Microsoft Surface Studio 2 - Full Review and Benchmarks
Our Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Studio 2 is the best touch-screen all-in-1 you lot'll notice for drawing and digital creation, but fifty-fifty with updated hardware, this device is non as amazing the 2nd time around.
For
- First-class design lets you use equally a desktop or cartoon lath
- Flexible hinge
- First-class display quality
- Strong audio
- Best-in-class pen back up
Against
- Pricey
- Inconvenient port placement
- Hardware is dated from the starting time
Tom'due south Guide Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Studio 2 is the best touch-screen all-in-one you lot'll detect for drawing and digital creation, but even with updated hardware, this device is non as astonishing the second time effectually.
Pros
- +
Excellent pattern lets you use as a desktop or drawing lath
- +
Flexible hinge
- +
Fantabulous display quality
- +
Strong audio
- +
Best-in-grade pen support
Cons
- -
Pricey
- -
Inconvenient port placement
- -
Hardware is dated from the start
Microsoft's Surface tablets and laptops may exist well-known, but for artists and creative pros, there'due south just i Surface PC to consider: the Microsoft Surface Studio ii ($three,499 to start, $iv,199 as reviewed). This is the latest version of the affect-axial all-in-one desktop.
We loved the first version of the Surface Studio, thanks largely to its beautiful PixelSense display, easy-to-reposition hinge design, superb pen support and potent overall performance. The 2018 model gets beefier processing and graphics hardware, switches to all-solid-state drives for storage, and gets an fifty-fifty improve version of the PixelSense display that offers enhanced effulgence and contrast. It'southward i of the best all-in-one computers — and ane of the best computers period — we've seen, and our top choice for media creators and artists.
Pattern
The Surface Studio two has the same exterior design as the original 2017 model, only that's no knock. The Surface Studio may not exist as well-known as the iconic iMac, but the design is easily i of the nigh refined of any all-in-one I've reviewed. Measuring 25.1 ten 17.3 ten 8.7 inches and weighing 21 pounds, the Surface Studio is superlative in its design. All of the usual terms reviewers utilise to describe a great-looking product — sleek, sexy, polished, elegant — apply in spades. Just the biggest thing to note about the design is that it's useful, in a way that very few all-in-one systems can match.
The touch-screen panel is mounted on what Microsoft calls a "nada gravity hinge." This spring-assisted, dual-swivel stand up lets you put the screen upright for traditional desktop use or downwardly low for more-comfortable use of the stylus and touch screen.
The depression angle puts the screen into a position similar to that of a drafting table, making extended stylus use both comfy and efficient. The hinge also allows for both angle and tiptop adjustments.
I odd quirk of the zero gravity swivel is that the angle and tiptop are linked, so you can put the screen upright when information technology's raised and at an bending when it's lowered, but the angle self-adjusts as you raise or lower the display. Equally a consequence, it's not as adjustable equally many all-in-ones that offer only angle aligning, such as the Apple tree iMac, because adjusting the angle, by necessity, volition also alter the superlative.
The PC components are housed in the base of the stand, a squarish box that measures ix.8 x viii.vii x one.3 inches. The base is square, with rounded corners and a rounded rear finish that likewise has all of the PC's ports. Putting the internals into a split base like this keeps the display slim and unencumbered by actress bulk, so information technology measures but 0.4-inch thick.
Brandish
Displays are e'er an important function of an all-in-1, but Microsoft has gone to great lengths to brand the Surface Studio 2 a display-first experience, leveraging the extensive touch support of Windows. In improver to ten-point multitouch support, the Surface Studio ii comes with a Surface Pen, offering superb stylus input that boasts 4,096 levels of pressure level sensitivity and tilt support. The result is an extremely natural-feeling experience as you draw and write on the screen.
The 28-inch brandish isn't quite like whatever other all-in-one nosotros've reviewed. The 28-inch panel has a 3:ii aspect ratio, instead of the more than common sixteen:nine displays used on nearly all-in-ones. It'south a flake more square in shape, but the existent depict is that it matches the three:two attribute ratio of 35mm film for photographers; offers a better reading experience for websites, digital books and magazines; and is more comfortable than anything that uses on-screen handwriting, like Microsoft OneNote.
Watching the 4K demo video for Cyberpunk 2077, I was impressed with how clearly the colors came through. Whether it was a night warehouse meeting with some cyborg thugs or a daylight negotiation with a nameless corporate player, the details were articulate and the colors were bright. This may be one of the most cute displays I've seen.
Testing with our Klein K-10A colorimeter put some numbers to our offset impressions. In Bright manner, the Surface Studio 2 reproduced 167 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which matched the Apple iMac's output (167 percent) and was ameliorate than the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE's result (146 percent). Merely while it's a stiff showing, the Studio ii'due south upshot really falls slightly behind that of final twelvemonth'southward model, which displayed 181 pct of the color gamut under the aforementioned settings.
The new device'south display is one of the most accurate nosotros've seen, with a Delta-E rating of 0.thirteen (closer to zero is better). This is an improvement over the result from final year'southward model (i.0) and puts the Studio 2 alongside some amazing competitors, like the Dell XPS 27 7760 (0.xi) and the Apple tree iMac Pro (0.38).
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The brightness is also potent, with this display averaging 456 nits at peak levels. That puts it right aslope some of the brightest displays available on an all-in-one, similar the display on the Apple iMac (463 nits). That score also makes the Studio ii brighter than the previous Surface Studio (354 nits) and dramatically brighter than both the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE (247 nits) and the Dell XPS 27 7760 (344 nits).
From a technical perspective, the Surface Studio'south PixelSense brandish — Microsoft's answer to Apple'south Retina branding — has some serious chops. The resolution of 4500 x 3000 goes to a higher place and beyond 4K Ultra HD (3840 10 2160), and this is the only all-in-one display we've seen effectively claiming the Apple iMac'southward 5K display.
Each display is color calibrated before it'due south shipped, so display quality is at its all-time right out of the box. And Microsoft touts the congenital-in colour settings, which are optimized for sRGB, DCI-P3 and Vivid color modes. What I didn't see support for is the Rec. 2020 standard, which would be needed for real HDR capability. Equally video and photo editors increasingly work with HDR content, it's disappointing to meet the Surface Studio omit this standard.
For those who absolutely need HDR support, yet, the Surface Studio can run a secondary display (via USB-C), and it does output HDR-enabled video. You lot'll just need to provide your own HDR-capable display.
The glass on the brandish is likewise very reflective, catching glare from overhead lights and presenting users with mirror-like reflections in both desktop and drawing positions. While this screen looks corking for most applications, I'm sure that many artists and photographers, ostensibly the target market for the Surface Studio, would prefer a matte brandish.
Sound
Sound quality is also quite good, though the contest is only equally vehement. The Studio has eight speakers built in to the brandish and some other ii in the base, and it delivers Dolby Sound Premium sound. When I listened to the song "Spoiler" by Hyper, the Surface Studio offered loftier-quality audio, with articulate channel separation and crisp clarity.
The only means to get amend sound would be to add a set of external speakers or opt for an all-in-one, like the Dell XPS 27 7760, that places a much larger priority on audio.
Keyboard, Mouse and More
As with most all-in-one PCs, the Surface Studio 2 comes with a keyboard and mouse. Both connect over Bluetooth and match the pattern aesthetic of the PC itself.
The Surface Keyboard has a low-profile design, with tile keys. The gray-on-grey color scheme looks great, and the keyboard offers a very comfy typing experience. Compared to the Apple Magic Keyboard, for case, the overall look is like, but the individual keys feel more than substantial, with better stabilization and deeper primal travel.
The Surface Mouse has the same gray colour scheme, which matches the metal outside of the Surface Studio'southward base. This mouse's curved contour is one of the most visually sophisticated designs of any included mouse, but it's still a basic wireless mouse.
The Surface Studio ii comes with something extra: the Surface Pen. More just a stylus, the pen has wireless connectivity, a built-in eraser and tilt support. The addition of tilt support, along with the 4,096 levels of force per unit area sensitivity, makes using the pen an extremely natural-feeling experience.
In that location likewise very little lag. Information technology'south the sort of thing you don't even think about under most circumstances, but when you routinely utilize pen input on a PC (either on the screen or with a Wacom tablet), you abound accepted to seeing the path of a sketched line trail your pen slightly. The Surface Pen is improve than nigh in that regard.
Drawing on the display is exact and intuitive, with excellent accurateness and control. Whether I was writing past hand or sketching a quick doodle, the pen input was more like drawing on paper than with any other stylus or continued pen I've used.
The Surface pen connects via Bluetooth and is powered past a unmarried AAA battery, which is included. This stylus is also easy to keep track of cheers to a magnetic holder built in to the right- and left-paw sides of the display chassis.
One additional accessory unique to Microsoft's ain make is the Surface Dial. This is sort of its own thing, a round, metallic-surfaced knob designed to provide an easy, tactile mode to cycle through options or whorl back and forth through media (similar recorded audio or video) with ease and precision. Though this accessory wasn't part of this review, I've used the Dial a handful of times, and I've always been impressed. But information technology doesn't come standard with the Surface Studio 2. Instead, if yous want to add together a unique peripheral in the Surface family unit, y'all'll need to buy the Dial separately, for an extra $99.
Finally, if you want to use an Xbox 1 controller with the Surface Studio 2, yous're in luck: Microsoft has also congenital in Xbox wireless support. You can even use the controller with the Dial'southward palette-manner menus for art and media editing, giving you an interesting productivity use for your game controller.
Ports
The Surface Studio's square-shaped base has a rounded back end, which matches the curve of the bottom hinge on the stand up. Set into that curved rear confront, you'll detect four USB 3.0 ports, one USB Type-C port, a total-size SD card reader, a Gigabit Ethernet port and a 3.5mm jack for audio.
The selection of USB ports offers plenty of connectivity for wired peripherals, but we exercise wish that there were more than than i USB-C connexion — or even improve, if the Studio 2 offered Thunderbolt iii connectivity. Such a connection would also enhance the capability of the automobile for media pros, who could add external graphics cards if they demand more-substantial graphics capability.
Merely the much larger issue is port placement. With all of the ports on the back of the motorcar, and with the unusual curved surface on that rear panel, the Surface Studio'southward ports are hard to reach and make it more than difficult than usual to blindly plug things in.
But that inconvenient port placement is less of an artful option and more of a design necessity. When the brandish is positioned depression for drawing and pen utilise, the pivoting arms of the stand come up down parallel with the sides of the base, making side-mounted ports impractical. And the lower screen position would likewise interfere with any plugged-in peripherals in front, precluding any front-facing ports. The issue: All of the ports are on the back side of the base, requiring you to turn the entire system for port access. If you find the port placement to be a real inconvenience, you can get some boosted flexibility with a USB hub or similar solution.
Performance
Our review unit was the midtier version of the Surface Studio, which is outfitted with an Intel Core i7-7820HQ CPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB solid state drive. The processor is a full-fledged quad-cadre desktop CPU, unlike the laptop-class models used in lower-stop all-in-ones. But information technology's also on the older side, a 7th-Generation processor when 8th-Generation processors are readily available. It still offers plenty of processing power, and there'due south no immediate detriment to performance, just it's likely to evidence its age sooner than systems equipped with more than-current hardware.
When using the Surface Studio, I was able to run more than 30 simultaneous browser tabs in Microsoft Border (the Surface Studio's default browser), while likewise streaming music and watching movie trailers in 4K. At no point was there a hint of slowing down or struggling to keep up as I switched betwixt tabs.
The Surface Studio line has likewise switched from hybrid drives that pair SSD storage with larger spindle drives to all-solid-state storage. That should deliver a faster experience even when the system's fetching giant files, and information technology should heave the longevity of the organisation due to the lack of moving parts. However, in our file-transfer exam, the operation was good, not great.
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The Surface Studio transferred our 4.97GB examination folder in six.24 seconds, at a rate of 815 megabits per second. That puts the Microsoft machine alee of the Apple tree iMac 27 inch with 5K (710 MBps) and makes it drastically faster than the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE (101.78 MBps), merely it doesn't come close to the category-leading scores of the Dell XPS 27 7760 (one,208 MBps) or the Apple iMac Pro (2,544 MBps). More importantly, it doesn't offer any improvement over the previous model, which completed the same chore in 6 seconds (848 MBps).
Overall performance, every bit measured in our Geekbench 4 benchmark, was strong. The Surface Studio scored fourteen,971 points, even with an older processor. That's an improvement over the previous Surface Studio model's result (13,197; Intel Core i7-6820HQ) and is better than the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE's score (eleven,817; Intel Core i7-7700T), merely it'south far from the best showing out there. The Dell XPS 27 7760 (15,749; Intel Cadre i7-7700) did a fleck amend, and the Apple iMac 27 inch with 5K (19,773; Core i7-770K) pushed out fifty-fifty farther alee.
But the absolute performance champ, with a wickedly powerful Intel Xeon West-2150B workstation-form CPU is the Apple iMac Pro (36,705). While I wouldn't expect the Surface Studio to beat out the top-specced iMac Pro, Microsoft has thrown around the term workstation in its marketing materials. The visitor has stopped far short of claiming workstation-grade functioning or features like ISV certification, only even bandying the term about suggests a level of operation that the Surface Studio can't deliver. And that's something of a shame, considering you'll pay and so much more for this car than any standard all-in-one.
Number-crunching performance is also good on the Studio 2, but far from best-in-class. This machine completed our Excel spreadsheet macro test in just over a infinitesimal (1:01), but in our older, OpenOffice version of the test, Microsoft's device took 3 minutes fifteen seconds. That's, again, faster than final year's model (3:48) and amend than the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE's fourth dimension (3:40), just the Studio 2 is bested by competitors like the Dell XPS 27 7760 (3:00) and completely outpaced by the Apple iMac (ane:57).
Graphics
The Surface Studio is all about content creation, and it delivers thanks to an Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics card with 8GB of VRAM.
On the graphics front end, the Surface Studio 2 bested its peers, completing 3DMark Fire Strike with a score of 12,554. That's significantly improve than the previous Microsoft Surface Studio'southward score of just eight,177, as that machine has an older graphics menu (Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M, 4GB). The Studio 2 too pulls ahead of the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IE (5,383), which has a slightly lower-powered GPU (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, 4GB), and the AMD-powered Dell XPS 27 7760 (9,393 with an AMD Radeon RX 570 and 8GB of VRAM).
That as well means you've got plenty oomph in your content-creation machine to savor some gaming in the off hours. The Surface Studio put up playable frame rates in both Ascent of the Tomb Raider (50.81 frames per second) and Hitman (94.13 fps), just only at 1080p resolution. Bumping up to native resolution or 4K dropped the frame rates well beneath the xxx-fps threshold needed to actually savour a game.
Webcam
The Surface Studio has an integrated webcam just above the display. With 5-megapixel resolution, this machine is capable of 1080p video capture, and depth sensing makes this camera a adept fit for Microsoft's facial-recognition tool, Windows Hello. Only set up your security preferences to allow login with Windows Hello, and y'all'll be able to unlock your system just past looking into the camera.
The webcam photo accurately captured my face, with skilful detail in my pilus and beard. Nevertheless, the brighter portions of the image are a bit washed out, and my cheeks took on a pronounced rosy colour that isn't present in real life.
The organisation pairs the photographic camera with dual microphones, allowing both improved audio capture as yous move in front end of the PC and better noise cancellation to filter out ambience dissonance.
Software and Warranty
Equally this is a Microsoft production, at that place was never any uncertainty that the Surface Studio 2 would come with Windows 10, the latest version of the company's operating arrangement. But what did catch us off guard was the inclusion of a lot of inapplicable add-ons, similar Minecraft and a collection of solitaire games. You lot'll get a xxx-day trial version of Microsoft Office, including OneNote, equally well as Skype, Paint 3D and several other common inclusions. But, past and big, this is a adequately clean installation of Windows, with very few third-political party programs.
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Microsoft covers the Surface Studio with a i-year warranty only beefs it up with several premium touches. You'll get xc days of free tech back up over the phone, a full year of costless support and technical help in any Microsoft Shop, and even a complimentary 60-infinitesimal grooming session that walks you lot through all the features and capabilities of the system.
Configurations
The Surface Studio 2 doesn't accept a huge number of configurations. In fact, y'all can customize just iii components: the retention, storage and graphics card.
Our review model is outfitted with an Intel Core i7-7820HQ processor, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD for storage, with an an Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics card. This version sells for $four,199.
The more affordable base of operations configuration drops the retention down to 16GB and uses a less powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB of VRAM. That model sells for $three,499.
At the top of the ladder is the a model very like our review unit of measurement; information technology has the same Intel Core i7-7820HQ CPU, 32GB of RAM and Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU. Only information technology doubles the SSD storage to 2TB. That version goes for $4,799.
Bottom Line
When Microsoft introduced the Surface Studio, the company fabricated a bold motion, staking out a claim for the traditionally staid Microsoft as the biggest innovator in the PC earth. And ii years later, the Studio is all the same a ane-of-a-kind machine. The touch and pen capabilities are superb, the brandish is both beautiful and flexible, and the design is extremely refined. It's easily the nigh well-designed all-in-i I've ever used on about every count (except for the port placement, merely that's a small-scale quibble).
However, the Studio is not quite equally impressive the second time around. The new hardware is slightly dated and slightly underpowered. Information technology's still an impressive machine, with strong performance, simply it doesn't have the form-leading power and leading-edge hardware you lot might await from Microsoft. The Studio ii faces tough competition from both the Windows and Apple tree worlds, and it doesn't always come out the victor.
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That said, if yous want the hands-down best drawing experience available, the Surface Studio 2 delivers. If you want to ditch your Wacom tablet or aggrandize your hands-on digital artistry, you won't observe anything amend. There are systems, similar the Dell XPS 27 7760, with more horsepower and better sound, and the Studio 2 is on par with Apple'due south own creative media system, the 27-inch iMac with 5K display. And both of these systems are significantly more affordable.
But the Microsoft Surface Studio 2 does a number of things those other all-in-ones only can't. It's a drafting table, a sketch pad, a sail and a media studio in 1, all on top of existence a loftier-performance desktop PC. If y'all want the best tool for hands-on content creation, this is it.
Credit: Tom'due south Guide
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