Microsoft's new 'Courier' tablet/booklet mobile device

[Kid_Eternity]

Agreed! Damn shame it was Microsoft that had it...

 

[editor]

Oooh another tease of what we might have had...

In David Pierce’s Wired exclusive, where Surface VP Panay laid out all the behind-the-scenes facts of trying to keep the Surface Book as secret as possible, he also took a quick detour talking about the now-alive-only-in-myth Surface Mini:

One night about two years ago, Panos Panay couldn’t sleep. This happens a lot, waking up in the middle of the night with loud thoughts rattling around in his head. Panay popped off the pillow, reached for his new Surface Pen and his old Surface Mini, and wrote himself an email. (He loves the Mini, a small tablet his team built but never shipped. “It was like a Moleskine,” he says. “It was awesome.”)

There it is. In print. The Surface Mini isn’t only real, but working models still (hopefully) exist in the world. Whether we’ll ever see one, either through some grainy leaked photo or long lost CAD file, is still unknown. For now, all we know is that it was “awesome.” For now, that’s enough.

The Surface Mini That Never Was

Funny how the stylus is now back in vogue too.

 

[editor]

Ooh - we're getting closer!

 

[elbows]

Ooh - we're getting closer!

I wish we were, I really do. I would love clam-shell type devices, be they tablet or phone, that once unfolded had a single screen. But for years now I see prototypes based on current flexible screen tech and neither I or manufacturers seem too convinced that such stuff is really ripe to be used in viable products that will fly off the shelves. The compromises involved are currently at a weird stage, eg its so much harder to get the screen to fold on itself (dont think anyone has solved this stuff at all yet, only tried to work around it) so you get weird devices like the one in that video.

Someone might come up with a good use for the tech in its present form, but it seems like quite a challenge and the years are flying by. Curved and flexible screen manufacturers would I'm sure love someone to come up with something good so they could make a lot of money, but it looks like this is much easier said than done with the way the tech is at the moment. And I'd be quite amazed if such a winning product ended up having much to do with the courier type device this thread is about, I just dont think we are anywhere close to getting that sort of foldability in screens. I'm not trying to be negative, I want such devices, but weird progress in the bendable screen prototype sector so far contains nothing that helps me to have even a wild guess at timescales for a screen that could fold straight over on itself whilst meeting the required spec and durability.

 

[editor]

It's back! Possibly.

Microsoft has been dreaming of a pocketable dual-screen Surface device for years

 

[elbows]

Yeah I thought of you when I saw the rumours about this device firing up again (I saw it on macrumors of all places lol).

I really hope it happens, though I still suspect the foldable screen technology is not quite ripe yet (getting there though, slowly).

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Seeing that Samsung can do clever stuff like edge screens, does it need to fold. Or could you just have two screens next to each other with no bezel? Sounds more achievable.

 

[elbows]

I'm pretty happy that its back in the form of the Surface Neo, and that its two screens rather than a bendable nightmare waiting to happen.

 

[elbows]

Although for many scenarios I expect their new phone with the same approach hits a much sweeter size point.

Anyway I havent linked to any news articles or whatever because I only just heard about this stuff and went off half-cocked. I havent even looked at the spec yet.

 

[elbows]

Hmm sounds like there will be a year+ wait for that tablet, and being Microsoft they are doing a special version of Windows 10 for it. And I dont usually trust them to fully pull off everything correctly on the OS/UI side of things. So I'll just have to wait to see if they can prove me wrong. Would like to think that they've been toying with the concept for so long that they have some great ideas, but I have my doubts.