After months of speculation, this morning’s Microsoft hardware event in New York saw the company finally reveal the Surface Studio to the world.
In line with earlier rumors, the latest addition to the Surface range is an all-in-one PC aimed that bears more than a passing resemblance to Apple’s own iMac desktop PCs.
Boasting a slick 28-inch ‘Pixelsense’ display, Microsoft are promising to turn your desktop into a studio here – and that’s a pledge that may well ring loudly for Mac users unimpressed by whatever Apple shows off at their own impending showcase.
There’s an additional degree of flexibility afforded here by the “zero-gravity hinge” built into the Surface Studio’s design, which allows the unit to fold down into a position ideal for using it as a drawing tablet.
The specs are equally impressive. The Surface Studio comes preloaded with an i5 (or i7) quad core processor and an Nvidia GTX 980M – along with up to 32GB of RAM and either a 1TB or 2TB hard drive.
As put by Microsoft, “Surface Studio is a device created around you and your thoughtfully designed workspace. The minimal and modern design sits perfectly on your well thought out desk, with clean lines and a small footprint.”
This same philosophy seems to have shaped the design of the Studio’s key accessory: the Surface Dial.
A slick silver cylinder, this wireless-sensitive dial promises a new way of interacting with the Surface Studio that’ll take on different functions depending on the context in which it is used.
Microsoft describe is as a second mousewheel and showed it being used to adjust various color settings in their video reel, seen below:
The Surface Studio starts at $2,999 for the basic models (which feature less RAM and processing power) and goes up to $4,199 for the high end model.
Microsoft says they expect to be shipping the first Surface Studio units by mid-December.
Australian pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed.
