At its “A moment of your time” event in New York City today, Microsoft announced the Surface Studio 2. While the device looks largely the same as its predecessor, it’s what’s on the inside that counts: The specs have gotten a significant bump.
The Surface Studio needed a refresh, given that the original was announced just under two years ago, also at an event in New York City. Microsoft’s first desktop PC debuted with a 28-inch display (4,500 x 3,000 resolution, 192 PPI), a “zero-gravity” hinge, a GTX 980M, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, a 2TB PCIe SSD, SD card support, four USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, 2.1 integrated speakers, a mini DisplayPort, and three fans. The original Surface Studio shipped in December 2016, starting at $2,999.
The Surface Studio 2 ships on November 15 and starts at $3,499. If you were hoping for a cheaper device, this isn’t it.
For the Surface Studio 2, just like the original Surface Studio, the highlight is the screen. The size remains unchanged at 28 inches, but it is 38 percent brighter (over 500 nits more), and offers 22 percent more contrast. Just like its predecessor, the Surface Studio 2 features 13.5 million pixels and supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity when used with the Surface Pen.
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Surface Studio 2 is “the fastest Surface ever.” Microsoft promises a 50 percent faster GPU and next-generation Pascal graphics (hey Nvidia!).
Panos Panay, head of engineering for all of Microsoft’s devices, said the Surface Studio 2 includes a 2TB SSD. Yes, Microsoft got rid of the hybrid disk drive entirely, something Panay said customers were specifically begging for.
