Rumours about a possible “Surface Phone” started to surface with Evan Blass’s leak of an internal concept made by, as we thought at that time, Microsoft. New information reveals that this phone was, in fact, the work of Dell Incorporated and not the software giant.
The concept represented a phone that may have been able to replace your PC and most probably run full desktop apps, otherwise what would be the point of a “laptop-class” CPU? The images, provided by Evan Blass showcase a smartphone with multiple accessories. For example, the laptop shown in the picture could be something similar to HP’s Lap Dock, but as there is no actual information available, this is just pure speculation.
The images also show a monitor together with a Continuum Dock, a keyboard as well as a mouse. What’s interesting about that picture is that there are no cables whatsoever between the dock, the monitor, keyboard or the phone. This could either be an error by the concept maker or a sign that Dell may have been planning a wireless dock. How a wireless dock would differ from a regular MiraCast receiver is unknown.
The picture shown in the bottom left position showcases the phone running the Windows Maps app. Under closer examination, it can be seen that the version of the app is very old, and can date as far back as the release of the Microsoft Lumia 950 and the Lumia 950 XL from November of last year. This gives us at least an idea of when this concept was actually under testing and development, if it ever was.
The device will most probably never see the light of day, and everything surrounding it seems to have been halted or cancelled, with the conclusion based on Evan Blass’s original tweet where the word “would” was used indicating that the device we are currently seeing, won’t have a future.
We might never see an x86 Windows-powered phone, or a new phone from Dell, but it’s encouraging to see that something like this even was under consideration.
