Microsoft Menlo Prototype Smartphone, not Just the Menlo OS

Earlier this year, the Menlo moniker was connected with a new operating system project from Microsoft Research that was apparently exploring the evolution of Windows Compact Edition (CE). It now appears that Menlo is not just a mobile platform, but also a fully-fledged smartphone. Microsoft research is building the new OS along with the hardware to go along with it. Menlo V1 platform is used by the Redmond company’s researchers to describe a prototype smartphone which the software giant is using to explore next-generation user experiences and scenarios.

Menlo is mentioned in a research paper produced by Microsoft, titled “User Experiences with Activity-Based Navigation on Mobile Devices” unearthed by Mary-Jo Foley. The device uses a range of technologies, including third-party hardware pieces, but not the Menlo OS, according to the description provided in the “User Experiences with Activity-Based Navigation on Mobile Devices.”

“Menlo is a prototype mobile device with a capacitive touch screen (4.1‖ diagonal, 800x480) running Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 which incorporates a Bosch BMA150 3-axis accelerometer and Bosch BMP085 digital pressure sensor (barometer),” reads an excerpt from the research whitepaper.

The device in the image at the top of this article, also from the “User Experiences with Activity-Based Navigation on Mobile Devices,” is described as “study hardware” in the whitepaper. It is easy to infer that the study hardware is actually the new Menlo prototype mobile device. Judging by the description above, the new device brings nothing revolutionary to the table.

One thing must be made perfectly clear ahead of anything else. Menlo is nothing more than a prototype, and like other Microsoft Research projects it might never end up becoming an actual product. Although the software giant put time and effort into building Menlo and even developing applications on the new mobile phone platform, fact is that there’s no guarantee that end users will actually be able to walk into a Microsoft Store in the future and acquire an iPhone rival produced by Microsoft.

But even if the Redmond company would actually be planning to release a Microsoft branded phone per the Google Nexus model, the fact that Menlo is still a prototype used by Microsoft Research means that it actually is extremely far from store shelves. So far that, considering its current specifications, it will be obsolete by the time it would hit the market. Still, as I’ve said above, customers should not hold their breath while waiting for Menlo to become an actual product.

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