14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has made it a priority to invent new product categories, and this is what the company is doing right now with its Surface models. But at the same time, Redmond is also expected to do the same thing next year with what could be the Surface Phone, a phone that won’t be just a phone, but “the ultimate mobile device,” as the company itself promised.
And while Microsoft itself takes its time to refine the idea, a French company has presented a pretty innovative device cocktail at CES, as it managed to combine a Windows 10 laptop, an Android smartphone and tablet, as well as a camera with optical zoom in just a single case.
Called GraalPhone, the new device could easily serve as source of inspiration for Microsoft, as Redmond itself is believed to explore options to create a phone that doubles as a laptop (and which does more than Continuum).
4-in-1 device
The GraalPhone is first of all a 5-inch Android smartphone whose specs are not yet known, but which the manufacturer plans to equip with a powerful Qualcomm processor (possibly the Snapdragon 835), 8 GB memory, and 256GB storage - this could also make it possible to benefit from Windows 10 on ARM emulation.
These specs would obviously make the phone pretty high-end, but at the same time, the company also wants the hardware to be powerful enough to make it possible for the smartphone to convert to a tablet, laptop, and camera.
Because this is what you get when you insert the phone into its case: a 7-inch tablet that also comes with a pen and running Android. And if this isn’t enough, you can slide the screen and you convert the device into a laptop that has a full keyboard and runs Windows 10.
And if you still want more, the GraalPhone can also play the role of a point-and-shoot camera with 5x optical zoom because why not since the camera is already there.
Specs aren’t final just yet, and the company behind this idea says the end product will be a lot thinner than it currently is. The CES 2017 demo was made on a dummy concept that wasn’t working, but if everything goes right, the GraalPhone should see daylight by the end of the year.
