- Back in 2009, all of the hype
was around Microsoft's super secret dual-screen device
that was codenamed Courier.
Now, Courier never came to be,
but 10 years later, it looks like Courier
might be coming back to life
in the form of a new device called Surface Neo.
(electronic music)
Surface Neo is a part of a bunch of new dual-screen
and even foldable devices
that are gonna be coming at the end of 2020.
And essentially, it puts two nine-inch displays together
inside what looks like a Moleskine Journal.
So the original Surface concept
that launched now seven years ago, the Surface RT,
was turning a tablet into a laptop.
And these new dual-screen devices take that way further,
with a smaller-package device that kinda morphs
into all these different modes.
We got an early look at a pre-production prototype here
but I wasn't allowed to interact with the software freely,
and I could only really touch a device
that wasn't powered on.
But I did get to see its many modes.
There's a reading mode which is basically like a book
where the screens are side-by-side together.
And then, there's a laptop mode and, yeah,
that feels like a laptop too.
You can slot it down, put a hardware keyboard on top,
or use the software keyboard that's included.
And then there's like presentation mode,
or you can just flip the whole screen around
and just use it as a regular tablet.
We've seen devices that have done this in the past.
We've seen it a lot with Windows 8.
We saw it in Lenovo's Yoga Book as well.
The real key element here is that Microsoft
has stepped up the software game.
And it's running Windows 10X on these devices.
So 10X isn't a completely new version of Windows
or anything like that.
It's not like Windows RT from the past
that restricted everything down
and didn't run your favorite apps.
10X will run everything,
and it's running on an Intel Processor
inside these devices as well,
so that means your traditional desktop apps,
everything will work.
But the ones that will really shine are gonna be the ones
that highly optimize these dual-screen devices.
Now, Microsoft is obviously working with Office
and that's gonna be one of the first ones.
So you'll have your slide on the left, perhaps.
And a slide deck on the right.
But really, it's gonna take software developers
to create apps that are really highly optimized
for these dual-display devices,
to kind of make it make sense.
So one of the really interesting ways
that Microsoft is sort of separating this Windows 10X
from standard regular Windows 10
is something called the Wonder Bar.
Now this is like a small sort of touch panel,
basically like Apple's Touch Bar
that appears above the keyboard,
whether that's software or hardware.
And it'll basically give you access to things
like emojis and GIFs when you reply to emails.
And you'll even be able to take things
like YouTube videos or Netflix videos
and just sort of like pin them above your keyboard.
Other than that, it kind of looks like Windows 10.
The Start menu has changed though,
it sort of basically is an app launcher,
and it shows you all your recently used apps,
rather than the Live Tiles.
You can snap apps side-by-side.
It will intelligently open apps,
like say you're in your mail, you click link,
it'll open a browser, but it'll be on the other display,
so it won't take over what you're looking at.
Unlike other Surface devices,
there's no trackpad on the Neo's keyboard.
But you'll be able to find a trackpad on the display,
either below or above where you placed this keyboard.
The keyboard can be stowed magnetically
to the back of the Neo, and it will flip into place
and attach with magnets to the display.
It looks like a neat party trick.
The Surface Neo also includes Microsoft's
new Surface Slim Pen that will be available
on the Surface Pro X2.
It attaches to the back of the Neo and charges,
and it's a lot flatter than current Surface Pens.
So that's kind of everything we know
about these devices so far.
But there's so much we don't know.
Like, we don't know the specs, we don't know pricing,
we don't even really know exact availability.
Microsoft's essentially saying
that these devices will launch in holiday 2020,
so we're still a year out from these being real.
And it makes you wonder why are they even showing
and talking about these devices right now?
And personally, I think they probably don't want these
to leak, so they're gonna announce it now
and have their own story around it.
And then, there's the key thing of
they need other hardware vendors to create these too,
and they need software developers
to create the apps that run on this.
So there's a bunch of stuff that they need to get going
and out there in the public
before these are even available in like a year's time.
And above all else, competition is really high.
We've see Huawei, Samsung, and others,
create these foldable phones
that turn into tablets, and all right,
Microsoft is doing something slightly different,
it's doing tablets into laptops.
But it's still a bunch of Android competition,
and we don't really know where these foldable
and dual-screen devices are gonna land.
I am super excited about dual-screen and foldable devices.
And the Surface Neo hardware is probably the sleekest
of the bunch of dual-screen devices that we've seen so far.
But there's one thing, and that is software is king.
Microsoft still has a year left to perfect the software,
and they need to convince app developers
to really create these apps to make this device shine.
So if you're an app developer,
or you're just super hyped about these dual-screen
and foldable devices, I wanna know which one you prefer.
A smartphone that turns into a tablet
or a tablet that turns into a laptop?
Drop a comment below, and let me know why.