Microsoft Discontinues iMac Rival Surface Studio 2
58 points by HatchedLake721 6 months ago | 77 comments- HatchedLake721 6 months agoSurface Studio introduction from 2017, still looks amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VvFlwsWic
- com2kid 6 months agoI 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!
- sbrother 6 months agoI 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.
- sleepybrett 6 months agothen 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 6 months ago
- karlgkk 6 months agoHaving used one for about 18 months put me off the entire surface lineup. It sure was good looking though.
- StressedDev 6 months agoWhat put you off?
- angelgonzales 6 months agoI used the Microsoft Surface as my daily driver for years, the finish rubbed off in the first few uses and looked terrible, the screen broke as well. They do look beautiful and it was pretty fast.
- spiderfarmer 6 months agoFor me? Windows. How can people be productive on an OS that doesn’t allow you to focus.
- angelgonzales 6 months ago
- StressedDev 6 months ago
- adolph 6 months agoHard to believe Surface kicked off 16 short years ago
- seanmcdirmid 6 months agoThat 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.
- seanmcdirmid 6 months ago
- com2kid 6 months ago
- cma 6 months agoMicrosoft has terrible pen technology for artists, still jittery slow lines years after it hurt the first Studio and other surface products.
- ksec 6 months agoThis is sad consider they have been doing research on this for 15 years.
- catach 6 months agoIndicating that they could make it amazing if they wanted to, they just don't want to. Likely due to cost.
- cma 6 months agoThey organized their entire product line around premium artist products for the adobe cloud type spending professionals and it just doesn't work for them. It was a crazy strategy. They're still putting out new surfaces that have the same fundamental problem and burning their brand. They came out before Apple Pencil and made almost no improvement to it since then. Even the old windows ink laptops from the early 2000s had better stylus support (Wacom).
- cma 6 months ago
- catach 6 months ago
- ksec 6 months ago
- cosmic_cheese 6 months agoUnfortunate 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.
- not_your_vase 6 months agoHaha, remember some time ago many people were like
How the turntables...> 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) - PittleyDunkin 6 months 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_cheese 6 months agoYou 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.
- cosmic_cheese 6 months ago
- not_your_vase 6 months ago
- neya 6 months agoMicrosoft'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...
- f4stjack 6 months agoWith 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.
- mhh__ 6 months agoThat 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?
- buzzerbetrayed 6 months agoHow does an iPad Pro not have a “desktop grade processor”? It literally has the processor that Apple puts in their desktops.
- philwelch 6 months 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.
- sleepybrett 6 months agoimo 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.
- philwelch 6 months agoSure, but that’s beside the point; I’m addressing the “full blown desktop processor” claim.
If you want a macOS device that runs the same M4 processor that’s in an iPad Pro, it looks like your options include virtually every macOS device.
- philwelch 6 months ago
- sleepybrett 6 months ago
- kernal 6 months ago> Microsoft's problem has never been their hardware.
The Xbox 360 says hi.
- ksec 6 months agoI 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.
- bmitc 6 months ago[flagged]
- cosmic_cheese 6 months agoI believe that this is a much more subjective thing than it’s often presented as. macOS is where all of my work gets done. I can make Linux work if I have to with enough beating and banging (not the smoothest process), but I would go mad if I had to be productive under Windows. It’s why on my machines Windows is relegated purely to game duty.
- bmitc 6 months agoI have used and use all three. I find Windows, despite annoyances and annoying trends particularly with their "Apple-fication" of the Control Panel, still to get out of the way the most. macOS can't even adjust volume or brightness of non-Apple monitors, which is an intentional move by Apple. macOS is absolutely full of arbitrary limitations and hidden things. Windows is much better for hardware interaction.
- bmitc 6 months ago
- dymk 6 months agoI can recall once or twice where an application broke in my decade of having Apple products. The hyperbole isn’t needed.
- bmitc 6 months agoThen you don't use audio products.
- bmitc 6 months ago
- neilalexander 6 months ago> because you can actually use your computer as a computer
This is such a vague and pointless argument that somehow manages to mean absolutely nothing at all. What defines "to use a computer as a computer"?
Do you mean to say that all of the things I do day-to-day on a Mac (like software development, communication, media consumption, life organisation) don't count?
You're never going to find a computer that satisfies absolutely everyone but there are plenty of computers out there that satisfy many people's expectations of what a computer should do or be.
- bmitc 6 months agoIt's a metaphor.
- bmitc 6 months ago
- cosmic_cheese 6 months ago
- f4stjack 6 months ago
- 6 months ago
- Terretta 6 months agoOh 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:
- 8note 6 months agoawwww. ive been hoping for a 3 to replace my current book 2
- bitpush 6 months ago[flagged]