Microsoft Discontinues iMac Rival Surface Studio 2

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/12/06/microsoft-discontinues-imac-rival-surface-studio/

by HatchedLake721 • 2 years ago

58 70 2 years ago

macrumors.com

HatchedLake721• 2 years ago

Surface Studio introduction from 2017, still looks amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VvFlwsWic

karlgkk• 2 years ago

Having used one for about 18 months put me off the entire surface lineup. It sure was good looking though.

StressedDev• 2 years ago

What put you off?

adolph• 2 years ago

Hard to believe Surface kicked off 16 short years ago

https://youtu.be/Zxk_WywMTzc

seanmcdirmid• 2 years ago

That surface was unrelated to the tablets and computers that reused the name afterwards. Still, that was an awesome tech at the time, multi touch and multi user, I made some great demos for it.

com2kid• 2 years ago

I remember how proud I felt to work at Microsoft when that video was unveiled. The company had made something so beautiful, and then done an amazing job showing it to the world.

An amazing marketing video in every way that counts, except apparently in regards to sales!

sleepybrett5• 2 years ago

then they ignored the line, had to make a special build of windows 11 to run on it...

I have no idea why they keep doing this shit with hardware over and over.

sbrother• 2 years ago

I bought one! It was a breathtaking piece of hardware that I wanted so badly to be useful. Unfortunately my work can't be done in Windows and it wasn't powerful enough to virtualize everything (the slow HDD was the worst) and I ended up selling it. But wow, what a form factor and gorgeous screen.

cma2• 2 years ago

Microsoft has terrible pen technology for artists, still jittery slow lines years after it hurt the first Studio and other surface products.

ksec2• 2 years ago

This is sad consider they have been doing research on this for 15 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4

catach• 2 years ago

Indicating that they could make it amazing if they wanted to, they just don't want to. Likely due to cost.

neya• 2 years ago

Microsoft's problem has never been their hardware. You can argue their Surface and Surface pro line up is far far a better feat of engineering (stuffing a full blown desktop grade processor into a mobile tablet) than any iPad Pro. However, their achilles heel has always been their software. Though Windows has improved a lot over the years, its shitty data collection and privacy practices and changing around of UI elements randomly, unpredictable updates that may kill entire industries and bring the world to a halt [1] are actually what is stopping people from adopting their hardware in my experience.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_CrowdStrike-related_IT_ou...

mhh__• 2 years ago

That desktop grade processor is probably basically a pup compared to a modern Apple silicon processor. M4 / similar vs some poor Intel chip throttling at 2GHz?

philwelch3• 2 years ago

You can argue their Surface and Surface pro line up is far far a better feat of engineering (stuffing a full blown desktop grade processor into a mobile tablet) than any iPad Pro.

Can you clarify this point? iPad Pro has an M4 processor, just like Mac desktops do.

sleepybrett5• 2 years ago

imo ipad is held back by it's OS. Until they make significant changes it's a one app at a time box to keep you kid busy w/ movies or roblox. The multi app features they have added feel like a straight jacket.

I'd like an option for a real pro ipad running macos instead of ios.

f4stjack• 2 years ago

With W11, they seem to really gung-ho about creating that achilles heel. As for myself I am tired from having an unstable OS on my devices which may or may not bork without any intervention from me.

Thanks to this (and Steam Deck for a great deal) I jumped to Mac and not regretting it. The system boots in seconds, has great eyecandy and just works for me. My work pc uses Windows and its taskbar behaves weirdly, right now, and its quarter shows the desktop image. Update breaks the soundcard and I will need to install it again. Oh and I see another update queued in - which may or may not be a false alarm.

I am not sure which was the most stable one, Windows 7 or 10. But 11 is a mess and nobody dares to admit it because sunk-cost fallacy and with the invention of recall it will act as a data collection agency for AI - as far as I followed the discussion.

buzzerbetrayed• 2 years ago

How does an iPad Pro not have a “desktop grade processor”? It literally has the processor that Apple puts in their desktops.

kernal• 2 years ago

Microsoft's problem has never been their hardware.

The Xbox 360 says hi.

ksec2• 2 years ago

I am glad many on HN starting to show and appreciate Surface the Hardware. It was perhaps the most important thing in the PC industry where M$ push the envelop on Hardware design and parts where other OEMs get to benefits some of those R&D.

And yet they are let down by their own software which should have been their bread and butter. Considering they no longer rely on Windows as a major source of revenue but more as a market moat. They should have simply asked how do you make Windows the best operating system.

cosmic_cheese2• 2 years ago

Unfortunate that Microsoft never did much with this, because it’s a cool concept.

That said, one could probably produce something to a pretty similar effect with an external pen display (like Xencelabs 24"), VESA arm, and an M4 Mac mini, and it’d be more powerful, upgradable, flexible, and maybe even cheaper to boot.

PittleyDunkin• 2 years ago

That said, one could probably produce something to a pretty similar effect with an external pen display (like Xencelabs 24"), VESA arm, and an M4 Mac mini, and it’d be more powerful, upgradable, flexible, and maybe even cheaper to boot.

Sure! What's the number to get this working?

cosmic_cheese2• 2 years ago

You mean the price? Minimum spec Mini and a Xencelabs Pen Display 24” (which comes with a VESA mounted pivot stand) gets you reasonably close and would cost $2500, where the Surface Studio 2 (as per the article) started at $3k. Screen size is a little less (24” vs 28”), but digitizer quality is better (on par with Wacom) as is pixel density. Setting it up is just plugging the display into the Mini with USB-C.

not_your_vase• 2 years ago

Haha, remember some time ago many people were like

  > Are you crazy, don't buy an iPod, just get an iRiver and use your imagination!
  > Use Gnome instead of OSX, it's *exactly* the same experience
  > "Mom, can we buy an iPad?" - We have an iPad at home (iPad at home is a Toshiba Handybook running Windows 98)

How the turntables...

8note• 2 years ago

awwww. ive been hoping for a 3 to replace my current book 2

Terretta• 2 years ago

Oh no!

Now what will every near future executive, analyst, detective, spy, or content creator in "cool" TV series (that isn't using a Macbook) use on their desk?

// And let's not even touch on (ahem) tablets:

https://9to5mac.com/2014/11/05/microsoft-surface-cnn/

Microsoft Discontinues iMac Rival Surface Studio 2

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