Why do you think creative professionals is a small group?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Surface Studio discussion
- Thread starter Macmamamac
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This "small" group are the people working in the creative industries who kept Apple afloat during the dark years. If Microsoft wins their wallets Apple will truly become just a phone company. Also Surface Studio is supposed to be the flagship product of the Surface family and even though it will probably not sell in large volumes, one of its purposes is to help increase the sales of the other Surface products, the Pro and the Book.
It's interesting a lot of threads on here say 'I'll never go back to Windows' and I used to be one of those guys. However Apple's complete and utter incompetence with regards to keeping the mac product line up to date made me switch back to a PC - I needed a laptop with more than 16BG RAM. And I have to say Windows 10 has been a pleasant experience. Better than OS X in some ways, worse in others. And once you are in your app (lighroom for me most of the time) the only difference I notice is that it's is much faster.
Given the contempt that Apple appears to have for its pro users there is now no way I would switch back to Mac, OS X or not. Apple may wow us today with new kit, but then how long will it be for another update? 2 years, 3 years, whenever?
They have sadly become a company producing consumer products which simply don't meet my requirements any longer and it doesn't matter how nice OS X is or how pretty their computers are, slow crippled hardware slows down my work and uncertain hardware updates makes me less inclined to invest in the platform.
I think that there are many more average 'home' iMac users than that there are 'creative professionals' iMac users?
We don't speak of the darks days
seriously though I don't think its a small group. Every company (other then small businesses) has groups/departments that is full of graphic designers, web designers and other creative content creators. I can see this being a huge audience to tap into, whether MS is successful isn't the question, but rather I think its a big group
I disagree. their surface hardware is excellent. They had some teething problems in the early days, but these were all fixed. I have had plenty of GPU issues on MacBook Pro's however, and issues with noisy fans that Apple 'Geniuses' simply could not reproduce - try turning it on! I have found Apples kit isn't any less ore more reliable than any other, it has just become slimmer and less useful over time.
There's no question that consumers out number the creative types, but that doesn't mean its a niche group - at least I don't think it is
[doublepost=1477572136][/doublepost]
My Surface Book that I own is rock solid. I think its a great piece of technology that has a premium feel
Watch the video and see how it is used with the surface dial. If you work in graphics at all, this computer with the 3D features being built into Windows 10 will make a huge amount of difference.
I don't see this as an imac copy as it's intended to be used as a large tablet, just an all in one desktop as the iMac is.
It is about leadership. Tim Cook is good at a tremendous number of things, as is Jonny Ive, but they don't have a vision except more of the same and refinements. I can see Ive in the watch and Cook in the car but neither taking care of their roots of creatives and computer users in general. I can run Adobe's Creative Suite on either platform and if Microsoft comes up with something as elegant as the surface studio with more power or nothing that specifically appeals to me as a media maker, I'll switch.
When my daughters ipad eventually dies she'll be getting one of these. If I wasnt' running so many VM's I'd have got one instead of the XPS 15.
Just took a look at the specs and they have the same issues that everyone here moans about the iMac for.
They are on skylake (of course there are no kabylake chips yet but that doesn't stop everyone here expecting them in every apple product), they are using last generation mobile graphics chips just like the iMac, NVIDIA over AMD, but just the same specs really, they didn't even manage an NVIDIA 1060.
They also seem to be missing usbc/tb3 ports.....
The screen is cool but lets be honest the design is just a mini pc with a tiltable touchscreen attached to it, its not even 5k, the storage options are not announced and seem to be some sort of fusion sshd effort from the description.
They won't be available until next year by which time apple will probably have new iMacs out.
lastly they are 2x the price....
laughable
They are on skylake (of course there are no kabylake chips yet but that doesn't stop everyone here expecting them in every apple product), they are using last generation mobile graphics chips just like the iMac, NVIDIA over AMD, but just the same specs really, they didn't even manage an NVIDIA 1060.
They also seem to be missing usbc/tb3 ports.....
The screen is cool but lets be honest the design is just a mini pc with a tiltable touchscreen attached to it, its not even 5k, the storage options are not announced and seem to be some sort of fusion sshd effort from the description.
They won't be available until next year by which time apple will probably have new iMacs out.
lastly they are 2x the price....
laughable
Last edited:
Agreed. My 2010 iMac is a sweet machine and still has enough power to do what I need from it. The only reason I would consider replacing it is because I couldn't upgrade the OS any longer. I don't want Apple products to change so much that you need to get a new one every 6 months to stay current. What's the point? These are built to last and not sure why people are so hell bent on seeing great strides on new iMac's. What's really been wrong with them for the average user?
Perhaps what differentiates this most from an iMac is that Microsoft has chosen to locate the "guts" of the computer in the base, rather than behind the screen (as does Apple).
Thus, the bulkier base, but the display itself is thin and thus makes possible the ability to tilt it downward to become a "touchspace" without disturbing connections on the back. Some here have proclaimed the base as "ugly", but you can't have it both ways -- the electronics and connections have to be -somewhere-. For a screen that tilts that much, the base needs to be sufficiently "weighted", as well.
Can't tell from the pics I've seen, but the base looks to have a removable top plate. Would this permit the owner to "get inside" for upgrades and parts replacement?
What is the Microsoft "hybrid" drive?
Is that their version of "Fusion"?
Or is it just a platter-based HDD with perhaps 128gb of flash-RAM "spliced in", a la the Seagate hybrid drives?
Last thought:
I wonder how much trouble it will be to "hackintosh" one of these....?
Thus, the bulkier base, but the display itself is thin and thus makes possible the ability to tilt it downward to become a "touchspace" without disturbing connections on the back. Some here have proclaimed the base as "ugly", but you can't have it both ways -- the electronics and connections have to be -somewhere-. For a screen that tilts that much, the base needs to be sufficiently "weighted", as well.
Can't tell from the pics I've seen, but the base looks to have a removable top plate. Would this permit the owner to "get inside" for upgrades and parts replacement?
What is the Microsoft "hybrid" drive?
Is that their version of "Fusion"?
Or is it just a platter-based HDD with perhaps 128gb of flash-RAM "spliced in", a la the Seagate hybrid drives?
Last thought:
I wonder how much trouble it will be to "hackintosh" one of these....?
Good question, since it will determine how well the boost from the flash actually works.
I don't see the point, actually. For similar specs, you are paying a roughly 1 grand premium for the touch/pen input. Input that won't be visible to OS X without a custom driver. If I'm willing to pay that premium, then it's because the use case around input is compelling, and it will likely work best in Windows, if it ever gets an OS X driver from some enterprising folks in the Hackintosh community.
If I bought one of these, it would be running Windows.
Overall, the idea is interesting, but that price. Since I don't really need a cintiq-like tool in my own workflows, it's really hard to justify the price. Pen input for me is more about digital notes and rough mockup sketches than it is about content creation, and I like having it on a companion device right now. Writing code via pens is not my idea of productive, and Lightroom isn't exactly touch friendly.
I think it looks awesome, and I actually like Windows 10, and prefer it to MacOS for certain tasks. This is coming from a lifetime "Mac guy."
The fact that it seems directed at creative professionals is the very market that gave Macs inroads not too long ago, and the same market that, to me, Apple seems to be neglecting lately.
I think the design is spot-on. I like the innards located away from the display, which, although not "retina" looks great from the videos. I would love it if you could pop the top on the base and easily access/upgrade the guts.
My issue would be the price. I'd love to get one as a second computer, but that cost is much too much for me. Especially considering my investment in my current computer, which I hope to keep for a while.
I think they got this one right
The fact that it seems directed at creative professionals is the very market that gave Macs inroads not too long ago, and the same market that, to me, Apple seems to be neglecting lately.
I think the design is spot-on. I like the innards located away from the display, which, although not "retina" looks great from the videos. I would love it if you could pop the top on the base and easily access/upgrade the guts.
My issue would be the price. I'd love to get one as a second computer, but that cost is much too much for me. Especially considering my investment in my current computer, which I hope to keep for a while.
I think they got this one right
I would hope, but to be honest, given how the Surface Pros and Surface Books are sealed, I'd not be surprised to see this as sealed as an iMac. Given the high price point, though, they ought to make some of the internals user replaceable.
I'm assuming its one of those Seagate hybrids that are both SSD and HD
my mother in law has win 10 laptop i can't stand it there has not been a good windows os since xp
[doublepost=1477592797][/doublepost]
storage is a 2 tb hard drive no ssd
I have to disagree. I personally think Windows 10 is great. Much better than XP and even better than Windows 7.
i don't like the touch screen and really don't like the way it looks. it's all taste to me .
[doublepost=1477593217][/doublepost]The Surface Studio packs a sixth-gen Intel i5/i7 Core processor, a 4GB Nvidia GeForce GPU, up to 32GB of RAM and a 2TB hard drive. Along with a single dedicated power cable, ports include four USB 3.0 jacks, a Mini DisplayPort, an SD card slot and an Ethernet port.
[doublepost=1477593294][/doublepost]
if apple had done that with the imac everyone would be saying wtf was apple
thinking - still a spinning drive....
These professionals tend to be the most vocal and they are the ones recommending products to friends and family
That may be true but if they've got any sense and aren't douches they'll be recommending something suitable for the user not what they need for their own specific work case.