The Surface Laptop Studio seems to solve all my Surface Book complaints

Surface Laptop Studio Source: Microsoft

I used to exist a giant Surface fan, but in the past few years, I dropped off. I wrote an article a while ago detailing why I stopped buying Surface, which can exist summarized as full general disappointment in quality and usability. Information technology oftentimes felt as if Surface devices were developed in a vacuum, and ignored how they were actually existence used in the real world. I think the Surface Laptop Studio is the first sign that the team is addressing some of that.

Microsoft's recent Surface effect was the all-time information technology's had in years, showcasing an impressive slate of, well, slates, from the Surface Duo ii to the forrad-facing Surface Pro 8. At least for me, though, information technology was the Surface Laptop Studio that stole the show. And while it has a hilariously clunky name (seriously Microsoft, hire a proper name guy, or something) — the form cistron is annihilation but clunky.

Ditching detachables

Surface Book 2 Inking on the Surface Book.

The Surface Laptop Studio is Microsoft's well-nigh innovative Surface in years, achieving something I'd complained about in my previous Surface Book coverage.

I am someone who considers themself to exist the prime target audition for a Surface Volume. I dabble in digital fine art. I work in a artistic industry with frequent travel requirements. And I need something powerful for video editing. The laptop that brought me closer to my perfect all-in-one device. A lightweight, dGPU laptop with inking capabilities, complete with a collapsible canvas experience. The trouble was the execution.

I'chiliad pretty sure the Surface Book was developed in, and tested, but in labs that have tons of air conditioning. We have well-nigh no air conditioning in Europe, and this proved to be the Surface Book's Achilles' heel for me.

The laptop's detachable design meant that Microsoft put the CPU up in the brandish, so it could part as a tablet when detached. Under the lightest of loads in the summer months, this matter would heat up to the point where I'grand pretty certain I could've fried an egg on it. Fried food is skillful, just not exactly a characteristic I want in my laptop.

Surface Laptop Studio Source: Microsoft

The Surface Laptop Studio solves this basic design flaw with its innovative collapsible brandish organization. Other manufacturers have looked to 360-degree hinges to create their "canvas" modes for inking, just it still requires you to lift the laptop up off the desk and awkwardly flip everything around. The Surface Laptop Studio's uncomplicated organisation lets you but draw the display towards y'all. Easy, ergonomic, and elegant. Emotional every bit Surface leader Panos Panay put it, during the Surface event.

The Surface Laptop Studio also has a new Surface Slim Pen ii to compliment it, complete with haptics that imitate paper, complete with a boosted brandish refresh rate. Inking and drawing on glass always felt somehow wrong to me, and so I'm hoping that these changes solve my other Surface Book irritants also. I suspect near people, however, will exist most excited almost the spec heave.

Serious spec crash-land

Surface Laptop Studio Hero Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central

It felt a bit like the Surface Book line was constrained past its design too. Baking so much of the figurer in the brandish led to the heat problems, but the dGPU in the base also came with a litany of problems associated with the detach mechanism. I appreciate wholeheartedly the engineering endeavor and precision needed to make a device like that work at all, but equally an end-user, I needed something that works all of the time without fail. Particularly at the Surface line's notoriously high price range.

To telephone call the Surface Book 3's GTX 1660 Ti a thwarting would be an understatement, because it was already less powerful than the years-sometime Razer Blade I'd switched to after repeated disappointments from the Surface Volume line. The Surface Laptop Studio gets more serious, baking an RTX 3050 Ti into the base of operations instead, freed upward from the constraints of the Book's class factor.

And finally. FINALLY, we're getting Thunderbolt ports, subsequently years of complaining. Equally someone who finer runs an unabridged studio from his laptop, with professional mics for podcasting, capture cards for getting game footage for videos, and and so on, having the power to expand my I/O across the bottlenecks of USB is a swell boost.

Will it deliver?

Surface Laptop Studio Draw Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Fundamental

Nonetheless even so, despite the exciting improvements, I find myself apprehensive. I've used a lot of Surface devices since the early days, and I'm still concerned almost quality on the stop products both in terms of hardware and software. The throttling on the Surface Pro and Surface Volume line in the summer months made them virtually unusable for anything but the lightest workloads in my Air-conditioning-less office space, and I don't want to return to that world. Razer laptops have only ever been wholly reliable workhorses for me, although I've sacrificed my digital art hobby to get them.

I withal want a device that lets me do everything on the go: piece of work, creation, and play, while taking up minimal infinite in my tiny European offices. I'm willing to pay a premium to go information technology, besides. Surface hasn't lived upward to the hope thus far, for me, but I'grand hoping that the Surface Laptop Studio volition alter the narrative. Even if it has a giddy name (seriously, just call it the Surface Book 4).

Surface Book 4

Surface Laptop Studio

A new era

The Surface Laptop Studio is the most powerful Surface ever made, with serious specs for serious users. Gaming, productivity, and creativity, all in one portable device — at least, that'south the promise.

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