Microsoft Discontinues iMac Rival Surface Studio 2+

[drrich2]

Microsoft is the epitome of quitting. Other companies prove that a concept can be lucrative, but rather than continuing to improve and refine their products they bail thus fail. This is why I can't get behind or invest in any of their products.

Given the conflict-of-interest pressure not to compete with Windows PC hardware vendors, I wonder if that's by design.

Years ago, when Surface products came out, I think someone put forth the idea Microsoft wanted to show hardware vendors 'how it's done,' so to speak, and inspire them to product products compelling in the aesthetically and functionally compelling manner some Apple products achieve.

Which isn't a bad concept, but I imagine the hope would be that Dell, ASUS and others would then imitate the Microsoft products (not unlike how some PC notebooks got thinner and lighter like Macs even before the Qualcom Snapdragon processors came along).

So the question becomes, are other PC vendors producing anything analogous to the Surface Studio, and if not, why not?

If it's an inviting market ripe to be exploited, seems like somebody would've gone for it.

 

[green_diyos]

xxx

 

[groove-agent]

So the question becomes, are other PC vendors producing anything analogous to the Surface Studio, and if not, why not?

If it's an inviting market ripe to be exploited, seems like somebody would've gone for it.

Maybe they're all afraid of going after Apple?

 

[Abazigal]

So the question becomes, are other PC vendors producing anything analogous to the Surface Studio, and if not, why not?

If it's an inviting market ripe to be exploited, seems like somebody would've gone for it.

They haven’t gone for it because nobody is willing to pay for one. Or to put it another way, the people who would be in the market for a well-designed all-in-one computer are already all using Macs.

The problem with the surface studio is that once you factor in the cost of the monitor and all the “extras”, you end up with a product that costs more than a Mac, and that’s pretty much suicide in the PC world, which has traditionally differentiated themselves via price and specs. You either see who can charge a lower price for the same spec, or offer more specs for the same price.

Some people have tried to frame this as a good thing, because hardware OEMs engaging in a race-to-the-bottom with one another means cheaper prices for everyone. While not wrong, I do also find it myopic in that the low margins often means there is little left for innovation in terms of design. Or to put it more accurately, windows users have (largely) been conditioned to not want to pay a cent more for “design” than they absolutely have to.

This is why I am happy to pay the prices that Apple charges for their products, because the supernormal profits that they bring in is what incentivises Apple to continue innovating by way of PC form factors that you can’t really find over in Windows. For example, Apple Silicon allows for smaller and quieter footprints like the imac or Mac Studio due to its emphasis on power efficiency; a similar form factor in a windows PC likely just means aggressive thermal throttling. Nor will you find a $800 Apple Watch Ultra equivalent for Android, because the market who would pay for one is vastly smaller compared to iOS, despite the larger android market share that users are so fond of boasting about.

If you want to build a gaming PC that’s bang for your buck, Windows is the obvious choice because it’s the only way you can shop for the cheapest ram and storage available in the market, and that’s pretty much all it has going for it. You want a thin laptop with long battery life and an excellent GPU that lets you get serious work done without throttling while unplugged, Apple Silicon’s pretty much the only choice in the market, and it doesn’t seem like AMD or Qualcomm will be catching up anytime soon in this area.

 

[adib]

That's fine. Professional artists can upgrade to Wacom Cintiq 24 and a Mac Mini 😉

 

[drrich2]

For example, Apple Silicon allows for smaller and quieter footprints like the imac or Mac Studio due to its emphasis on power efficiency; a similar form factor in a windows PC likely just means aggressive thermal throttling.

You want a thin laptop with long battery life and an excellent GPU that lets you get serious work done without throttling while unplugged, Apple Silicon’s pretty much the only choice in the market, and it doesn’t seem like AMD or Qualcomm will be catching up anytime soon in this area.

I thought Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips were about the change that, but the introduction of Intel's competitive Lunar Lake chips (similar benefits, if I understood correctly, without the compatibility hassles/tradeoffs a switch to ARM Snapdragon chips requires) may've introduced some FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) into the marketplace. Oddly enough, the free market competition that drives lower pricing in PCs may impairing the market by introducing uncertainty. When Apple decides to do something, users either bail or go along for the ride (not always a good thing).

 

[weeniewawa?]

but what will I pair with my Zune and Windows phone now!?!?!?!?

 

[Bodhitree]

I have to say, 3000 dollars is ridiculous for a generation-behind computer. No wonder that it failed despite nice design.

 

[Larvas]

On one side I find it funny, I know that Apple also had several fails throughout their career, but it's always funny to see Microsoft, Samsung or any other giant introduce a new product launch with the title "[apple-device] killer", the media portrays it as something that can actually compete with Apple, just for us, the real consumers, to wait for a few years and see it discontinued.

On the other hand it's also sad, if there's no real competition, improvements will stagnate, and we will see mediocre yearly updates, instead of breakthrough ones.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I don't think any company actually announces products as "[apple-device] killer" outside of Samsung? It is cringe worthy, so I don't think any sane pR department would ever do so.

 

[pmiles]

Macs are overpriced. I don't need a Rolls-Royce to get me to work.

 

[guzhogi]

I'd like to see something along the lines of an Apple Studio Display with a cavity in the back you could plug what amounts to a Mac Mini 'module' into and make it an iMac, or connect as an external display to a computer (and let's really go wild I suggest adding HDMI and DisplayPort to the Thunderbolt option). You could swap out your 'module' ever few years and keep using the display (along with its spacial audio and center stage webcam).

With how small the logic board is for MacBooks, I'd be curious to see if Apple could make something like a "Mac Nano" HDMI stick computer or something. Maybe even ditch all USB/Thunderbolt ports, just have a male HDMI or a male USB-C/Thunderbolt port and a power port. Stick in back of a monitor, and that's it. Get a bluetooth keyboard/mouse, or just use a touchscreen monitor.

Or maybe an iPad with a replaceable computer part. Then be able to switch between macOS & iPadOS as needed.

I still think it would be useful for graphic artists to have a touchscreen Mac with stylus support. I realize macOS wasn't designed for touch input, but would be good for design apps.

 

[guzhogi]

I have to say, 3000 dollars is ridiculous for a generation-behind computer. No wonder that it failed despite nice design.

Some would say Macs were the same way when they used Intel CPUs

 

[BigBlur]

Macs are overpriced. I don't need a Rolls-Royce to get me to work.

How is that relevant to this post? The Surface Studio was $4,300. You could buy a Mac Studio and a Studio Display for less than that.

Then there's the Mac mini for $600. Is there a small-form/powerful PC with the latest Intel chip that comes close to that price?

 

[green_diyos]

Macs are overpriced. I don't need a Rolls-Royce to get me to work.

Why are you here then?

 

[Flight Plan]

At the time it was a very innovative product. And it had one of the best adverts I’ve seen:

When I see these in films etc they look a lot cooler then anything else.

I LOVED that film. The huge panel that you could lay down or raise up. Oh man, I wanted one.

When the Surface Studio was launched, I was amazed by what Microsoft had created. However, less than a week after the presentation, there was no marketing to be found. There was nothing targeted at the average consumer ... just some on-site demonstrations and similar efforts, but that was it. Microsoft is to blame for this lack of attention, and oddly enough, they just don’t seem to learn. Even the Surface Duo received no love from Microsoft.

Yep. There was no valid excuse for failure on this product, or any Surface.

Abandonware, unfortunately.
Was hoping MS would upgrade it and compete with Wacom.
Price, terrible marketing and old, lagging components doomed it.

Especially being able to write, draw, and paint DIRECTLY on the panel, and that portable dial thingie; oh man, it looked like something out of Star Trek.

I'm not surprised the product line didn't work out, considering how underwhelming the specs were compared to how high the price was...

...but man, that thing looked SO good. 😩

The specs absolutely sucked. And to make it even worse, you had to live with whatever that slow graphics engine was.

The problem was, the internals didn't match the screen, it was underpowered and the original version was tarred by a spinning rust drive as standard, instead of an SSD! Creatives, who this was aimed at, generally need powerful internals, so not being able to keep them up to date was a missed opportunity.

I ended up buying the Alienware I'm typing this on now.

I think it would have done better if it had been a display that you could plug into a Thunderbolt or USB-C port, the PC side would be quickly outdated, whilst the display side would probably last 4-5 times as long. Having it as a glorified "docking station", where you plug-in a compute module would have been so cool & when the old internals are too slow, you just unplug the compute box and slap in a new, faster box.

It is also the reason why I learned to hate my iMac. It was a lovely piece of design, all integrated, just 2 cables (power & network). Perfect... For 2-3 years, after which it became slow and in year 4 Apple dropped support like a hot potato, I was left with a lovely screen that couldn't be connected to anything and compute internals that were too slow & too dangerous (no security patches) to use.

There were rumors about a year ago that there would be a big flat TABLET version of the Surface Studio. It never happened.

Totally understandable. Seems like there are many of these kinds of products including Windows Phone, yet another ecosystem that has been abandoned.

The "Evangelist class" for Windows Phone was the Windows Server and SQL Server technician. They were EVERYWHERE at my work. But Microsoft didn't support them, so eventually when their Windows Phones aged out, they quietly went back to iPhones and Android phones.

Microsoft really passed up a HUGE opportunity here.

I really really wished they would have released it as a standalone display instead, releasing it, sometimes with 2 generation old hardware was crazy. I loved everything about the monitor itself, the aspect ratio was amazing for the way i work/workflow

Such a missed opportunity,i am 100% sure a standalone monitor would have sold so much better than the combo

To be able to lay that tablet down like an easel desk, and then just go to work on it, that would have been amazing.

 

[subjonas]

Except the drawing aspect was the "unique selling point" of the Surface Studio... the "competition" they were aiming at would have been a Mac plus a large Wacom Cintiq (?) display/drawing tablet, which would have been in the same price bracket.

The problem was that right from the start, the display may have been stunning but the CPU/GPU and other specs were way below par - and even made Macs look like a bargain.

Microsoft are/were in an awkward position w.r.t. hardware (although it may be changing now as they move towards being a "services" company) - a major cash cow for them is/was selling Windows licenses to third-party PC manufacturers or their users and they can't afford to tick off those manufacturers too much by competing with them on PC sales. The Surface range has always had a sort of "concept car" feel to it - existing more as a showcase product for Windows - & trying to show that PCs could be more like Macs - than an attempt to get into volume PC sales. The Surface range has always been what you quote on MacRumors if you're trying to convince people that Macs aren't expensive 🙂

I did, actually, briefly have a Surface Book (the laptop with the detachable tablet section) but it turned out to have an inherent fault ("Sleep of Death") and I returned it. Apart from that (Mrs Lincoln...) I really liked it - the screen was excellent, the keyboard and trackpad almost up to Mac standards (well, at that moment, better because it was the time of the butterfly keyboard fiasco) and the price just as "reassuringly expensive" as the Mac... I was actively starting to switch back to PC until it bricked itself & got returned.

Drawing was the unique selling point of the SS, but that’s precisely why I think it couldn’t last, not for a company like MS. That large drawing screen market is too small for them. And by going for that market, they excluded a lot of their more mainstream AIO market, because making it a drawing screen made it more expensive. That had the other consequence of low specs, in order to maintain price. Take away the drawing screen and the highly engineered adjustable stand for drawing and it would have been able to either be cheaper or have higher specs for the price, which would have made it a more competitive AIO for the mainstream.

Your theory about the Surface line being more of a showcase doesn’t seem realistic. Usually a company will make a concept with one model that is usually not refined over and over again—sink as little money in it as possible. Surface is a whole range of devices that have been refined year after year for over a decade. That’s a real product line that is trying to make money. Otherwise that’s just throwing a whole lot of money away which is probably illegal for a public company. I think it’s more likely MS saw a gap in the market—Windows machines that compete with Mac design and build quality, plus include pen and touch—so they took it upon themselves. And of course it did end up being pricey like Apple.

I have a Surface Laptop Studio. The hardware is great—love the portable AIO laptop/drawing screen convertible floating screen form factor, and it has great build quality—although battery life isn’t great and I wish it had a bigger screen. But mainly I just really don’t like Windows nearly as much as macOS. I used the SLS for about 3 years but decided recently I’d rather have macOS back even if it means losing some portability by switching back to two devices (MacBook + portable drawing screen). The SLS is now my backup machine. I do miss the portability of the AIO SLS, but not as much as I missed macOS.

But I truly hope the Surface line does well. It’s unique and well-crafted, and they do some things I wish Apple did (if Apple made the SLS with Apple Silicon and macOS I’d probably faint). I wish I liked Windows.

 

[I WAS the one]

In particular the Windows Phone was a nice alternative from Android and iOS. Given the foothold they have via Windows, they have a huge advantage, still they couldn't do it.

As a Mac user, I loved the Windows phone, and I thought it was one of those devices I thought Microsoft was ready to embrace due to the excellent ecosystem opportunity. I also don't understand why they quit!

 

[Big_D]

As a Mac user, I loved the Windows phone, and I thought it was one of those devices I thought Microsoft was ready to embrace due to the excellent ecosystem opportunity. I also don't understand why they quit!

I still have a Lumia 950 at home in pristine condition, sitting in a drawer. I like Windows Phone a lot, it was somewhere between the rigid structure Apple enforced and the wild-west of Android. I always said it was the best of a bad bunch.

Now the iPhone has taken over that role. I like Android, a lot, but not the Google way of spying on the user. I used Android for several years, but it was like tilting at windmills, trying to remove or disable all the Google spyware on the devices, plus the manufacturer's spyware on top of that.

Apple aren't perfect, and I don't like that iOS is so locked down, but they are a lot better than Google and I don't have to waste time deactivating spyware left right and centre.

 

[green_diyos]

Microsoft discontinuing this large screen AIO may be an indicator that there's no more market for them. This would help explain why no larger iMac was released back in 2021.

On BH these are the AIO that is on the market

- $800 Lenovo 27" IdeaCentre 3 Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop (Black)
- $1100 HP 27" 27-cr1080 Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop
- $1200 Dell 23.8" OptiPlex 7420 All-in-One Multi-Touch Computer
- $900 Dell 23.8" OptiPlex 7420 All-in-One Computer
- $850 HP 23.8" Pavilion 24-cr1070 Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop Computer
- $1137 Dell 23.8" OptiPlex 7420 All-in-One Computer
- $1000 HP 23.8" Pavilion 24-cr1080 Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop Computer
- More https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/products/All-In-One-Desktop-Computers/ci/6780?sort=BEST_SELLERS

Largest screen one is the now the discontinued Studio 2+

- $4500 Microsoft 28" Surface Studio 2+ for Business

Man... it's a challenging business... but I want a iMac 32" 6K for $2k-3k!

 

[Chuckeee]

On BH these are the AIO that is on the market

- $800 Lenovo 27" IdeaCentre 3 Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop (Black)
- $1100 HP 27" 27-cr1080 Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop

27” but 1980x1080

 

[green_diyos]

27” but 1980x1080

That's why it is that cheap. Not even 2560x1440...

 

[Abazigal]

Man... it's a challenging business... but I want a iMac 32" 6K for $2k-3k!

It's kinda poetic when you think about it.

Back when Apple was selling 27" iMacs, people wanted a modular Mac. While the key reasons cited included the desire to use their own monitor, we all know the real reason is so users can install their own ram and storage without paying Apple's markup.

Now, Apple releases the Mac mini and Mac Studio with soldered ram and storage, finally giving pro users what they claimed they wanted (separate display and desktop unit, just without the expandability), and users are calling for the return of a larger iMac now that they realise how expense a Mac Studio + Studio Display combination can be.

Apple gives and Apple takes away. 😎

 

[subjonas]

Sooo...it sounds like Microsoft and Apple competed, a winner emerged on the basis of leveraging 3rd party strength over the in-house 'walled garden' approach...and that winner was Apple.

I think you just blew my mind. It's like the Sun came up in the west this morning or something.

That’s a strange and illogical lesson to pull from this. The success/failure had nothing to do open vs closed ecosystems. After all, both are open ecosystems because you can use a third party drawing display with either a SS or an iMac. It’s just about whether integration makes sense—vs separate components (whether all first party or a mix of first and third parties). Integration would have only been successful if there was a huge advantage to integration or if desktop drawing was more mainstream. But with neither being true, it was not a viable product. There Surface Pro on the other hand is much more successful product because integration makes much more sense on a portable device AND much more people draw casually on a smaller portable screen than on a large stationary screen. So the only lesson to glean here is that some things make sense to integrate, some things don’t.