Microsoft has announced that it will be launching a new device by holiday season 2020, and despite what its Chief Product Officer (CPO) would have us believe it does look like a foldable phone. Called the Surface Duo, it is a 5.6-inch dual screen device operating on an Android 9 Pie operating system, with split screen capabilities when it opens to become the 8.3-inches tablet it seeks to be.
Emblazoned with a Microsoft logo at the back, this device is covered by glass on all sides.There are no bumps or camera holes on this device, for now it only has a front camera which can be flipped to take rear view pictures. Further, it has a 360-degree hinge, that’s hidden behind a polished slip of metal a mere 4.8 millimetres thick, thus allowing it to be folded inside out.
Showcasing the device, CPO Panay said at the company’s ‘Surface’ event in New York, that the duo will not compete with smartphones. Rather it would try to increase productivity. He gave an example of running Outlook on the Surface Duo, with one side of the device showing your inbox and the other display a Compose screen. “The next time you have to write a long email on your phone, and then you normally have to switch to a Surface or Mac to finish it?” he told reporters. “You don’t have to do that again.”
According to a report done by Wired, Microsoft is already running experiments to prove that the two screens to perform tasks are less stressful for users than a single one.
Microsoft further revealed that the device will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, however this may upgrade till the phone’s 2020 launch. Using split-screen feature, the device runs on a tweaked version of Android Pie 9. Meanwhile, no news of support 5G technology in the device has emerged.
