Like the Surface Studio desktop, the Laptop Studio’s odd and innovative exterior was rendered less exciting by a high price and relatively underpowered interior. Before discounts, the Laptop Studio 2 starts at around $2,400 for a basic configuration with a 13th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage—integrated graphics and a fully loaded version with 64GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a GeForce RTX 4060 GPU would normally run you over $4,300.

Though experimental Surface designs like the Book and Studio rarely delivered great value for the money, they were at least unique attempts at new kinds of PCs with extra features for designers, artists, and anyone else who could benefit from a big stylus-compatible touchscreen. Microsoft’s most influential PC design remains the Surface Pro itself, one of the few tablet PC design templates to outlast the Windows 8 era. It makes sense for Microsoft (or any PC company) to play it safe with established designs, but it does make the PC industry just a little less interesting.