Microsoft Surface Phone rumors and news leaks
It
seemed inevitable that Microsoft would create a Surface phone after it
acquired Nokia — and there was talk long before that too — but Microsoft
has denied those rumors in the past and stuck with producing new Lumia
phones. However, rumors and leaks regarding such a device have
continued, suggesting it’s something the company may still be
considering. Here’s everything we think we know about Microsoft’s
Surface Phone project.
Updated on 01-27-2016 by Robert
Nazarian: Added in news that Microsoft purchased the
surfacephone.com domain. Microsoft purchased surfacephone.com
If you’re looking for a hint that Microsoft will introduce a Surface
Phone sometime in the future, then look no further than one Reddit
user’s discovery in late January 2016. It appears that Microsoft owns
surfacephone.com, and the company even went as far as redirecting it to
the main Surface website. Before you go jumping for joy, this is far
from a confirmation that Microsoft is readying a Surface Phone. Often,
companies like to stay out of legal trouble by registering domain names
that correlate with a current product. We also need to point out that
surfacephone.com was actually registered in May 2007, so it’s not like
Microsoft recently purchased it to get ready for a new Surface Phone
launch. Furthermore, Microsoft’s Surface page is within microsoft.com as
in https://www.microsoft.com/surface/. Microsoft isn’t even using
surface.com for its current crop of Surface devices, so why would the
company use surfacephone.com for a Surface Phone if it gets released?
And by the way, Microsoft registered surface.com back in 1994 and is
redirecting it to you know where … its main Surface Web page. While this
news doesn’t confirm a Surface Phone will exist some day, it does give
hope that the Redmond company might be at least thinking about it.
Hopefully it’s more than that. Microsoft executive hints about a better
phone Those looking for a sliver of information about the rumored
Surface Mobile device may want to take note of what Microsoft’s Chief
Marketing Officer Chris Capossela said on This Week in Tech’s Windows
Weekly podcast. “We need more breakthrough work … with Surface we had a
bunch of early misfires, but that notion of a tablet that could replace
your laptop — that notion of saying, ‘Hey, Apple wants to sell you an
iPad and they want to sell you a Mac, we think there’s one device that
exploits the seam between those two devices’ — we need some sort of
spiritual equivalent on the phone side that doesn’t just feel like a
phone for people who love Windows,” Capossela said on the podcast.
Related: Why you absolutely, by no means
should even consider buying a Windows Phone “It has got to be a phone
that’s sort of like ‘wow, that’s a real shocker,’ or ‘that’s a real
breakthrough,’ and has got to make me pause before I buy my 17th iPhone,
and we need time to actually go built that.” The question arises around
the 36-minute mark, after tech writer Mary Jo Foley expresses her
dismay at the current Windows Phone environment. Capossela made no
mention of whether this “breakthrough” phone will be a part of the
Surface line, and this new information only reaffirms that the device is
indeed being developed by the company. Rumored change in mobile
strategy as Panos Panay takes charge A report from Windows Central
suggests that the Surface phone rumored earlier in the year has been
cancelled, in favor of a new Surface phone being built by the Surface
team, led by Panos Panay. The old Surface Phone was apparently part of
Nokia’s plans, which may have been scrapped when Panay took charge of
the Devices division at Microsoft earlier this year. This new phone is
apparently scheduled for the second half of 2016, though the exact date
is still up for debate. Sources claim it may launch in August to match
with the Windows 10 ‘Redstone’ update.
Related: Everything you need to know about
the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL The phone was previously referred to as
the ‘Panos Phone’ according to Windows Central’s sources, though it has
recently changed to becoming the Surface Phone, hinting it may have
shifted from a pet project to something more official. Panos Panay is in
charge of the team that designed the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book,
meaning we may see a smartphone with a similar design. Intel is
apparently heavily involved in the development of the new Surface Phone,
according to the report. It is supposedly working with Microsoft to
make x86 apps (Windows desktop apps) compatible with the Surface Phone.
That would be a huge leap in app availability, something that has
plagued Windows Phone for years, by bringing over thousands of
compatible desktop apps to the Surface Phone. The Lumia 950 and 950 XL
offers some compatibility with x86 apps through Continuum, but no way to
use them natively. Making them run on the phone without the help of a
more powerful and expensive machine, might be a killer feature for power
users. However, it’s warned the feature may be dropped before launch,
if the experience isn’t polished enough. While rumors have spread about a
Surface phone for years, if this report is accurate, the device may
finally be on its way to becoming a reality. In a WIRED profile on
Microsoft’s Head of Devices Panos Panay recently, it’s mentioned
that work is going ahead on, “a prototype of a new phone” at Microsoft’s
HQ, indicating the firm is testing its own phones built internally. For
now though, none of this is official, and everything could change again
between now and the possible late 2016 release. Benchmark hints at
ongoing tests Before this, a phone running Windows 10 and the Edge
browser was spotted on the HTML5test benchmarking website in late
November. According to PocketNow, the version of Windows 10 was old, and
one which was never released outside of the company, while the Edge
browser was also older than the existing versions. It suggests the phone
has been in testing for sometime, and is likely the abandoned
Nokia-derived device. Previous rumors point to strong specs Rumors
spread in November may mean all we’d heard about the old Surface phone
has been consigned to the history books. For example, according to a
report from Windows Mobile Power User, Microsoft may have wanted to
launch a Surface phone in late 2015 or in early 2016. The publication’s
sources say it would have been marketed under the name of Microsoft
Surface Mobile, and being developed under the codename
Project Juggernaut Alpha. The device reportedly sported an aluminum and
magnesium unibody with powerhouse specs. The latest rumors say a ‘metal’
Surface phone project has been abandoned.
Related: Microsoft Band 2 review It was
stated the screen would be a 5.5-inch AMOLED with a Quad HD (2560 x 1440
pixel) resolution and have a ClearBlack Gorilla Glass 4 cover for
protection. Moving to the inside, the phone may have had an Intel Atom
x3 (SoFIA) 64-bit processor, along with 4GB of RAM. Other features
mentioned included 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, and a MicroSD
slot. A 21-megapixel PureView Zeiss 6-lens camera was supposedly going
to be fitted on the back and an 8-megapixel Zeiss wide-angle lens on the
front. There’s every chance the phone described will never be released,
if the metal, Nokia-designed phone has really been cancelled. Only
concepts give us a clue about design Unfortunately we have no idea what
any Surface Mobile phone will look like, but concept renders were
created by Nadir Aslam earlier this year. While the final Surface Mobile
phone might not look like these renders, they give as a good idea of
its possible productivity attributes. The Surface Phone remains far
from official, but we’ll keep you updated here with news and rumors
about the device.
Previous updates:
Updated on 12-28-2015 by Julian
Chokkattu: Added in news of Microsoft’s Chief Marketing
Officer Chris Capossela mentioning information of a new device the
company is hard at work on.
Updated on 12-o3-2015 by David
Curry: Added in rumors of new Surface Phone coming in the
second half 2016.
Updated on 11-19-2015 by Andy
Boxall: Added in a leaked benchmark test for a possible
Surface Phone.
It seemed inevitable that Microsoft would create a Surface phone after it acquired Nokia — and there was talk long before that too
— but Microsoft has denied those rumors in the past and stuck with
producing new Lumia phones. However, rumors and leaks regarding such a
device have continued, suggesting it’s something the company may still
be considering. Here’s everything we think we know about Microsoft’s
Surface Phone project.
Updated on 01-27-2016 by Robert Nazarian: Added in news that Microsoft purchased the surfacephone.com domain.
Microsoft purchased surfacephone.com
If
you’re looking for a hint that Microsoft will introduce a Surface Phone
sometime in the future, then look no further than one Reddit user’s discovery in late January 2016. It appears that Microsoft owns surfacephone.com, and the company even went as far as redirecting it to the main Surface website.
Before
you go jumping for joy, this is far from a confirmation that Microsoft
is readying a Surface Phone. Often, companies like to stay out of legal
trouble by registering domain names that correlate with a current
product.
We also need to point out that surfacephone.com was actually registered in May 2007, so it’s not like Microsoft recently purchased it to get ready for a new Surface Phone launch.
Furthermore, Microsoft’s Surface page is within microsoft.com as in https://www.microsoft.com/surface/. Microsoft isn’t even using surface.com
for its current crop of Surface devices, so why would the company use
surfacephone.com for a Surface Phone if it gets released? And by the
way, Microsoft registered surface.com back in 1994 and is redirecting it to you know where … its main Surface Web page.
While
this news doesn’t confirm a Surface Phone will exist some day, it does
give hope that the Redmond company might be at least thinking about it.
Hopefully it’s more than that.
Microsoft executive hints about a better phone
Those
looking for a sliver of information about the rumored Surface Mobile
device may want to take note of what Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer
Chris Capossela said on This Week in Tech’s Windows Weekly podcast.
“We
need more breakthrough work … with Surface we had a bunch of early
misfires, but that notion of a tablet that could replace your laptop —
that notion of saying, ‘Hey, Apple wants to sell you an iPad and they
want to sell you a Mac, we think there’s one device that exploits the
seam between those two devices’ — we need some sort of spiritual
equivalent on the phone side that doesn’t just feel like a phone for
people who love Windows,” Capossela said on the podcast.
“It
has got to be a phone that’s sort of like ‘wow, that’s a real shocker,’
or ‘that’s a real breakthrough,’ and has got to make me pause before I
buy my 17th iPhone, and we need time to actually go built that.”
The
question arises around the 36-minute mark, after tech writer Mary Jo
Foley expresses her dismay at the current Windows Phone environment.
Capossela made no mention of whether this “breakthrough” phone will be a
part of the Surface line, and this new information only reaffirms that
the device is indeed being developed by the company.
Rumored change in mobile strategy as Panos Panay takes charge
A report from Windows Central
suggests that the Surface phone rumored earlier in the year has been
cancelled, in favor of a new Surface phone being built by the Surface
team, led by Panos Panay. The old Surface Phone was apparently part of
Nokia’s plans, which may have been scrapped when Panay took charge of
the Devices division at Microsoft earlier this year. This new phone is
apparently scheduled for the second half of 2016, though the exact date
is still up for debate. Sources claim it may launch in August to match
with the Windows 10 ‘Redstone’ update.
The
phone was previously referred to as the ‘Panos Phone’ according to
Windows Central’s sources, though it has recently changed to becoming
the Surface Phone, hinting it may have shifted from a pet project to
something more official. Panos Panay is in charge of the team that
designed the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, meaning we may see a smartphone with a similar design.
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