Microsoft’s Surface Studio is one of the most beautiful all-in-one desktop PCs on the market and the base model retails for $3,499. It comes with a 28″ PixelSense display, 4500 x 3000 pixels at 192 (PPI) and supports Surface Pen, making great for digital artists and other creative professionals. The Surface Studio hasn’t seen an upgrade to the third generation in nearly two years, making it long over due for one. What if you want something with a newer CPU and GPU, retain portability and don’t want to own a laptop and a desktop. Is there a solution that gives you the Surface Studio experience for less?

Kensington does have two solutions that solve this experience. There is a Studio-like dock for the Surface Pro, which is a pretty good solution if you already have a Surface Pro, but the Surface Pro only has a 12.3″ display and the dock costs $399. The Kensington dock for the Surface Go is more of a point-of-sale (POS) dock rather than a desktop solution, plus the dock for the Surface Go retails for $349. What if you could use the largest Surface tablet and turn it into an all-in-one desktop for under $30?

15″ Surface Studio setup

The 15″ Surface Book is in fact the largest Surface tablet and arguably the largest tablet PC on the market. The 15″ PixelSense display on the Surface Book is a whopping 3240 x 2160 (260 PPI), 3:2 ratio and 1600:1 contrast ratio display. It features the 10th Gen Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor, up to 32GB of RAM and up to NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 with Max-Q Design w/6GB GDDR6 graphics memory if you buy the business version.

When the tablet is detached from the keyboard base, it no longer is connected to the second battery, Nvidia GPU and ports. It is true you could put the whole laptop in the tablet stand with the display closed and attached in the sketching posture if you needed access to the GPU and ports. Another way you could get extra ports is connecting a Surface dock with the Surface Connect Port on the bottom of the display.

The tablet stand is the ALASHI Tablet Stand and it is multi-angle adjustable with very strong hinges that can easily support the whole 15″ Surface Book. Being a tablet stand, it does need to lean back slightly. The base is heavy and keeps your tablet perfectly balance in all postures. You can rotate it down into the Studio posture for sketching or raise it up to your natural sightline for standard desktop use for proper ergonomics. If you wanted to use non-harmful and easily removable adhesive, then you could have a worry free desktop experience. The Surface Connect port on the bottom of the tablet is exposed so you can either connect the power adapter that comes with the Surface Book or a Surface Dock for expandable storage.

15″ Surface Book 3

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Once you set up your new 15″ Surface ‘Studio’, you now have the freedom to use larger and more comfortable keyboards like the Surface Keyboard and Surface Mouse that makes your whole Surface ‘Studio’ setup visually cohesive and complete. This tablet stand would work for any platinum Surface tablet, the Surface Go, Surface Pro, Surface Pro X, eventually the Surface Neo and of course both the 13.5″ Surface Book and the 15″ Surface Book. So to recap, if you have a Surface tablet, for $26, you can turn your tablet into a Surface Studio.