Gadgetory

- Microsoft has been obsessed with joint displays for years. If you've ever seen an older future vision videos that they've produced, you would have seen joint displays hanging on walls, with people interacting with them, collaboration, that kind of stuff. Well, the future has well and truly arrived. This is Surface Hub 2. At first, this looks like a beautifully designed TV on wheels but it's what's inside and out that counts and it kind of puts this beyond what a TV does right now and even the conference room TVs that you might use at your workplace. So let's start with the hardware. Compared to the original 55 inch model, Microsoft has now opted for a 50 inch display with a three by two aspect ratio instead of the 16 by nine before. This display runs at greater than four K resolution, thanks to the aspect ratio. And it has integrated speakers and 20 15.5 millimeter bezels. The whole unit is 60% thinner than before and Microsoft is using (mumbles) glass with a matte finish to bring down some of that glare that you might get off the usual TV that's in a conference room. You'll notice this display is mounted on a stand which Microsoft has developed with Steelcase. It allows the display to be moved around room to room and they've also carefully designed the four K camera on the top so that if you move it around, you smash it into the wall, it snaps back so that it doesn't completely crash off of the top of the device. There's even an optional battery that you can slot in to the base of the stand that'll give you around about two hours on battery life. So let's dig in to exactly what you can do with all this hardware. Like the Surface Hub before, this display runs Windows 10 Team. It's designed to run Microsoft's universal Windows apps and that means apps like Word, Whiteboard, Microsoft Teams and many others will run just fine on here. Microsoft has done some special work on the screen bonding to make the pen experience a little better. And it will instantly pair as soon as you touch the display. You can even snap it to the side of the display just like a Surface Pro. Because of the combination of touch, stylus input and the three by two aspect ratio, you can get some pretty interesting software experiences here. The idea is to increases collaboration for meeting rooms or to allow workers to wheel this to locations where meetings might not typically be held. Microsoft is shipping this right now with its regular sort of modified version of Windows 10. But next year, it plans to release a processor cartridge that you'll just simply slide into the back of the device. This processor cartridge has the CPU, RAM and the GPU inside. Next year's particular cartridge for the upgrade will include a more powerful GPU at least. That cartridge will also enable some of the more interesting software experiences that Microsoft isn't enabling just yet. One of those big ones is the screen rotation. We've seen that before and there's also the ability to tile up to four of these side by side. For businesses that want something a little bit bigger, Microsoft is even announcing an 85 inch version of the Surface Hub 2 and a 16 by nine aspect ratio. But the company isn't showing that new model just yet. Businesses in the US will be able to start placing orders today and those will be fulfilled and delivered in June this year. Pricing for the 50 inch model starts at $9,000. Microsoft is also gonna send it as a monitor for slightly less. And a stand is sold separately for 1449. The battery pack I mentioned earlier on is around about $1400 as well. Microsoft hasn't announced its 2S processor cartridge pricing just yet. When you add that all up, it's a staggering nearly $12,000 for this device if you want everything. This future certainly doesn't come cheap. That was a quick look at the Surface Hub 2. If you wanna see more devices like this, or anything else, check out The Verges' YouTube channel at YouTube.com/TheVerge or TheVerge.com