When we took the Surface Laptop Studio for a test drive in Cinebench, its 1222 score put it only slightly higher than the Surface Pro 8, which was puzzling. The Dell XPS 13, for example, has six cores at a similar price point of the entry level, while the Dell XPS 15 may cost you a bit more for the entry model, but it will offer you eight cores. That's all great, but these numbers and price points puts it in competition with some very good laptops out there. Going for the entry level specs, you're going to be paying $1,399/£1,449 for the higher spec option, you'll need to find $1,799/£1,899 and it goes up to $2,499/£2,879 for the maxed out specs of 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Turning to the GPUs, the i5 model comes with an Intel Iris Xe graphics card, and the i7 comes with the Nvidia GeForce RTX A2000 GPU. Then you've got options of either 16GB or 32GB RAM, and up to 2TB of storage, which is all good news for digital creatives who needs speed and space. But before we get to that, let's see how it performed after we sat down and played with it for several days. In fact, we like it enough to add it our list of the best laptops for graphic design. Boasting 120Hz refresh rate on its 14.4-inch touchscreen, plus its aforementioned compatibility with the nifty Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus, plus a quality haptic touchpad, this laptop has a lot going for it. Thankfully it's not staking everything on its unique design.

Of course, with new laptops and tablets released every year, including Microsoft's own Surface Pro series, the Surface Laptop Studio has got some pretty solid competition out there. It's a pretty cool design that, with its stylus compatibility, will no doubt be intriguing to digital creatives, and those that want a sturdy, solid 2-in-1.

With a hinge located mid-way up the centre of the lid, you can quickly move the Surface Laptop from laptop to 'easel', or position it as a kind of halfway house, bringing the tablet angled to you, over the keyboard but still exposing the touchpad. The Surface Laptop Studio's design may prove divisive.

Microsoft laptop surface studio