All powered by a different position of the displays

Jun 29, 2018 08:21 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft’s new mobile device, codenamed Andromeda, could support five different modes depending on the positions of the screen, new code findings are suggesting.

Andromeda is an ambitious project that could bring us not a new smartphone, but a new mobile device wearing Microsoft’s logo. Thanks to a dual-screen design, the device could offer several form factors depending on the positions of the displays.

And thanks to fresh code discovered in Windows 10 build 17704 for Windows insiders, we now have a hint that there may be five such positions that would be supported by Andromeda.

The first mode is described as closed, which probably represents the state of the device with the two displays facing each other like a closed book.

Then, there’s concave, which could be very similar to the laptop form factor, presumably with one of the displays playing the role of a keyboard. The third state is described as flat, which most likely represents the tablet mode, while the fourth is called convex and is probably the tent mode that comes in handy when watching videos. The last one is simply referred to as full.

The Surface culture

Offering different capabilities based on screen orientation allows Microsoft to move a step closer to inventing a new product category, an approach that the company has been using ever since it rolled out the first Surface model in October 2012.

More recent rumors suggested that existing Andromeda prototypes also feature phone calling capabilities, which in their turn would be enabled by a phone form factor, though judging from today’s leak, it doesn’t seem like this is the case.

Certainly, there’s more to find out about this ambitious project, and more information should surface in the coming months as we get closer to the rumored launch date. Andromeda should go live by the end of the year, yet no specifics are available in this regard.