4SErdQ

nogridbag 10y ago
Here's a direct link to the video mentioned above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMLA8YIgG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMLA8YIgG0 Looks amazing. Edit: See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMklcdzcNcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMklcdzcNcU
revelation 10y ago
That dial is bizarre. I have two hands, why would I replace one amazing hand with a heavy, large screen obscuring piece of machined aluminum to do something that my hand could already do?
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Haptic feedback. The implication in the videos is that people are often manipulating the Dials with their off-hands without needing to look to back at the Dial. It's like a well worn knob in your car you don't even have to glance at while you are driving. Also the videos show it both on and off the screen as users have different needs to work with it.
- kevingadd 10y ago
  Precision and extra inputs that you can't get with touch gestures.
- animal531 10y ago
  I wasn't sold on it with the colour changing demos, that seemed a gimmick at best. The haptic feedback basically just makes it an on-screen mouse which is within easy reach, which is cool, you don't have to search for e.g. ctrl+z or a button off to the side to undo. But what really got my attention was the ruler. That opens up a natural way of drawing lines which just work, as compared to either using an actual ruler on your tablet (which hopefully works), or selecting a line tool and guesstimating the line you want (which you then adjust afterwards) etc. I'm looking forward to see what other uses for it they can come up with.

rubber_duck 10y ago

Nvidia GTX 9xxM - from what I understand 10xx cards offer the biggest difference in performance generation-to-generation seen in a while on the mobile side - the 10xx mobile versions are basically identical to desktop versions, 9xx are not even close - so why put last gen mobile tech in to a high end professional desktop product ? Especially considering the likelihood of VR proliferation in content creation - I couldn't justify buying this just because of that considering the price tag.

yread 10y ago
I was also wondering about that. They probably had to do a lot of customizations on the board to fit it in such a tiny place and cool it effectively. Designing such things can take quite some time. It is a shame, though
kybernetikos 10y ago
Not to mention that driving a 5k screen well is going to take some heft.
Analemma_ 10y ago
I imagine the protracted development time is at fault. The guy from Penny Arcade wrote a blog post where he said that he tried a prototype a year ago, so presumably this has been in development for at least a year and a half. Probably the 9xx was the best they had at the time and when the 10xx was released they were too far along in development to swap it out. The next one should have it though.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  >The next one should have it though. Yea for me this is a skip until they update the hardware - it's just too expensive to have to replace in a year.

Osiris 10y ago

it's interesting that they didn't announce the actual screen resolution, just the number of pixels. I found the answer in the ars article : 4500x3000

alva 10y ago

Surface Dial looks very, very cool. Innovation in the HCI space is greatly welcome. Could not find any info on whether you can use 2 at the same time. That could have some incredible applications!

slantyyz 10y ago
Reminds me a lot of the Griffin PowerMate. https://griffintechnology.com/us/powermate https://griffintechnology.com/us/powermate
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

fudgy73 10y ago

I think I'm sold at 3:2 display.

guelo 10y ago

I'm not sure why you need the world's thinnest LCD for a desktop, it's not like you'll be mounting it on a wall or something. By the way, that presenter is a pretty good actor, but he was trying way too hard in a way that was distracting. The way he called out someone in the audience at one point made it seem like he has standup comedy experience and was trying to connect with the audience but it made no sense.

sliverstorm 10y ago
Maybe you don't need the #1 thinnest, but it's meant to be folded down as a drafting table.
Osiris 10y ago
When he started introducing the Studio, he said a lot of words and by the end my first thought was he was just spouting buzz words and it didn't feel at all coherent or have anything to do with the product. It felt like he was just repeating words over and over again as a stall tactic to increase suspense. The presentation was a ton of fluff.
- xenobioticants 10y ago
  Aka every Apple presentation ever. Those are filled to the brim with hyperbole ('magical', 'courageous', etc.) yet everyone somehow considers them the golden standard.
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    They're the least cringey maybe, I don't think anyone considers them to be high art or anything though (certainly not in the last 5 years). Large PR events for the mass media are always going to be at least a little cringey, no matter who's giving them. 'Courageous' is going to be used sarcastically for the next decade, no matter what computers people prefer.
itaysk 10y ago
It might matter if you touch, lift, hold, move it a lot. This is not ordinary desktop screen

Osiris 10y ago

The two things that Macbooks have had over Windows laptops, in my opinion, is high resolution screens and a fantastic trackpad. Windows laptops, even on the high end, still tend to screens no better than 1080p and crappy touchpads. My wife hates the touchpad so much she always uses a mouse and has the trackpad disabled. I just got an HP Elite x2, which is basically a Surface Pro and I really like the pen and touch input. Apple pioneered touch on the iPhone, but continues to refuse to add it to <del>OS X</del> macOS.

raesene6 10y ago
So I've not tried enough windows touchpads to comment on that, but from what I've seen there's quite a few Windows laptops with higher res screens than 1080p e.g. Dell XPS 13 - can have a 3200x1800 screen Lenovo Carbon X1 - can have a 2560x1440 screen HP Elitebook G3 - Can have a 2560x1440 screen Microsoft surface book - 3000x2000 screen Microsoft Surface Pro 4 - 2736 x 1824 screen
- Osiris 10y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that there are none. I meant that they are incredibly rare if you consider the number of Windows laptop models available. The vast majority have either 1366x768 (low end laptops) or 1920x1080.
  - raesene6 10y ago
    sure, it's just that you said that even "high end" windows laptops didn't usually have better screens when from what I've seen pretty much all the top Windows laptop brands have high-end models with better screens. A couple of years ago, sure Windows laptops tended to have terrible screens, but that problem seems (to me) to have largely been resolved these days, for high-end devices anyway.
  - xenobioticants 10y ago
    But you can't compare Macbooks to $500 laptops. You need to compare them to ultrabooks like the XPS 13, where you'll see that the gap isn't so big.

gshakir 10y ago

$3K is very expensive. Looks like they are catering to the iMac market. It should be interesting to compare with tomorrow iMac release lineup.

romanovcode 10y ago
Well it is definitely better then current iMac. Will see tomorrow indeed.

mhomde 10y ago

I can't but feel sad that Microsoft somehow is dropping the ball on mobile despite them having been, briefly, in a prime position to succeed. They've executed well with their "One platform"-strategy. UWP is great and with the new composition API their finally moving into being able to compete in the modern software arena. Meanwhile on the hardware side Panos is basically doing what Apple should have been doing if they had any creative leadership left... but it doesn't matter, for some reason they've seemed to abandoned mobile despite having all the pieces in place. Their mistreatment, lack of support and quality assurance of the mobile side of the platform has been dismal. It's very weird, obviously they can do hardware, they have the ecosystem to back them up and the API teams have been doing some great stuff when it comes to w10, yet they've seemed to given up on mobile. I must say I don't understand it, how can such a big player as Microsoft abandon such a strategic area of their ecosystem? I understand that it's hard to be a profitable in the harsh reality of consumer electronics and that the money is in business... but yet, if you're not in mobile you're leaving a gaping hole in your ecosystem that leaves the other parts vulnerable. I don't understand why they don't simple pour resources into mobile with the same enthusiasm as tablets/laptops and gaming. Something must be off with the leadership or I'm missing something

Osiris 10y ago
They were in mobile from the beginning with Windows CE. Balmer thought the iPhone was a joke and they so they didn't try to adapt. By the time they did, Android and iOS had hundreds of thousands of apps. So they are in a catch-22, they can't gain marketshare because they don't have enough apps and no one will write apps for it because they don't have any marketshare. I think their strategy so far is good. Get Windows working well on various form factors, move from Desktops to Laptops to full PC tablets. With those in place, they'll see developers writing UWP apps that will work not only on big screens, but can be scaled to smaller screens, giving them the apps they need to move down into the small tablet and phone spaces.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  The saddest part is maybe how close they where: I so wanted it but waited and waited for a waterproof Nokia and then ended with a Sony Z series and later a Samsung something waterproof flagship. Others waited for instasnapsomething but I almost can't care less I think as long as the platdorm has a couple of good alternatives for notes and calendar + Whatsapp and Telegram. Now I almost feel bad for not supporting them. Who would have thunk for someone who used to despise all their products until some 4 years ago :-/ (since early 2000s).

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

afshinmeh 10y ago

the website feels like someone has copy-pasted apple.com/imac and changed the pictures using Microsoft Frontpage

pmelendez 10y ago
I guess you are talking about the website? Because the product couldn't possible be more different than the iMac, if any the product feels like an iteration over the Dell XPS 27 line
- afshinmeh 10y ago
  yeah. I haven't used and won't probably use this device but marketing wise, it's exactly same as what Apple does. that makes sense to get downvotes though since 99% of this thread's audiences are Microsoft zombies :)
  - pmelendez 10y ago
    I am writing this on a MacBook Pro so I don't describe myself as a Microsoft zombie (I didn't downvote you either) and I find this machine way more appealing than an iMac. I have a marketing filter in my mind so I couldn't care less about the design of the website.
    - afshinmeh 10y ago
      true, a friend of mine is using Surface 4 and he's really happy. as I said, I'm not sure how good or bad this device is but at least marketing wise, they are doing exactly same as Apple.
gshakir 10y ago
It does looks like iMac clone. As they say, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

gxs 10y ago

As a side note, it's amazing to see that despite everyone ragging on apple and claiming superiority to them, they all copy their advertising style. The copy on the google pixel site and this site are both very obviously apple-ish. edit: down vote away, doesn't change the fact that these websites scream "we want to be apple". Though I will say, the tides are changing for apple judging by the amount of people hurt by this comment.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Even Apple's biggest detractors frequently, publicly give credit to Apple's marketing proficiency (heck, the most common thing for the biggest detractors to say is that Apple is all marketing.)
jordache 10y ago
you mean the CGI flybys of the unit being virtually constructed? Yeah APple pioneered that idea, I actually didn't like that part of the surface PC promo.. Like who cares what the internal hinges look like!? They need to stop doing close flybys of irrelevant subjects The usability portions of the video were awesome though
- ashark 10y ago
  The copy's very Apple-like, though it occasionally stumbles in the attempt, as with the header "Runs Office & Windows perfectly."
- mxfh 10y ago
  Exploded views are not something Apple invented or pioneered, they surely polished them to new marketing levels, yes. They are a staple for product designers, so Apple's Jony might have pushed for their repeated use. also there was this 2002 art installation http://www.influx.co.uk/blog/damian-ortegas-cosmic-thing/ http://www.influx.co.uk/blog/damian-ortegas-cosmic-thing/
  - jordache 10y ago
    i should have clarified, they hugely popularized their usage for marketing towards consumers.

novaleaf 10y ago

Pretty. Going after the mac market for media creation is a smart move, as that's a big driver of the mac's appeal over windows

zk00006 10y ago

beautiful

zk00006 10y ago
Downvoted for what?
- ggregoire 10y ago
  I didn't downvote you but "beautiful" is not really a constructive comment. :)
  - zk00006 10y ago
    There is a difference between downvote and ignoring the comment.

jordache 10y ago

this is true innovation. mean while.. an OLED stripe.. aghem.. a Razer keyboard

j2bax 10y ago
You wouldn't be the first to try to predict "true innovation" vs. waste of time or poor execution.
Bytes 10y ago
I agree, Microsoft has been really leading in innovation over the last few years, with the surface book last year and the studio this year. I have been really let down with Apple lately and their lack of willingness to innovate. Hopefully we will see something truly innovative from Apple on Friday, but I doubt it.

usaphp 10y ago

Poor Cintiq is losing more and more market share with these sort of products.

jordache 10y ago
who builds the touch/stylus technology for MS? I thought the earlier surfaces had wacom technologies inside?
- bsimpson 10y ago
  They bought Wacom's competitor when they launched the portable Surface; I think it was called Ntrig.
j2bax 10y ago
I haven't seen any sort of mass exodus from Wacom in the pro market yet. Wacom makes highly specialized hardware for graphics professionals. I don't think any fly by night piece of prosumer hardware is going to make them lose TOO much sleep.
- j2bax 10y ago
  Additionally, I think they'd likely be far more concerned if Apple released an iMac like this (which I wish they would). Reason being, most graphics pro's are already on iMacs and if they suddenly had the drawing capabilities and form factor built into their go-to system, they might have less of a need for an additional piece of hardware (Cintiq, Intuos). Apple is known to pay attention to the kind of details artists care about in implementation.

pjmlp 10y ago

Love it. It even has a version of their ergonomic keyboards, something that I cannot really understand with Apple, how can one even manage to program in such flat keyboards. Apple, one of the first companies to introduce ergonomic keyboards to the world.

itaysk 10y ago
^ this
- jeron 10y ago
  ^ Pointless/Low effort comment
  - sctb 10y ago
    Let's not do any of this here, shall we?
Osmium 10y ago
> how can one even manage to program in such flat keyboards Aren't keyboards that allow your hands to rest flat more ergonomic? I thought keyboards that slope upwards cause potentially harmful bending of the wrist?
- jahewson 10y ago
  If you look closely at a good ergonomic keyboard (such as Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic) you'll notice that the keyboard actually slopes downwards, away from the body. You're correct to say that an upwards slope is harmful, but so too is a flat surface. The best position is to have the elbow extended at more than 90 degrees, and the wrist straight - hence the downwards sloping keyboard. You'll also notice that the keyboard's wave shape raises it in certain places to match the hands, this is to allow your wrists to relax more, because the karate chop position is neutral, whereas hands flat in front is actually using your muscles to hold that position - the slope helps to relieve this by allowing the wrists to be 30deg or so closer to neutral. The split in the middle of the keyboard prevents the hands from having to pivot outwards at the wrists on the horizontal axis to align with a straight row of keys, again allowing them to remain in a neutral position instead because the two halves of the keyboard are aligned with the natural arc of your reach.

samfisher83 10y ago

Is there a price anywhere on the page or am I just missing it? Edit: Its mentioned on other site 2999.

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dmtroyer 10y ago

But does it have a USB port?! In all seriousness, pretty cool.

PaulHoule 10y ago

Microsoft is moving in on Apple's turf.

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uniclaude 10y ago

As with other recent Microsoft devices, I feel like: - This computer looks very good - The specs look more than decent (skylake, 32gb ram...) ...but - It's going to be poorly distributed (at least where I live, in Asia). I'm not even expecting a synchronized worldwide release. - I'll have a hard time working in an Unix-friendly environment (the only reason why I bought macs so far) - I wouldn't be surprised if it's insanely overpriced in Asia (like the Surface Book is) So I'm pretty sure I'll unfortunately have to pass, and so will most people I work with. The Microsoft buying experience is horrendous, and that's too bad now that their OS sounds OK, and their hardware is probably the best PC hardware you can get.

kybernetikos 10y ago
> - I'll have a hard time working in an Unix-friendly environment (the only reason why I bought macs so far) The new Windows Subsystem for Linux is actually pretty good.
- drewmate 10y ago
  I agree, I expected loads of compatibility issues and weird bugs, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Integration with apt package management is solid and has so far worked like a charm. My only complaint is that I had to opt in to the bleeding edge test versions of Windows 10, so my computers keep restarting themselves (often deleting registry settings like keyboard remaps and custom global hotkeys in the process) practically weekly. Anyone know of a way to keep my bash shell without having to (practically) reinstall Windows every week?
  - nozzlegear 10y ago
    The latest update to the OS, Windows 10 Anniversary (I think?), includes the WSL. It doesn't have some of the latest features that you'll find in the insider preview, such as file watchers or launching Windows programs, but it's personally got everything that I need to build JS apps.

gthtjtkt 10y ago

$2,999 and the best GPU option is a last-gen mobile card? The default 965M is a crappy budget card (half the performance of the 980M), and if you want the 980M you have to pick the $4,199 configuration. And hybrid drives!? This thing starts at $2,199 and you can't even get a full SSD? I know 2D designers probably won't mind the GPU, but they could definitely benefit from a true SSD. Hell, the recently announced Razer Blade Pro has top of the line everything (including a desktop GTX 1080 GPU, 1TB SSD, and 4K screen suitable for photo/video editing) and it still costs less than the 980M Surface Studio: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/razer-blade-pro-laptop/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/razer-blade-pro-laptop/ I must be missing the value proposition here because that price seems absurd, especially for a computer presumably geared towards professionals.

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thisisdallas 10y ago
> I must be missing the value proposition here The screen.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- IBM 10y ago
  Lower resolution than a 5K iMac
  - thisisdallas 10y ago
    That's true? That doesn't mean it's not still a good screen though.
  - mmanfrin 10y ago
    Is the 5K iMac a touchscreen?
    - 10y ago

jlebrech 10y ago

now if I just code like in Shenzhen IO on it, i'd buy one.

sergiotapia 10y ago

A shame the OS is just terrible. Windows 10 is so hostile to me as a user, constantly pestering me about updates or missing DLL files. Bleh. I installed Plex in January, today after not booting my machine for about a month, I wanted to watch a video and got some random DLL missing. How a DLL can go missing while the box is turned off is a mystery to me, but there you go. I don't trust my Windows box. I trust my iMac much much more.

jsafari 10y ago
The last time I had such an issue with my (fleet of) Windows machines goes back to XP days.
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  Cool, not my experience though.
guardian5x 10y ago
Windows pestering you about missing DLL files? Sounds like a rather exotic problem.

PascLeRasc 10y ago

http://i.imgur.com/OZ3fLPZ.png http://i.imgur.com/OZ3fLPZ.png What happened at 2:25-26 with a Mac named Studio Admin?

jxy 10y ago
Good catch. Guess someone in PR likes to use mac?

math0ne 10y ago

I don't understand who this product is for, someone who is not a PC enthusiast but has 3000$ to spend on a PC? I guess the target audience is like high end design studios that need to outfit their stylish new office with matching computers that no one will ever use because all the real work happens at home on people's macbooks at home. That said I love the dial thingy, I think it has some great ideas behind it and is potentially also a nod to the incredibly popular Griffin powermate which I believe is still a popular product.

mxfh 10y ago
Just look at who buy's Wacom Cintiq digitizer screens or color proofing monitors anywhere above USD 2k per unit, there is a market, it's niche, but a market.
fsloth 10y ago
The target market is not a PC enthusiasts but creative professionals.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> The target market is not a PC enthusiasts but creative professionals. I would also add that another target market is other Windows PC makers. In the same way that the Surface and Surface Book showed what touch-based Windows devices could be, I imagine that Lenovo, Dell etc. will probably get some inspiration from this product and produce their own variants for a bunch of different market segments.

IanDrake 10y ago

At the end I really expected him to unlatch the screen from the base and walk away with it. I have no good reason to expect that and I can't imagine that feature would be very useful at this size, but I still expected it for some reason.

elorant 10y ago

Well hell did froze. Who would have thought that we’d live the day that Microsoft is launching a product specifically aimed at designers. This was supposed to be Apple’s turf for decades.

ggregoire 10y ago

The video does an amazing job, the product looks great. I've never tried a Surface: do they have a special screen technology to avoid the fingerprints?

kevingadd 10y ago
The surface book picks up fingerprints pretty steadily, but it's not as bad as other devices I've owned, and they're very easy to clean off.

danso 10y ago

I probably won't buy one of these, just as I didn't buy the first iteration of the Surface, but will definitely consider future iterations. If anything, these products greatly boost my estimation of Microsoft as a brand. If I were still more in my photography/design days, I'd have a hard time resisting buying the Surface Studio (assuming its reviews aren't disastrous. For the past decade I hadn't contemplated buying anything else besides Apple when it comes to PCs. Microsoft has made a great case for how much innovation can still be done in this field.

jarjoura 10y ago

At first I applauded Microsoft for continuing to advance the desktop computer market. This is something I wish Apple would continue to invest in but is clear they're moving towards building machines for the engineers to build iOS software. However then I jump into the Microsoft store and check it out... $4,199.00 for the high-end option gets you a hybrid drive, probably connected over an older SATA bus and a graphics card from last year? USB 3.0 only and no Thunderbolt? Is this a system that was designed last year and it took a full year to get to production? Sorry if I'm being bitchy, but to me this is typical Microsoft only going the 80%.

kevingadd 10y ago
You need to understand the market they're aiming for: This acts as a replacement for the somewhat common Cintiq + PC pairing (very expensive), and also happens to serve some other useful purposes, all as one unit. Plus it introduces a new interaction model and good hardware design. Definitely very expensive, but actually price-competitive vs alternatives.
MAGZine 10y ago
Why, pray tell, would Microsoft include a thunderbolt port, an apple standard, on their device? It had licensing issues before, not sure if it still does or not—wouldn't be surprised. I'd want a USB-C port before I'd want a thunderbolt port!
- izacus 10y ago
  While thunderbolt isn't an Apple standard (it's Intels actually and HP laptops for example ship with it), the hardware on Thunderbolt that's actually compatible with Windows is rather rare and doesn't make all that much sense in comparison to just using USB 3.0
- mwfunk 10y ago
  Thunderbolt is an Intel standard, Apple was just an early adopter.

randomsearch 10y ago

Apple release iPhone 7, which is then eclipsed somewhat by Google Pixel. MS announce this immediately before the MacBook announcement. Conclusions are that (a) Apple are leaky and (b) rather than _avoid_ Apple announcements, their competitors are now happy to compete with them. A bad sign for Apple.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

That looks pretty awesome, and it makes the iMac seem even more tired which I assume was intended. It is startling to have a story about IBM extolling the virtues of Macbooks for business and Microsoft launching a platform targeting designers, it really is amazing. But setting all of that aside for a moment.... The screen. Clearly that is the thing which makes this announcement. For me, the 3:2 aspect ratio is so more reasonable for computers than 16:9. And having a zillion pixels is wonderful although my CAD package (TurboCAD) still doesn't deal well with the high DPI screen off the Surface Book, I'm sure it would look silly on this machine. My experience with the Surface Book tells me that the PixelSense technology is really great for drawing. I have both it and the iPad Pro and not too surprising, at twice the cost, in my opinion the Surface Book's drawing experience is better than the iPad's. I base that opinion on precision of the drawing, expressiveness, and the response time. Touch. Microsoft is really doubling down on the whole touching thing and so far Apple has stayed away from it with its compute platforms. That is both a strength and a weakness. The rest of the ecosystem doesn't always understand what to do, so you get controls that are too small to use your finger on sometimes, and odd sort of multi-monitor experiences where things appear on one screen and then when you resize them they jump to the other and try to adjust for "touchiness". If the tools people can get their act together, and by that I mean the designer tools (I for one would love to see a schematic capture and board layout system that was touch enabled and pen enabled) then I think it is only good news for Microsoft, if they can't, then Apple will look really smart at not adopting a "gimmick". Either way these things are hugely fun to use and play with.

ramenmeal 10y ago
I'm glad someone brought up the aspect ratio. That display looks so much more productive than 16:9.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  As a side note, I've actually never understood why the industry converged on 16:9. It's pretty much only good for watching movies. I really miss 4:3.

johnwheeler 10y ago

It's hard following behind Steve Jobs and Apple, but I gotta give this guy props on his salesmanship.

codingdave 10y ago

This concept seems to "re-surface" very couple years, and I just cannot get over the first time I saw it... well, saw the mockery of it, at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY

amlozano 10y ago
It is all birthed from the desire of software engineers who play dungeons and dragons and want a programmable gaming table. When I interviewed at Microsoft I played with one of those tables, and there was definitely a dice roller app. No lie I would love to own one of those tables.

eeyepieinthesky 10y ago

Dear Microsoft, Could I just have that display please? Thanks.

Keyframe 10y ago

DCI-P3 monitor for that price, hot damn! I wonder if it's 100% coverage?

silverlight 10y ago

If I could get this screen (along with it working with the pen and the other accessories) but hook it up to my existing desktop I would be all over it. Even if it was still $2,200. But a 980M is just not going to cut it as my primary graphics card...

bluedino 10y ago
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1113579-REG/wacom_dtk_2700_cintiq_27qhd_27_interactive.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1113579-REG/wacom_dtk... There you go

ralmidani 10y ago

I can kind of understand the need for non-upgradable phones and laptops, since they are more useful when they're thinner and lighter. But stationary devices like this and Apple's iMac are unnecessarily wasteful.

ommunist 10y ago

Win10 is too clunky, otherwise the offer is very compelling. But not enough to switch.

qihqi 10y ago

As a software eng. this is not something I need. I have realized that because computers are designed and programmed by engineers, we had what we need from the very beginning. I am glad that now its designer's turn to get some tools.

criddell 10y ago
The touch input I don't care about, but I definitely want that display. How can anybody that works with text all day not want more pixels and sharper text?
- jack1243star 10y ago
  I actually like coding with bitmap fonts very much, which becomes too tiny if shown on a high-dpi screen.
  - criddell 10y ago
    Doesn't that mean you just have to pick a larger size for that typeface or turn on scaling? Now that I think about it, a 28" 4500x3000 display will definitely have scaling turned on. Bitmap fonts should still work just fine, right?

d3ckard 10y ago

Great hardware, interface ideas look really interesting too. This could actually be some vision that can get mainstream in the future. I would seriously consider buying one, if not for one thing - OS. After recently installing Windows on Bootcamp I can honestly say that I hate the thing. It made me swear constantly for 15 minutes. I wish MS finally wrote a new OS from scratch. They seem to have the right idea about where to go, but Windows looks like a 40 year old after series of plastic surgeries - it's supposed to look young and modern, but after you get passed the surface you can see all those menus that are almost two decades old.

hifigi 10y ago
Everything Windows is so entrenched in eating its own dogfood, so it probably will never change. But what I wouldn't give for a ground-up POSIX-compliant Windows OS. It's stupid, it's unrealistic, but it would be so, so awesome.
- d3ckard 10y ago
  For me it's not even about being unix-like (though sounds nice). I would just want them to get rid of all the legacy garbage and start from scratch. They have nice design language, good programming environment, multiple platforms - everything is dandy. The only problem is all the stuff left for compatibility reasons.

brandon272 10y ago

The feedback I am seeing for this product seems generally positive even with a lot of delight from some corners. It will be interesting to compare the feedback for this against tomorrow's feedback regarding the Mac announcement, a pillar of which seems to be the bar they've added to the Macbook Pro.

AaronFriel 10y ago

I would like to buy just the display, please. A 4500 x 3000 display? That sounds amazing for writing code.

mars4rp 10y ago

after reading couple of criticizing comments, I can't stop thinking how this people would have reacted if Apple released exactly the same product!!!

mwfunk 10y ago
Much more negatively, I would assume. I know I'm much more inclined to cut MS some slack just because it's exciting to see them try new and interesting things. They're still making the computer equivalent of concept cars here, so some degree of high price/low volume/odd choices is to be expected.

bitmapbrother 10y ago

$3000 for a machine with anemic specs is going to be a tough sell. Who exactly is this computer for? As for that puck device - I couldn't help but laugh when the presenter, dressed in all black as if attending a funeral, used it to emphasize how passionate his scribbles were on a document. Who does that? Who would ever do that? And more importantly, who ever thought this would be something you would even want to devote time to demo?

johnhenry 10y ago

A desktop with a rear camera? Interesting...

dingo_bat 10y ago

I don't care about anything else but how come today's high end computers start out with 8gb of ram? That was probably enough 2 years ago. Now it's enough for a net book. My phone has 4gb ram now. And they expect me to pay ~$2500 and get 8gb in a desktop?

hatsunearu 10y ago

I can't believe people are complaining about this thing! This is what the Studio is up against: https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Cintiq-27QHD-Creative-Display/dp/B00R7QJAHY/ https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Cintiq-27QHD-Creative-Display/d... Look at the damn thing, shitty (i presume) TFT display, no capacitive touch (i think), and no computer attached. This is a great value proposition to those kind of people. Though if this had a gaming tier GPU and a bit better specs this would be literally _the_ machine.

corv 10y ago

Even the table they presented it on looks like it was lifted from an Apple Store...