Microsoft Surface Studio turns PC into draft tablet

Aimed at business users — for now — new hardware will pair with creativity- focused upgrades to Windows 10

The thin aluminum 28- inch Surface Studio desktop PC that Microsoft trotted out here Wednesday isn’t going to make it into most homes anytime soon. Not at $ 2,999 to start, and on up to $ 4,199 if you don’t hold back on the specs.

If you simply must have it, Studio is now available for preorder; it’ll be available in limited quantities by the holidays.

There’s no question this innovative machine, which at that price is clearly aimed at business users and a more affluent subsegment of potential home buyers, is well worth paying attention to for the way it can leverage the “early 2017” arrival of Windows 10 Creators Update.

At first blush, the design brings to mind Apple’s iMac, though the differences are apparent soon enough, and not just because Surface runs Windows 10 and Macs run macOS Sierra.

For starters, you can push down on the Surface Studio and via its zero- gravity hinge, angle it at 20- degrees and effectively turn it into a drafting surface. When upright you’d likely use it for more typical Windows computing.

And since Surface Studio like other Surface computers uses a Windows 10 touch- display — Apple hasn’t brought touchscreen capability to any of its Macs, and I’m not banking on that happening when it holds a press event for new Macs on Thursday — you can also draw or write directly on the screen using a special Surface Pen. It boasts 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity plus an eraser. 1 terabyte of storage. The screen has a resolution of 4500x3000 ( 192 DPI) with 13.5 million pixels.

In pushing the new version of Windows 10, Microsoft has opted a “3- D for everyone” mantra. On stage the company demonstrated how you can scan objects to bring them from the physical world into the digital, using a new 3D version of the company’s venerable Paint software, along with a 3- D friendly version of the Microsoft Edge browser. Creators can incorporate 3- D objects into PowerPoint presentations.

On the hardware side, Micro-

MICROSOFT Microsoft’s Surface Studio features a 28- inch screen that hinges downward, effectively turning the interactive device into a high- tech drafting table.