Microsoft at its New York City media event this morning shored up rumors of a Surface-branded all-in-one (AIO) with its introduction of the Surface Studio.
Designed for "creators" and "professionals," the Surface Studio features a 28-inch TrueColor (multiple color gamuts) touch display (3:2 aspect ratio) in a 12.5mm chassis that features 13.5 million pixels (192 PPI). Microsoft says that's 63 percent more than a 4K TV.
Redmond spent a significant amount of time talking about the screen and is clearly proud of what it has created. Indeed, the screen - and by proxy, the entire system - looks stunning.
Unlike some AIOs that build the guts of the machine into the back of the display, Microsoft has chosen to put the hardware in the base / stand. Inside, you'll find up to a sixth-generation Intel Core i7 CPU (no Kaby Lake love?), Nvidia 980M graphics with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, up to 32GB of RAM and up to a 2TB "rapid hybrid drive" for storage. Power comes courtesy of a 270-watt power supply, we're told.
Connectivity-wise, the Surface Studio offers 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, built-in support for Xbox wireless controllers, four USB 3.0 ports, a full-size SD card reader, a mini DisplayPort and a 3.5mm headphone jack. A 5-megapixel front-facing camera works with Windows Hello, as do the dual microphones.
In addition to being compatible with the Surface Pen, the Surface Studio can also be paired with a new input device called the Surface Dial.
Pressing the dial down will bring to life an onscreen radial menu that can be interacted with simply by rotating the dial left or right. Additionally, the dial can be used as a scroll wheel to quickly zip through websites, documents and so on.
Microsoft is now accepting pre-orders for the Surface Studio with a launch slated for December 15. Pricing starts at $2,999 for an Intel Core i5, 8GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 965M GPU and 1TB of storage and scales up to $4,199 with an Intel Core i7, 32GB of RAM, a GTX 980M and 2TB of storage.
