Surface Studio or iMac - which would you buy ?
With Microsoft's recent announcement of the Surface Studio All-in-One desktop, they now have a direct competitor to the Apple iMac.
So which one would you buy ? Like with the MacBook Pro vs Surface Book comparison I did in a previous post - let's let at both from a hardware, software and ecosystem standpoint...
First the hardware. Like with the MBP / SB comparison - we'll compare the top end models.
The new Surface Studio supports 6th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and can support up to 32Gb RAM. The iMac also supports 6th gen Core i7 CPU and 32GB of RAM.
The Surface Studio uses 28" Pixel Sense Monitor with 4500 x 3000 resolution with DCI-P3 color support and 10 Point Touch and Pen Support. GPU is via Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M with 4Gb of RAM.
The iMac uses a 27" Retina Monitor with 5120 x 2800 resolution with no Touch or Pen Support and uses an AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU with 4Gb of RAM
Surface Studio has 2TB Hybrid drive and iMac has 3TB. Both units have 802.11ac WiFi and BT 4.X support and both have wired networking ports..The Surface Studio also has xBox wireless to support xBox Controllers
The Surface Studio has 4 x USB 3.0, Full SD Card Slot, Mini Displayport and 3.5mm headphone jack. The iMac has similar USB ports - SDXC Card Slot, 2 x Thunderbolt 2 ports and headphone jack.
iMac supports both Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad and the Studio supports the new Surface Dial haptic device.
The iMac has a 720p Facetime Camera and the Studio has a 5mp 1080 Windows Hello camera.
In the configurations described above the Surface Studio is $4,199 while the iMac is $3,499. So the iMac is actually some $700 or 17% cheaper.
Now let's talk software...
Just as with the MacBook Pro / Surface Book comparison the difference in my opinion focuses down on two areas... Office and Touch/Pen.
As I stated in the laptop comparison - MacOS Sierra does come with Pages, Numbers and Keynote productivity tools included. Windows 10 does not include anything more than Wordpad.
And while you can easily purchase Office 2016 or an Office365 subscription for either device - Office 2016 on PC is just superior to what is available for Mac from Microsoft. Also you cannot even purchase Visio and MS Project for the Mac.
Then there is the whole touch/pen thing. The only way you can get anywhere near equivalent support on the iMac is to purchase a separate Wacom tablet/pen. But you can't lean the monitor back like the Surface Studio and work directly on it. And you can also purchase the very cool Surface Dial accessory for the Studio and place it directly on the screen for content sensitive menu's to the app you place it on. The iMac does not have any of the new Touch ID / Touch Bar capabilities.
Finally the EcoSystem.
As I've mentioned before from a media consumption perspective - iTunes in my opinion is still the market leader. While I have a Groove Music pass that allows me to play/download anything in the Groove music catalog, the overall Apple experience is better.
What both companies are missing in my opinion is a good App store experience for the desktop. For example - you can't buy Office or Office365 from either - nor can buy PhotoShop, or many other leading 3rd party apps. The reality is that while the AppStore model has worked great for Mobile devices it really hasn't translated to PCs - yet. And I'm not sure it ever will...
Conclusion...
As you can see both devices are relatively high priced. $3,500 - $4,200 in this day and age to me is quite a bit for a PC. The question on value is based on how long you think you might own it. With a large percentage of PCs over 5 years old - if you amortize the purchase that way you may be able to justify the price.
Yes you get some top end hardware and like with the MacBook/Surface Book comparison it will all come down to your use case to determine which will be the best fit.
If you're big on Touch/Pen or a heavy Office user - the Studio makes sense...
If you're not - the iMac makes sense..
One industry observer made an interesting point that makes sense with regards to the high prices. With PC units sales falling, the only way for these two companies to show revenue increases is by selling high end devices with high price tags. This was reflected for example with iPad sales - where Apple for example sold 6% less units in Q4 but had flat revenue. The question will now be if the other major OEMs will also take this approach - suddenly making the PC a luxury.
So what would I buy ? Since I am a heavy Office/Visio/Project user and do some touch/pen work as well as Windows 10 Insider work - the Studio would be my choice.
With that said, MS has not proven to me 100% yet that they can build stable and reliable devices given some of the challenges they had with firmware/driver/OS updates with the Surface line. I just don't have those issues with Dell or HP and am typically at half the cost or less. I know if a buy an iMac it will just work.. period. And that's important when you dropping upwards of $4K on a device.
So which one would you buy ? Like with the MacBook Pro vs Surface Book comparison I did in a previous post - let's let at both from a hardware, software and ecosystem standpoint...
First the hardware. Like with the MBP / SB comparison - we'll compare the top end models.
The new Surface Studio supports 6th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and can support up to 32Gb RAM. The iMac also supports 6th gen Core i7 CPU and 32GB of RAM.
The Surface Studio uses 28" Pixel Sense Monitor with 4500 x 3000 resolution with DCI-P3 color support and 10 Point Touch and Pen Support. GPU is via Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M with 4Gb of RAM.
The iMac uses a 27" Retina Monitor with 5120 x 2800 resolution with no Touch or Pen Support and uses an AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU with 4Gb of RAM
Surface Studio has 2TB Hybrid drive and iMac has 3TB. Both units have 802.11ac WiFi and BT 4.X support and both have wired networking ports..The Surface Studio also has xBox wireless to support xBox Controllers
The Surface Studio has 4 x USB 3.0, Full SD Card Slot, Mini Displayport and 3.5mm headphone jack. The iMac has similar USB ports - SDXC Card Slot, 2 x Thunderbolt 2 ports and headphone jack.
iMac supports both Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad and the Studio supports the new Surface Dial haptic device.
The iMac has a 720p Facetime Camera and the Studio has a 5mp 1080 Windows Hello camera.
Now let's talk software...
Just as with the MacBook Pro / Surface Book comparison the difference in my opinion focuses down on two areas... Office and Touch/Pen.
As I stated in the laptop comparison - MacOS Sierra does come with Pages, Numbers and Keynote productivity tools included. Windows 10 does not include anything more than Wordpad.
And while you can easily purchase Office 2016 or an Office365 subscription for either device - Office 2016 on PC is just superior to what is available for Mac from Microsoft. Also you cannot even purchase Visio and MS Project for the Mac.
Then there is the whole touch/pen thing. The only way you can get anywhere near equivalent support on the iMac is to purchase a separate Wacom tablet/pen. But you can't lean the monitor back like the Surface Studio and work directly on it. And you can also purchase the very cool Surface Dial accessory for the Studio and place it directly on the screen for content sensitive menu's to the app you place it on. The iMac does not have any of the new Touch ID / Touch Bar capabilities.
Finally the EcoSystem.
As I've mentioned before from a media consumption perspective - iTunes in my opinion is still the market leader. While I have a Groove Music pass that allows me to play/download anything in the Groove music catalog, the overall Apple experience is better.
What both companies are missing in my opinion is a good App store experience for the desktop. For example - you can't buy Office or Office365 from either - nor can buy PhotoShop, or many other leading 3rd party apps. The reality is that while the AppStore model has worked great for Mobile devices it really hasn't translated to PCs - yet. And I'm not sure it ever will...
Conclusion...
As you can see both devices are relatively high priced. $3,500 - $4,200 in this day and age to me is quite a bit for a PC. The question on value is based on how long you think you might own it. With a large percentage of PCs over 5 years old - if you amortize the purchase that way you may be able to justify the price.
Yes you get some top end hardware and like with the MacBook/Surface Book comparison it will all come down to your use case to determine which will be the best fit.
If you're big on Touch/Pen or a heavy Office user - the Studio makes sense...
If you're not - the iMac makes sense..
One industry observer made an interesting point that makes sense with regards to the high prices. With PC units sales falling, the only way for these two companies to show revenue increases is by selling high end devices with high price tags. This was reflected for example with iPad sales - where Apple for example sold 6% less units in Q4 but had flat revenue. The question will now be if the other major OEMs will also take this approach - suddenly making the PC a luxury.
So what would I buy ? Since I am a heavy Office/Visio/Project user and do some touch/pen work as well as Windows 10 Insider work - the Studio would be my choice.
With that said, MS has not proven to me 100% yet that they can build stable and reliable devices given some of the challenges they had with firmware/driver/OS updates with the Surface line. I just don't have those issues with Dell or HP and am typically at half the cost or less. I know if a buy an iMac it will just work.. period. And that's important when you dropping upwards of $4K on a device.
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