The Surface All-in-One - What's the big deal ?
Late last week several of the Windows enthusiast blogs posted very excited comments regarding the rumors reported by Windows Central and DigiTimes that MS may be planning to release a Surface branded All-in-one (AIO) PC - potentially as early as Q3 2016 so meaning before the end of September.
The reports description vary from this being a traditional AIO PC to "something targeted for the living room". Tempuring the rumors however was some discussion that any new "Surface" PCs would be based on the new Intel 14nm Kaby Lake chipset. If so the new devices would probably not show up until next spring with the refresh of the entire Surface line.
There is yet another article regarding a company called Kenti from France who are selling a 42" Windows 10 based AIO built into a coffee table format for 5,000 Euro.
According to the Digitimes article some 14M AIO units were sold in 2015 with Apple and Lenovo leading the market. But the AIO market is expected to decline by at least 10% in 2016 to somewhere around 12.6M units. AIOs are effectively less than 20% of the overall PC market. With all Surface sales around 1.1M units / quarter - I can't see this really moving the needle for Surface sales.
I guess MS feels they need to have a Windows alternative to the iMac and if these rumors are true then we should see at least 23" and 27" models.
And they won't be cheap. Looking at the $1,799 base 27" iMac as a comparison - it comes with a 5th Gen Core i5, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and 1TB SATA HD. You can boost RAM and go SSD - but that is a price increase. The big thing is the 5K - 5120x2188 screen. Assuming the Surface would be similar but based on 6th Gen Intel and DDR4 RAM - it will approach $2K easily.
To be honest I don't see what the big deal is. AIOs have been around for some time. In fact I bought an HP Touchsmart IQ527 25" AIO for my wife back in 2008. And while it supports touch - she never uses it that way - since like most folks using large screens - she hates the fingerprints and smudges that come along with capability.
Let's face it - Windows has never truly been a touch friendly OS and while Windows 10 has added some capability in that space - they still need to sell you a keyboard and pen to make a Surface Pro worthwhile. And the challenge is when you get into big screens - you need to move them back far enough to have good field of view and then you end up reaching with your finger or a pen to work on something close up. The point here being is that while the technologies exist the use cases are limited.
Bottom line is this. Rumors are that MS may be readying a Surface branded AIO. What the models and pricing are - is anyone's guess - but most likely they will be on the high end of the market.
I think it's a big adeu about nothing. Sure MS will say - see we have a comparable lineup to Apple - Surface Pro is our iPad Pro, Surface Book is our Macbook Pro and this new AIO is our iMac. Big deal..
Any of the iMac owners I know will not be running down to the Microsoft Store to buy one. And I don't think it will really change anyone's view on the AIO.
The reports description vary from this being a traditional AIO PC to "something targeted for the living room". Tempuring the rumors however was some discussion that any new "Surface" PCs would be based on the new Intel 14nm Kaby Lake chipset. If so the new devices would probably not show up until next spring with the refresh of the entire Surface line.
There is yet another article regarding a company called Kenti from France who are selling a 42" Windows 10 based AIO built into a coffee table format for 5,000 Euro.
According to the Digitimes article some 14M AIO units were sold in 2015 with Apple and Lenovo leading the market. But the AIO market is expected to decline by at least 10% in 2016 to somewhere around 12.6M units. AIOs are effectively less than 20% of the overall PC market. With all Surface sales around 1.1M units / quarter - I can't see this really moving the needle for Surface sales.
I guess MS feels they need to have a Windows alternative to the iMac and if these rumors are true then we should see at least 23" and 27" models.
And they won't be cheap. Looking at the $1,799 base 27" iMac as a comparison - it comes with a 5th Gen Core i5, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and 1TB SATA HD. You can boost RAM and go SSD - but that is a price increase. The big thing is the 5K - 5120x2188 screen. Assuming the Surface would be similar but based on 6th Gen Intel and DDR4 RAM - it will approach $2K easily.
Let's face it - Windows has never truly been a touch friendly OS and while Windows 10 has added some capability in that space - they still need to sell you a keyboard and pen to make a Surface Pro worthwhile. And the challenge is when you get into big screens - you need to move them back far enough to have good field of view and then you end up reaching with your finger or a pen to work on something close up. The point here being is that while the technologies exist the use cases are limited.
Bottom line is this. Rumors are that MS may be readying a Surface branded AIO. What the models and pricing are - is anyone's guess - but most likely they will be on the high end of the market.
I think it's a big adeu about nothing. Sure MS will say - see we have a comparable lineup to Apple - Surface Pro is our iPad Pro, Surface Book is our Macbook Pro and this new AIO is our iMac. Big deal..
Any of the iMac owners I know will not be running down to the Microsoft Store to buy one. And I don't think it will really change anyone's view on the AIO.
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