After teasing a next-gen Surface Hub in March, Microsoft today took the wraps off Surface Hub 2 via a new blog post by Panos Panay. The Surface chief says the hub is for a “new culture of work” and is “designed to be used by Teams to get people out of their seats.” Features of the Hub 2 include support for a new Surface Pen, a 4K+ 50.5” multi-touch display at 3:2 aspect ratio, 4K cameras, integrated speakers and far-field mic arrays.
Interestingly, the Surface Hub 2 has a hinge system which allows it to be rotated between landscape and portrait mode, and can be mounted on a wall or used with a rolling stand to make it more accessible. Multiple (up to four) Surface Hubs can also be tiled together in portrait mode for “undeniable visual effect” and enabling teams to get work done across Microsoft Whiteboard, PowerBI, PowerPoint, and a full view video call.
Surface Hub 2 scales and adapts to your space through tiling up to 4 screens together in portrait or landscape view. Dynamic rotation allows you to use the best orientation for your content to help people work in the way that best suits them and the people they are collaborating with. It is also significantly easier to move around your workspaces than its predecessor. We’ve teamed up with workplace expert Steelcase to create a system of rolling stands and easy-to-use mounts to help Surface Hub 2 customers be truly mobile, gain a new perspective and capture their ideas wherever they do their best work.
Microsoft also promises that Surface Hub 2 will support multi-user sign in, so multiple people can authenticate in the same workspace and simultaneously share their documents. And though not specifically mentioned by Panos Panay, it looks as though Surface Hub 2 will also have a thumbprint login system for Windows Hello, which can be seen at the 47-second mark in the video above.
The Redmond giant is not immediately sharing any pricing details and says it will begin testing the Surface Hub 2 with select commercial customers in 2018, with it being made available for purchase in 2019. More will be coming soon, and you can check out more on Surface Hub 2 by checking here.
