Surface Studio

We go hands-on with Microsoft's all-in-one PC

Microsoft has been all about setting hardware standards. It's done it for 2-in-1 laptops with the Surface Pro 4, and now it seems to have set the bar for all-in-one PCs with the Surface Studio.

Just as the rumours and leaks foretold, the Surface Studio is a 28-inch all-in-one PC with a new iteration on Microsoft's PixelSense display, and an all-new way to control the device in the Surface Dial.

What the rumours and leaks didn't prepare us for, however, was the price: around $2,999 (although pricing is yet to be confirmed).

How does the Surface Studio justify that astronomical price tag? By being a very strong contender for the title of 'Best All-In-One PC Of All Time', that's how.

Release date and price

You can pre-order the Surface Studio right now. It doesn’t come cheap, but for that price you’ll get an adjustable, 28-inch PixelSense display, a 6th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU.

If you need more power for your day-to-day routine, however, you can upgrade to an i7 configuration with 16GB of RAM or an i7 with 32GB of RAM and a 4GB GTX 980M GPU from about $2,999 or $3,499, respectively. While a Surface Pen comes standard with every Surface Studio purchase, early pre-orders included a Surface Dial accessory free of charge.

As of right now, however, orders are slated to ship in ‘early 2017’, with every machine coming with a Surface Keyboard, Surface Mouse and Windows 10 Pro pre-installed, and the Surface Dial available for extra.

Inside and out