Surface Studio hands-on: Microsoft’s all-in-one is awesome!

Microsoft announced its own all-in-one desktop computer on Wednesday. It’s called the Surface Studio and we had a chance to go up close with it following the company’s New York City press conference. It’s big, expensive and wonderful.

My favorite part is the adjustable hinge, which turns the display from looking at you at about a 90-degree angle down into an almost tablet-style device for easily editing and writing. All of this works thanks to a smooth metal hinge on the backside. The screen is incredibly thin, too, because most of the components exist in a small metallic base.

The computer ships with a keyboard that’s a lot like Apple’s Magic Keyboard in design and functionality, there’s not a whole lot to see there, and the mouse actually feels pretty cheap which is a shame given the system’s price.

I had a chance to tool around and see how fast photo editing was (super quick) and get an overall feel for the system. I love the touchscreen responsiveness and the support for pen input and a unique dial accessory that lets you navigate with the twist of a puck. This is something we’ve seen before from third parties, but never direct from Microsoft.

Under the hood, you’ll find a 2TB hard drive, GeForce 980M graphics, 32GB of RAM, USB ports and more. The screen itself measures 28-inches and features “PixelSense” TrueColor technology. It looked gorgeous to me.

All of this comes at a price, of course. The Surface Studio starts at $2,999. Worth that price? Eh, it’s gorgeous, but I’ll need to spend some more time with a review unit before I can justify spending that much.