Microsoft has announced the Surface Hub 2S product line is getting a new 85″ screen size, surpassing the original 82″ Perceptive Pixel display that started the Surface Hub product line.
Surface Hub 2S is designed to bring together remote and local employees on a crisp 4K+ resolution screen with an enhanced camera, speakers and microphone technology. Microsoft will begin testing Surface Hub 2S 85″ with select customers in early 2020.
Microsoft believes the best ideas are created when working as a team and given our increasingly mobile workforce, the need to connect remote offices with HQ is greater than ever. This challenge is one Microsoft themselves face as a global company and a geographically diverse workforce, connecting employees so they feel like they’re in the same room enables workers to collaborate in a way calls will never do.
Bridging the digital and physical workspaces can also open the door to actually achieve the long-standing dream of working from home, but being connected to the office and assuming the budget supports it, the Surface Hub 2S in either the 50″ or 82″ variant seems like a great way to accomplish that.
Naturally to connect work locations using one or more 4K video streams that run all day, is a networking challenge, again something Australia will be challenged by, thanks to our mix of NBN technologies and connection speeds.
Surface Hub 2S – an all-in-one device built for teamwork
Surface Hub 2S harnesses the full power of Microsoft – Windows 10, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Microsoft Whiteboard and the intelligent cloud – to unlock the productivity of your team. This new device packs even more performance into a thinner, lighter more versatile design. Forty percent lighter than its predecessor, and with a 60 percent thinner display, Surface Hub 2S fits easily into any space – from a traditional conference room to a compact huddle space. The vibrant 4K+ 50-inch multi-touch display offers an inviting canvas to co-create with the best pen and touch experience and the highest resolution compared to any device in its class. Plus, Surface Hub 2S offers 50 percent faster graphics performance than the original Surface Hub.
Teamwork anywhere
Surface Hub 2S gives teams the flexibility to come together wherever they work best. It takes something that has long been a fixture in the conference room – the shared screen – and transforms it into a mobile computer, built for teams. Surface Hub 2S offers the thinnest edge and smallest bezels in its class, bringing you closer to your content and your team and integrating seamlessly into any office environment. When paired with the Steelcase Roam Mobile Stand and APC Charge Mobile Battery, Surface Hub 2S creates a mobile collaboration experience that frees teams from the conference room and allows your ideas to be as mobile as you are – no AC power connectivity required.
Bring remote teams together
Joining a meeting remotely can be painful. It can be hard to stay engaged when you can’t see the people in the room and the content being shared at the same time. Surface Hub 2S helps make meetings more engaging and inclusive of people working remotely. With built-in Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business integration, you can start meetings instantly with one touch. The large true-to-life screen, enhanced 4K camera, crystal clear speakers and far-field mic arrays help everyone on the team – local or remote – see and engage with the meeting content and each other, making it feel almost like everyone is in the same room together.
Stay in the team flow
Too often, great ideas get stuck on the conference room whiteboard and the team’s flow gets broken when the meeting ends. Surface Hub 2S enables teams work digitally all the way through their creative process, with access to the tools they rely on. Easily sign into your Office 365 account to access and interact with the content you need, run must-have Microsoft and business applications natively, and interact naturally with Surface Hub 2 Pen and touch. The Microsoft Whiteboard allows people to collaborate on a shared digital canvas from almost any device so it’s easy to pick up where you left off, keeping teams in their flow.
New options to meet a variety of business needs
We know that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to collaboration. Businesses require choice, flexibility and control over the productivity tools that help enable teamwork. Over the last several months, we have been listening closely to our customers to deliver tailored options to meet a variety of emerging needs. This includes delivering Surface Hub 2S now, with a modular hardware design that will enable customers to unlock new experiences in the future.
Later this year, we will also offer Surface Hub 2 Display, for spaces that need a great pen and touch-enabled interactive display, without the compute, as well as a new configuration option for Surface Hub 2S customers to run Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise on their device(s) for specialised app scenarios.
If you want to learn more about the Surface Hub 2S, then check out this walkthrough video from Microsoft Mechanics.
