14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone in the Windows Phone community hopes to see Microsoft launching the eagerly-anticipated Surface Phone next year, and according to a recent report, work on the project advances nicely and the company is indeed on track to unveil the device with Redstone 3 in the fall of 2017.
Before anything, a small disclaimer: this is just a report for the time being and is based on unknown sources, so there’s a good chance that it’s not accurate. But given the latest rumors, the details that the report includes pretty much make sense.
Specifically, NPU writes that Microsoft has developed several prototypes for the Surface Phone and all of them are powered by a Snapdragon 835 CPU and come with support for Quick Charge 4.0. This would give the device super-fast charging speeds with a USB Type-C connector. Wireless charging is very likely to be supported as well.
x86 app support
The source claims that the prototypes are powered by Windows 10 Mobile 64-bit and one of the most powerful comes with 6 GB of RAM, allowing it to run x86 apps in Continuum mode. This aligns with previous rumors that Microsoft might be working on some sort of emulation that would be possible on ARM64, so the software giant might be testing this with a prototype.
For the moment, x86 apps are exclusive to Continuum for this early prototype of the Surface Phone, but users can install them even when not connected to an external screen.
There’s also another Surface Phone version with 4 GB of RAM, but this one doesn’t support x86 apps at all, not even in Continuum mode. This could be a more affordable version of the phone for consumers, but without x86 support, it would be very similar to the existing Windows phones.
The Surface Phone is likely to come with a 5.5-inch screen and feature a laptop accessory that would thus provide a new form factor to the device. This accessory might only work with the top-of-the-range version aimed at businesses, and not with the 4GB model.
The debut of the phone could take place in late 2017 when Microsoft could also take the wraps off Windows 10 Redstone 3, but neither the Surface Phone nor the OS update was confirmed by the software giant.