Microsoft Surface Neo: Release date, price, features, and more details
It’s easy to forget that at its October 2019 hardware launch, Microsoft announced two dual-screen foldable. However, while the Surface Duo (and now Duo 2) have gotten a lot of press, we haven’t heard anything official about the larger Surface Neo. The gadget was supposed to run on Windows 10X, a Windows 10 variant intended specifically for dual-screen smartphones. However, with the cancellation of the product and the subsequent release of Windows 11, its future has been cast into doubt. Is it still possible that the Surface Neo will be released? It’d have to run on a different operating system, but that’s not impossible.
Surface Neo release date
At this point, it is implausible, but not impossible. The Neo, like the first-generation Surface Duo, was supposed to be released during the ‘Christmas’ season of 2020. As soon as the pandemic hit, that schedule appeared to be in jeopardy, but it wasn’t until July 2020 that Neo’s listing on the Microsoft website was changed to remove the expected release date. It has now been entirely deleted.
Then, until May 2021, when Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10X will not be released, we didn’t hear anything official about the Surface Neo. The corporation stated in an official blog post that the best features of its original design would be incorporated into Windows.
That turned out to be a completely new version called Windows 11, with many of its core features influenced by Windows 10X. But what does this signal for the Surface Neo’s future? The most likely option is that it just runs Windows 11, especially because Microsoft’s latest operating system prioritizes touch input.
It’s also possible that it’ll run Windows 11 SE, which is a stripped-down version of Windows 11. It is, however, tailored to the education industry rather than being consumer-oriented like Windows 10X. Could the Surface Neo, on the other hand, run Android? That’s what a sighting in the movie “Red Notice” suggests, but that doesn’t change the fact that filming started in January 2020. This is most likely an early product placement prototype.
Windows Central, on the other hand, just published an article discussing whether Android would function on the Surface Neo. However, it looks that this is a speculative piece that is not founded on any facts. Microsoft has “no plans to produce Surface Neo,” according to a different YouTube video from the site. Expect nothing between now and the end of 2023, according to the video, though “that could change.”
As a result, the most likely scenario is that the Neo will be scrapped entirely. That’s what a mystery YouTube video called Hikari Calyx posted in April 2021 appears to imply.
Surface Neo price
Price was not mentioned during the unveiling, and nothing has been heard since. However, given that foldable devices are still in their infancy, don’t expect them to be inexpensive. We’d be shocked if the Neo ends up being less expensive than the first-gen Duo’s £1,349/US$1,399 launch pricing. However, there’s a potential that foldable technology will be far more affordable by the time it’s actually released.
Features of the Surface Neo
The Surface Neo contains two 9-inch LCD panels that can be combined to create a 13.1-inch dual-screen arrangement. Although the device will be 5.6mm thick and weigh 655g, the resolution of these panels is unknown. A front-facing camera is located to the right of the screen (or above it, depending on how you’re using the device), but we don’t know how many megapixels it has or whether it can capture full HD video. There’s also an infrared (IR) sensor for Windows Hello face unlock, but no fingerprint reader.
There’s also a magnetic keyboard that can be used in a variety of ways, including on top of one screen so that part of it may be used as a touchpad, or completely removed and used independently on the desk. You get the ‘wonder bar,’ which is similar to the touchscreen above the keyboard on a MacBook Pro if you position the keyboard at the bottom.
It runs Windows 10X, a new version of Windows designed for dual-screen computers (but coming to single screens first). It’s not just a huge screen that can be split in half – the goal is to boost productivity by having two screens that can run different apps. You can also slide apps across windows or maximize them to occupy both screens with a single app.
It is also designed to be extremely thin in order to fit into such a small device. There will also be an LTE modem, but given the timing of its initial release, it is likely to be 4G rather than 5G. Nothing else about the internals is known, however, Windows Central predicts 8/16GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB of storage. The latter will most likely use the same UFS 3.0 format as the Surface Duo.