The videoconferencing functionality is also quite strong. Several people can use the surface at once: The multitouch display responds to multiple inputs, anybody who is near the screen can draw on it, and more than one person can send their personal computer or smartphone display to the Hub to share with the room or the people on the other end of the conference call (it can display screens side-by-side). Then the Surface Hub resets itself for the next user, leaving no data behind. When you close a meeting, you can email your notes to yourself, and you’ll get OneNote files. (If you want to display your Apple device’s screen on the Hub, you’ll need to either hard-wire it or plug an Apple TV into the Hub and use that, since Apple doesn’t support the Miracast protocol that the Hub can read.) You can also broadcast your phone or PC screen to the Hub. The machine shifts into OneNote mode and you start sketching.

You just walk up and pluck the pen out of its magnetic dock. You don’t have to log into the Windows account on the machine. In ad-hoc (nonreserved) mode, it’s also easy to get going. And it’s big enough so two people can easily work on an image side by side at the same time. But I was using two hands to make wide sweeping gestures, instead of two fingers as I would on a phone. I took it for a spin and without any training or coaching was using multitouch gestures to navigate and manipulate onscreen objects. The result? It’s an extremely intuitive, extremely good, extremely gigantic multitouch display. It’s also coated with an antifriction material so your fingers don’t drag or skip when you’re using it. That enables you to press down on it without it buckling or “pooling” (showing blobs when you press). In addition to tweaking the touch system to reject electrical interference (much harder at that size than on a 5-inch smartphone), designers made the glass on the display much thicker than on a normal flat-screen TV. The technology to make a touchscreen display work at this size took some development, Angiulo says. Both have capacitive touchscreen displays (like your smartphone). Two Surface Hub models are in development right now, an 84-inch diagonal one with a 4K display (which I had some time with) and a 55-inch version with HDTV resolution. The hardware and software package is unique and original.

Skype for business whiteboard demo