Microsoft has been really chasing the
creative market in recent years in many
ways tackling Apple head on with their
surface line of products one of their
most impressive and most disappointing
devices was the surface studio
it's incredible touchscreen was leaps
and bounds ahead of other desktops but
it was already rocking dated Hardware
when it was released almost two years
ago and hasn't been refreshed since then
that is until now so has a refresh of
the internals of the surface studio 2
then taken it from really cool to
something you should actually buy that
depends on who you are
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risk of sounding like a broken record
the build quality and design of the
surface studio 2 are among the finest on
the market you'll find the thin
well-constructed screen here above an
astonishingly small computer right down
here like this thing is incredible all
the processing graphics storage even the
power supply are crammed in there and
then moving back up the hinge well it's
incredible to its wings all the way from
fully vertical down to 20 degrees
exactly the same angle as a drafting
table and it does it basically
effortlessly it feels awesome to move up
and down and has basically no wobble
while you're drawing on it because yes
as before it's a massive touchscreen and
it's just incredible even as a normal
display it's very good with excellent
colors and multiple pre calibrated
display modes including DCI p3 and srgb
along with a vivid profile for the best
buy TV enthusiasts there are a couple of
uniformity issues that we noticed on the
left and right sides there's a
noticeable decrease in brightness at
around 50% backlight but this mostly
goes away when the screen is at full or
low brightness it just merits mentioning
because 50% is right where we found the
display brightness most comfortable this
is something that could perhaps be
improved by a reader or a low blue light
mode so things like Microsoft Word would
be slightly less eyeballs searing so
there's a pro tip free of charge
Microsoft as for using the touch well
basically all that I could say about it
was that it was freaking huge and pretty
darn cool but I felt like we should
probably go a step further than that and
consult our resident graphic designer
before passing that along to you so he
did say that the screen was too glossy
but he also said that he found the pen
very accurate and thought the pressure
sensitivity was very good and the
like grittiness of the pen made writing
that extra little bit better the eraser
functionality does have accuracy issues
but really the biggest endorsement was
that when he finished using the surface
studio - the first thing out of his
mouth was so are we keeping it because I
wanted I remember this is coming from a
Mac guy a notable omission though this
time around is the much-hyped
surface dial which I guess didn't gain
as much traction in the last model as
Microsoft was hoping but Windows hello
facial recognition has and remains a
very nice touch alongside the above
average webcam moving around the back is
a fairly basic assortment of i/o with a
much-appreciated Edition USB type-c and
although a couple more ports would have
been nice my biggest problem is actually
access to USB ports and a headphone jack
on the front would make a huge
difference when I want to plug in a USB
Drive or whatever without performing the
reach-around on this thing and I'm
disappointed that there is no
Thunderbolt 3 or at least an option for
10 gigabit Nerys even the Mac Mini has a
10 gigabit option the included keyboard
and mouse though are well they're a
mixed bag I wasn't a huge fan of the
mouse the way it slopes makes it hard to
grip and the maximum tracking speed is
abysmally low so I've swapped it out
almost immediately but the keyboard is
surprisingly good like sure it's not
quite at the same level as a full
mechanical keyboard but for anyone
that's only used rubber domes they're
gonna think this is pure sex for their
fingers I mean really when it comes to
packed in peripherals anything that
isn't immediately aimed for the bin I
consider success and I could even see
professional writers not bothering to
swap out this keyboard so then
everything has been mostly positive so
far but that doesn't mean that this is a
perfect machine far from it below 60%
volume the speakers sound great but
above that sound quality suffers a lot
and that's before we get into the
gratulations line as you've been
selected to play the new game show cash
or castration we're
in dollars and your balls are on the
line what do I do there's a skill
testing question - are you ready yes
today's question is if you are building
a desktop computer in 2018 do you choose
option a a ninth Gen Intel I $9.99
hundred K desktop processor with 8 cores
option B an 8th gen Intel i7
8750 H mobile processor with 6 quarts or
option C a 7th gen Intel i7 7820 HQ
mobile processor with 4 cores wait I
know is it C is it C no it's it's C it's
C right is it C you are correct
congratulations or at least that's the
way Microsoft wishes it was
unfortunately the quad core Core i7 7820
HQ in the surface studio 2 isn't going
to be able to deliver the kind of
performance that we expect in 2018 now I
am pleased to report that we saw no
throttling and clocks above base even
when we hit it with a full synthetic
load but in a desktop aimed at
professionals a Cinebench score of under
700 just isn't acceptable when thin
laptops like the razor blade or macbook
pro are breaking through the four-digit
mark and adding insult to injury don't
expect to be able to upgrade anything
with a soldered CPU GPU and ram only the
storage can be replaced and only after a
rather tricky disassembly like sure our
model is still very quick in single
threaded tasks and the gtx 1070 makes it
a shockingly competent gaming machine if
you don't mind bumping the resolution
down from default a little bit for
triple-a titles but using hardware that
is already last gen
best makes this a hard sell especially
when there is no way at all to connect
another computer to this display once
what's in here becomes too slow
while I'm complaining I also wish that
there were more Pro oriented build outs
for it like it's almost impossible to
recommend for engineers and other
professionals without the inclusion of a
Quattro option and a higher cores Ian
option would also take this machine to a
whole other level this is made worse by
the fact that the iMac Pro is available
with pretty similar specs except an 8
core Xeon and ECC Ram at a similar price
which reminds me our model would cost
you forty two hundred US dollars and
that isn't even the most expensive
config like you do get 32 gigs of ram
and a one terabyte nvme SSD for your
money but still do you know what forty
two hundred dollars can buy you in a
regular desktop we weren't quite sure
off the top of our heads either so we
did the math
keeping similar specs but swapping to a
Rison processor with double the course
and two 4k HDR displays from LG make
this machine much better for video or 3d
graphics editors especially because of
the additional screen real estate not to
mention of course the power and the
upgrade ability and you can build tons
of other configs with Quadros even more
CPU power more ram a lot more storage I
mean it's kind of up to you when you
have that kind of money to throw around
but there's one thing you will be giving
up and that's touch fun fact it turns
out touch screens are really freaking
expensive a 24 inch 4k touch display and
pen from Wakeham is $2,500 now this
display does have slightly better tilt
and pressure sensitivity than the
surface studio but it also puts the
$4,200 asking price of the surface
studio to into context while almost
annoying me more I mean here's the thing
Microsoft is making people chew
if they want what is possibly the best
touch display on the market or a
computer that's powerful enough to back
it up like come on guys can I just get
the display with its excellent colors
touch capabilities and hinge without a
computer inside like given the cost of
weight room screens 1,500 or even 2,000
dollars would be a killer price making
either the surface studio 2 or the
hypothetical surface monitor the
absolute go-to for creative
professionals who draw as it is we can
only recommend it for creative
professionals who only drop the elgato
stream deck mini allows you to
concentrate on your game stream instead
of trying to memorize keyboard shortcuts
you can create OneTouch operations that
allow you to start your stream announce
that you're live play animations and
more without having to take your eyes
off the action it allows you to
graphically change the icons on each
button it's got a total of 6 LCD screens
that can be customized for any action
and the crazy thing about it is that
it's not just for streamers so our
editor Taryn actually has two stream
decks at his desk since he loves his
macros for Adobe Premiere the stream
deck is available for Mac or Windows and
is less than a hundred US dollars for
the mini version check it out on Amazon
and Newegg at the links in the video
description so thanks for watching guys
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