This week marked the end of support for one of Microsoft"s most expensive consumer devices. The Surface Studio 2, its largest Surface computer to date, is no longer receiving firmware and driver updates.
The Surface Studio 2 was announced on October 2, 2018, five years ago. While it retained the shape, size, and form factor of its predecessor, internals received significant updates. The ill-fated six-generation Intel Skylake processors were replaced with the seventh-generation Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7820HQ and much beefier GTX 1060/1070 graphics cards. Microsoft also ditched the entry-level 8GB model, which many considered quite offensive for a device starting at $3,500.
Another big upgrade in the second-generation Surface Studio was storage. The original version shipped with an odd combo of a 1TB or 2TB HDD paired with a 128GB NVMe drive (the only Surface device to ever shipped with a spinning disk). With the release of the Surface Studio 2, Microsoft dropped slow HDDs in favor of SSD-only configurations with 1TB or 2TB options.
Interestingly, the Surface Studio 2 is the only Surface with a seventh-generation Intel Core processor that officially supports Windows 11.
As for price, the Surface Studio 2 remained a $3,500+ computer, with the maximum configuration costing an eye-watering $4,800. Microsoft replaced the Surface Studio 2 with the Studio 2+ model, which has only one configuration for $4,499.99. Despite its aging hardware, the Studio 2+ still costs almost five grand, making the computer quite a poor value for its money despite the gorgeous design and fantastic display. Many users have been asking Microsoft for a Surface Studio display for years, but sadly, it is unlikely to happen.
Keep in mind that if your Surface Studio 2 works well for you and gets the job done, there is no need to throw it away only because Microsoft no longer releases new firmware updates (especially with such an expensive price tag). Firmware and software updates are two different things, and your Surface Studio 2 will continue receiving Windows updates and new features. In fact, you can officially download Windows 11 version 24H2 to it and get a bunch of useful features and neat upgrades.
However, future updates might be incompatible with the Surface Studio 2 due to the lack of certain drivers. You should also consider that from now on, your Surface will not receive security patches (its final update with one security fix was released this week).