With the release of the Surface Studio, a comparison with the iMac can't be avoided. For a long time, Microsoft has not really churned out its own desktop that can hold up to Apple's flagship product. But is this the device that can finally reverse that trend?

Surface Studio vs iMac: Screen

Basically, the Surface Studio and the iMac have almost the same screen size, with the Microsoft product one inch larger. In terms of resolution, Apple product has 5120 x 2880 or 217ppi (touchscreen, 3:2 aspect) compared to the 4500 x 3000, 193ppi (16:9 aspect). Pound-for-pound, the iMac has a slightly sharper screen, but most of users won't notice it anyway.

Surface Studio vs iMac: Specs

The Surface Studio is still using the Skylake chipset. It's powered by quad-core Intel Core i5 along with 8GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M graphics can hit up to 2GB. What will be good news for graphic designers, however, is you can switch from the sRGB and DCI-P3 with just a press of a button.

The iMac, meanwhile, is also powered by similar quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and Skylake. But buying a mid-range model will bump up the specs to 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5. You already have 8GB of RAM and 1TB storage, along with Retina 5K display. The graphics is AMD Radeon with 2GB of memory.

Surface Studio vs iMac: Price 

There's really no comparison in terms of price. The Surface Studio costs $2,999 while the mid-range iMac will only set you back $1,999.

Conclusion? If you are a graphics designer or animator, the Surface Studio would be a nice option. Otherwise, it's much too costly for features that most likely iMac will also do.