Microsoft Surface Studio - They ALMOST Changed the Game...
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,763 words · ~8 min read
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hi I'm a Mac and I'm a PC I'm great for
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music pictures movies you know stuff
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like that my retina display is Bright Beautiful and accurate enough for
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everything from looking at old cat photos to creating the next stunning
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magazine cover design is in My DNA I'm
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pretty much perfect for anyone who's both techsavvy and
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cool wait PC what are you doing I know I
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am
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too tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately
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and enjoy a more open internet try tunnel bear for free at the link below
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okay so that wasn't an ad this video isn't sponsored by Microsoft it's just a
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fun little skit that we decided to do but the Microsoft Studio is a huge
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departure from the spreadsheets and word processors image that Microsoft has had
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and even embraced in the past as a company whose bread and butter has
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pretty much always been businesses one of the most immediately attention
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grabbing features of the surface studio is its aptly named Studio mode where the
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display moves with Incredible Ease on the Zero Gravity hinge from a vertical
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position down to just 20° an angle that
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was specifically chosen because it perfectly matched is a standard drafting
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table in this position it is not only stable but it is optimized for natural
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interactions with the surface pen and the surface dial which we will check out
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in more detail later on for now let's take a moment to talk about its
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impressive 28in 3x2 aspect ratio 4500x
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3000 resolution pixel sense display this
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aspect ratio will naturally give you a lot more actual surface area than a
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similar widescreen monitor in the more
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atic 16x9 aspect ratio that has become
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standard on Modern devices but that's not its only interesting feature it has
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13.5 million pixels at a density of 192
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PPI which may not seem Earth shattering at first but consider this Windows since
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the 1980s has been written for 96 DPI
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meaning that at 192 you can run Windows
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10 at exactly 200% scaling and avoid the
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text dithering and visual AR facts that show up at other scaling percentages or
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with other DPI counts in Windows with the surface Studio at 200% scaling you
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get the great image Clarity of the higher resolution but the usability of
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larger icons and for those of you still printing documents 12-point font on the
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display is identical to 12-point font on a printed page and if you hold up a
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piece of paper to the screen 1 in on the paper is 1 in on the screen just like
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the old days and that's not the only thing that makes it look amazing each
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and every display is color calibrated at the factory to guarantee color accuracy
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and precision which are not the same thing by the way it's the thinnest LCD
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monitor ever built at this size with color profiles of srgb DCI P3 and Vivid
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and they even threw in 10-point multi-touch for those who after seeing
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it for the first time want to get the hands-on experience moving on to the
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base of the surface studi display we have the Entire Computer actually they
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fit everything in here that runs the screen and I do mean to say it that way
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it almost feels like there's been a roll reversal here where the computer feels
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like an accessory to the display instead of the other way around to help you
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understand what I mean by this we'll need to take a look at the specs our
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unit comes equipped with a mobile Intel Core i7
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6820hq processor and a mobile graphics card card last generation's NVIDIA GTX
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980m along with 32 gigs of ddr4 RAM and
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a 2 tbte hybrid Drive rocking 128 gigs
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of solid state storage at
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$4200 this is unsurprisingly the highest end model but don't imagine that the
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base version is particularly affordable either it cost $3,000 and drops down to
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a core I 5 8 gigs of RAM an anemic GTX
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965m and half the storage and no it's
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not user upgradeable I fix it gave it a 5 out of 10 due to its soldered RAM CPU
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and GPU and you can't buy the screen by
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itself and you can't even use the screen once the hardware becomes outdated by
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just plugging in another computer there are no video inputs just a singular
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video output in the form of mini DisplayPort on the back also at the back is an
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ether Jack a full-sized SD card reader
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four type a USB 3 5 GB ports and a
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headphone and microphone Jack that's it
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so pretty barebones for a desktop computer but there is actually a rather
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cool grip release AC power cable that won't give way to random tugs it's
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actually kind of interesting back to the hardware let's talk about performance
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the surface studio is using not just mobile technology but lasts gen mobile
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tech from both Intel and NVIDIA which means that while using it is smooth in
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the vast majority of still art applications like Adobe photosop or
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Microsoft's own fresh paint and of course you can edit videos on it it's
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limited expandability and unexceptional specs mean it doesn't feel like a
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high-end video editing workstation which was really disappointing to our editors
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here who were amped about using the dial for timeline scrubbing and other cool
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stuff on the surface and whatever it is
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those guys do all day and then that
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excitement was kind of lost Microsoft's response to this criticism was that they
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were limited due to their design window making the surface Studio work with
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these new technologies would have involved re-engineering the thermal
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design but I can think of other Solutions why not allow people to buy
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the screen and run their own more powerful computers like Wacom does with
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their cintique line of products which I guess actually leads us into that
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comparison can the surface Studio penetrate wacom's strangle hold on the
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professional digital writing surface Market well it holds up fine the screen
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looks great and the huge surface area is awesome but artists including our
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neighbor Steve who's pretty great at things have issues with the surface pen
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not being as accurate in terms of pressure when compared to offerings from
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the other side in the Box you get a Surface Studio a surface pen a surface
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keyboard a surface Mouse a fancy surface
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power cord and that's it no surface dial
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but before you go back to Microsoft in a huff and purchase the dial that you
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assumed was included in the Box considering how prominently they
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featured it in like all of its advertising you might want to keep a few
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things in mind one it works with all Bluetooth equipped Windows 10 n PCS
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which is nice it's not just a surface device two there is a relatively simple
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Windows wheel API for application developers to integrate its
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functionality with their programs but outside of developers developers
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developers it is not user programmable
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in the same way that something like a Logitech or razor keyboard would be
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sorry Taran no fancy custom macros at
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least not yet and three you're probably
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just going to be using this thing on your desk not on the screen and if you
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want to use it that way you'll be constantly moving it on and off of the
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display that whole thing looked super cool in their video but if you just
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leave it on your screen it will ever so
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slowly slide downwards uh unfortunate as
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it almost hangs on even at relatively High angles the dial is very cool with
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its 3600 points of precision and its beautiful modern design but it feels
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like it's more something that will be used because it's nice and it's easy
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rather than because it's useful for hardcore professional use so in
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conclusion the surface studio is one of the most interesting product releases in
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my opinion of 2016 hands down and I mean
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that about all aspects of the experience from just opening the box and seeing how
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they designed their uniquely elegant product packaging all the way to the
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specs of the computer itself and the truly courageous and unapologetically
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artistic screen this is a new direction for Microsoft and one that I'm excited
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to see them continue to explore it's
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expensive but for high-end consumers
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it's a very cohesive experience and as for professionals I don't expect to see
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cinti in the garbage behind all the local design hes just yet but if the
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Surface Pro is anything to go by give it a generation or two and we could be
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looking at a very different landscape freshbook is excited to
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for an unrestricted 30-day free trial just go to freshbooks.com techtips and
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enter lonus Tech tips in the how did you hear about a section thanks for watching
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guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or
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consider checking out the link of where to buy stuff that we featured in this
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video at Amazon in the video description down below also link Down Below in the
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description is our merch store where you can buy cool shirts and hopefully get
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people that are in the studio to stop talking I don't know if you can buy that
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option but it is available
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um don't do that what you can do is
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watch this video which
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is pella's favorite video that we've
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made that's a lot of pressure