So I was just curious and searched around and saw there was no threads on the MS Surface Studio or Surface Studio 2 on BA. As the Surface Studio was aimed at professionals I was wondering if it would work for texture painting in Blender? My main problem is that I can not tell if it has multiple pressure levels in the specs (see here).
I don’t intend to buy one soon as that would be about $4,200 for the 16GB version but I was curious if anyone else would consider using one?
Hi,
What you might consider;
For how long will spare parts be available. I noticed for example that there are quite some people looking for power adapter for the older versions.
If it gets faulty and is out of warranty, I don’t think a repair service would or could attempt to repair it. Laptops are already difficult, and repairing a Surface nearly impossible ?
I have the impression that people expect a little bit more for the price they paid.
I think I would go for the brands that are specialized in similar devices (doing nothing else than making such devices). For MS this is relatively a small part of their bizz.
While the idea of having an all in one station seems cool, I’d recommend a Cintiq over such a device. It gives you the freedom to upgrade and replace your computer.
Another huge con is the lack of programmable buttons on the sides. Unless you’ve used a Cintiq, I can’t tell you how much you’ll wish there were buttons on the bezel. You might think your keyboard will be fine, but with the display in front of you and a stylus in your dominant hand, the keyboard can be kinda awkward for certain repetitive tasks. My MS Surface Pro 3 collects dust for this reason.
In fact, my Cintic 13HD and 22HD both collect dust as well and I may even sell them. For a whole other set of reasons, I find my trusty Intuous to be the best tool for stylus oriented work. 
Thank you for your perspective. I found it illuminating.
Thanks for your reply, I found it informative.
I have an HP elitebook tablet (old, but powerful tablet pc). It was one of the first real dedicated tablet PCs for windows OS. Blender works fine with it, but I would argue that the form factor wasnt the best (crammed screen, condensed keyboard), but it was super handy when I wasnt home and didnt have my desktop build with 2 monitors and a cintiq. That might be part of my problem, I was spoiled by my excessive screen space and touch surface.
I am always a supporter of building your own rig rather than purchasing something the has components designed to fit in to a very specific form factor. But from what I have heard, the surface is a pretty good product - but you will always be over paying if you aren’t doing your own build.
Anyhow, to answer your question, I believe that the first surface used wacom tech for the pressure/tablet (so yes, 1200 levels of pressure, or something like that). I assume they just licenced it from wacom. I am not sure what the new gen has, but I would assume that they havent dropped multilevel pressure sensitivity.
**edit - I actually remember checking out the first gen of Surface (surface pro?) in a microsoft store and since I could run blender as a mobile application, I ran it without installing it and played with the tablet - it seemed to work fine. I would try to do that first if you are seriously considering purchasing it.
I have to ask though, are we really going to be upgrading our computers for much longer or will Moore’s law come to an end? Do we really need faster computers?
You’d be better off getting a 4000 dollar workstation and a Wacom tablet. A lot of what you’re paying for in the Surface products is just the asthetic and form factor, from what I’ve heard.
I guess only time will tell, but the real question is do you want to bet $4,200 on it? 
That aside, let’s say you build a rig with a 2080ti gpu, and later decide you want to throw a second one in there. Or SSD prices later drop, and a couple of 4 terabyte drives in RAID is looking like a viable option on a budget.
Good point. And I do upgrade my computer every now and then.