The cheapest countries to buy a Surface Studio 2 Plus

Microsoft’s Surface Studio 2 Plus takes all-in-one PCs to the next level. Creatives can effortlessly switch between desktop and studio modes to best suit their work style while enjoying the enhanced graphics and processing capabilities it delivers. But this all comes at a hefty price. If you’re buying it in America, the starting price is $4,500, which gets bumped up nearer to $5,000 once you factor in sales tax. However, since it has a different retail price in every country, we wondered where’s the cheapest place to buy the Surface Studio 2 Plus. We’ve done the research to find out.

While you get hit hard by that sales tax on such a large purchase in the US, you might be able to flip this to your advantage when you’re abroad. As in many other countries, this sales tax is only levied on residents, with visitors to the nation either able to claim it back or avoid it altogether. Should you happen to be a tourist in a different country, it’s possible you might be able to not only buy the Microsoft Surface device at a lower price, but also make it cheaper still by swerving the tax. This is worth bearing in mind as we dive into the numbers below.

What are the cheapest countries to buy a Surface Studio 2 Plus?

We were only able to collect the official retail price of the Studio 2 Plus from 24 countries, which we’ll explain later in the article. We then converted those local prices into the equivalent US dollar value on the date of publication and ordered them from cheapest to most expensive. You’ll see the results in the table below.

The one exception in the table is the entry for the USA, which has had an approximate 10% sales tax applied. This gives you a better picture of the price a US resident or tourist will pay at home or abroad.

Of the countries we surveyed, the cheapest place to buy the Surface Studio 2 Plus is Canada. Our neighbors to the north are getting the best deal in USD terms, with the device costing the equivalent of $4,364. Canadians are paying over $250 less than the next cheapest country, which is Japan, at $4,622. Australia is third cheapest at $4,744.

Those three countries are the only ones that are markedly cheaper than the US, even once you factor in the sales tax. Relatively speaking, Americans are getting a pretty good deal, paying around the same amount as some of the traditionally cheaper Asian nations like China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

The bottom half of the table is made up entirely of European nations, with Poland being a particularly expensive place to buy the Surface Studio 2 Plus. At $6,413, it’s around $400 more than the next most expensive country, which is Ireland.

The other noteworthy thing about the European prices is how different the prices are in relatively close nations. A Polish resident would only have to travel around 800 miles to Switzerland and could save as much as $1,200 on the all-in-one PC.

And remember, the figures in the table are the most you’ll pay in these foreign lands. In some instances, the retail price includes the sales tax, in which case you may be able to claim it back before you leave and save a further 10% to 15%.

So I won’t find the Surface Studio 2 Plus for under $4,300 anywhere in the world?

We don’t have enough data to answer this question. The reason we only used 24 countries in this comparison is that those were the only nations for which we could find the retail price of the Studio 2 Plus on their official Microsoft websites. And we did try to find it in many other places.

It appears that in many countries, including large parts of Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, Microsoft either doesn’t sell the computer or uses third-party distributors. Even in circumstances where we saw it selling from an official-looking foreign retailer, we had no assurances that the retail price was accurate or that the vendor was trustworthy.

This is always the risk whether you’re home or abroad — if you’re not buying directly from the manufacturer, there may be question marks about the legitimacy of the deal. You might see the Studio 2 Plus on sale for $3,500 on your travels, but without local knowledge, you’re unlikely to be able to assess if it might have been stolen or be a second-hand model passed off as new. We’re not saying you won’t find any bona fide great deals out there, but we’d always recommend going directly to the brand if you want peace of mind.

Should I buy the Surface Studio 2 Plus from another country?

As we covered above, the Poles might make a good case for buying the Studio 2 Plus from another country. From a US resident’s perspective, there aren’t many circumstances in which the savings are going to be worthwhile, although you may consider picking up the device in Canada if you’re heading up there anyway.

There are other issues to factor in if you decide to buy the Studio 2 Plus abroad. The obvious one is a logistical matter, as the huge PC isn’t going to fit neatly into your hand luggage. But you need to also consider that you may face tax questions if you try to bring such an expensive electronics device into America, and any warranty from its country of origin would become exponentially harder to use. You might consider that all of that hassle isn’t worth it to save a few hundred bucks.

One thing we can say for sure is that there’s almost certainly no merit in a US resident traveling across the globe to get the Studio 2 Plus a bit cheaper. The savings you’d make would probably be less than the airfare alone.

Before we get into the reason for the material differences, it’s worth noting that converting all of the local prices into dollars is, in itself, a reason why they’re not all the same. It’s necessary for easy comparison, but exchange rates are so dynamic that the table above would look noticeably different from week to week and month to month. When you consider that the original retail price for each country was set before the launch of the device almost two years ago, the financial markets alone can account for a good amount of divergence.

That said, the price of products like this is rarely the same in every country anyway. Microsoft will set the retail value by working out the costs of getting the Studio 2 Plus on the shelves and then adding on the profit that the company is seeking to make. Both elements in that equation will vary significantly depending on the country.

In terms of the costs, there are import taxes to be paid, logistics to be arranged, significant labor costs, and so on. The profit margin will then be determined by things like the consumer spending power among residents of the nation. There will be teams of financial hotshots crunching all of these numbers and coming up with a final retail price for each country.

This is also a possible explanation for the PC not being available in more countries. If there isn’t enough demand or costs are too high in a particular region, it won’t be worthwhile for Microsoft to bother selling it there at all or allowing local retailers to import it of their own volition.