As part of its seeming goal to blur the line between HDTVs and tablets, Microsoft plans to launch an 84-inch, wall-mountable touchscreen PC that it calls the Surface Hub. The Windows 10 device, essentially a massive tablet with multitouch functionality and a bunch of productivity enhancements, seems designed for office conference rooms.
Don’t expect to buy one for your living room. Microsoft said in a Wednesday press release that the 84-inch screen will cost an astronomical $20,000. A 55-inch version will cost $7,000. Both will go on sale on July 1.
We first learned of the Surface Hub’s existence during a press event in January, but with the futuristic Hololens stealing the show, the Hub didn’t get much attention until now.
It’s no secret that Microsoft’s tablet dreams haven’t exactly taken off in the way the company would have hoped. After several years and multiple iterations of the Surface tablet line, the devices still sell only a small fraction of Apple‘s iPad numbers, even as mainstream demand for tablets on the whole begins to cool off.
Focusing more on productivity and business use than casual entertainment is probably a solid play for Microsoft at this point, but slapping the Surface name on an 84-inch wall-mounted behemoth and pitching it as a conference-room necessity with a $20,000 price tag might be slightly overkill.
Photo via Microsoft