Microsoft Surface Studio 2+ Hands On: The Classic All-in-One Gets New Bits

pcmag.com:

Microsoft just announced a bundle of new Surface products, headlined by the Surface Pro 9 and Surface Studio 2+. We were able to go hands on with both devices.

At a press event in New York, we spent time with the newest Surface Pro 2-in-1 detachable and the much-anticipated update to the Surface Studio desktop, following their public reveals. Both of them focus chiefly on new internal components, so even if the designs may look similar (or identical) at a glance, there’s plenty to unpack on the inside.

You can check out our separate impressions of the Surface Pro 9 here, and read on for our thoughts on the Studio 2+.

The original Surface Studio launched in 2017, and the Surface Studio 2 followed up in 2018. In iterative technology time, that's quite a while ago, and eagerness for a new Studio has been building. Even at the time of release, the Studio 2 was a bit underpowered in its choice of CPU, but we couldn’t find much fault with the elegant reclining design and giant, sharp display.

Enter the Surface Studio 2+, named thus because Microsoft is acknowledging that this is not quite a full leap forward. After such a long wait, I think it’s fair to find that somewhat disappointing; you’d have expected all those years off to result in at least a marginally new design. Perhaps thinner bezels, newly located ports, or other tweaks could have been added.

But, we’ll focus on what we did get in reality, rather than what could have been. Start with the name, or at least the "2+" part—the company is not trying to pass this off as the Surface Studio 3, at least. The beloved design is back, even if those bezels seem even thicker to me in person in 2022 than they did in the late '10s.

The design—essentially a Windows-based Apple