

You will safely be able to dial the brightness quite far back from 100% and still enjoy considerable clarity.

Maximum brightness is 440cd/m2, which is excellent for a laptop display. The maximum Delta-E colour accuracy of 4.73 is also questionable, although the average of 1.14 means that in general the fidelity is very good, with a few aberrations. However, while the screen delivers 100% of sRGB as you’d expect, it can only manage 82% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which is good but far from outstanding. It also has a resolution of 2,400 x 1,600, which goes along with the Surface range’s traditional 3:2 aspect ratio (designed to match a sheet of A4 paper), and the overall sense of the panel is crisp, detailed, and colourful. The Surface Laptop Studio’s display is 14.4in touchscreen offering a fast 120Hz refresh rate.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Display Where a lot of previous devices in this category have been jacks of all trades and masters of none, you could use the Surface Laptop Studio as a regular notebook without even realising it has other modes. The Surface Laptop Studio shows how much the “transformer” idea has matured over the years. This is a very convenient system and provides wireless charging too. The pen also sits magnetically in a ridge at the front of the notebook underneath.

This is arguably the most unique feature of the Surface Laptop Studio, and it performs it well, sitting comfortably in your hand and resting on your arm while you draw or write on the screen. The touchscreen then comes fully into play, and you can add the optional Slim Pen 2 (£100 exc VAT) to draw and handwrite on the screen. Then there’s the tablet-style “Studio” mode, where the mid-screen hinge is entirely folded so the screen sits facing upwards on top of the keyboard. In Stage mode, the bottom edge moves forward to sit just in front of the keyboard, where it rests securely in place to provide a perfect angle for desktop presentations in a meeting or watching movies while travelling. In this case, that comes courtesy of an innovative dual-hinge mechanism, with a second hinge about halfway up the display, which allows the screen to pivot through a wider range of angles and positions. While no version has managed to outdo Apple on the aesthetic front, the Surface has instead focused on providing business functionality. The Microsoft Surface has always been about design. Is the Laptop Studio what the Microsoft Surface was always meant to be? Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Design This is an unashamedly high-end portable, with a comprehensive hardware specification, a bevy of cutting-edge features, and a price to match.
