Microsoft is working on a foldable surface equipped with two screens. The PC was even the subject of a first demonstration internally. If the company has probably buried the idea of releasing a foldable smartphone under Windows, it obviously continues to develop new alternatives and an update on the Centaurus project.
For many years, Microsoft has secretly set out to make a strong comeback in the mobile market by introducing the first foldable smartphone. Regularly, the Surface Phone, also known as the Andromeda Project, made the headlines. Finally, last August, Microsoft revealed that the foldable Surface Phone will never come out. “Microsoft’s roadmap does not include a device like this,” said Panos Panay, the man in charge of Surface products at Microsoft. A few months later, Royale, Samsung, and Huawei introduced their first smartphone with a foldable screen.
The Redmond firm is now working on a foldable PC halfway with the tablet, much like Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1. As Panos Panay already pointed out in 2018, Microsoft is looking to design hybrid devices to invent new uses.
The project would be well advanced. According to sources close to the subject, Microsoft has already presented the Foldable Surface device at an internal meeting. A handful of managers and employees were able to discover a prototype of the terminal and several presentation videos. The Microsoft foldable Surface device would run on Windows Lite, the lightweight OS being developed.
This level of confidence shows in all cases that the product could be launched in the next 6 months. The device would also be one of the first to benefit from Windows Lite, which Microsoft began to outline by announcing Modern OS.
It’s hard to know if Microsoft will be able to find success with this type of product. The firm has so far failed to market strong ultramobile products, especially because of lack of application on its Microsoft Store.
