It’s official, folks. Been quite some time since we found out that the Surface Neo would not be launching this holiday season as promised. But Microsoft has finally gotten around updating this fact.
On the official Neo website, that is.
Up until today, the site still said that this dual-screen foldable device was hitting store shelves in 2020 sometimes during the holidays. However, now it says that the Surface Neo is coming soon, which is to say that the device may be here any time next year.
“A groundbreaking new dual-screen device that redefines how you get things done. With two 9” screens, a revolutionary 360° hinge, touch, pen, keyboard, and incredible new Windows experiences, Surface Neo enables you to do more, anywhere.”
Basically, the copy is the same, just the “Coming Holiday 2020.” phrase at the end has been removed. No new estimate for the street date has been provided, for logical reasons. It’s best to announce these things closer to release, anyway.
Odd that it took the software titan this long to update the page about the delay, but here we are.
It was last October that Microsoft surprised everyone by showing not just one, but two products a full year before they were to be released.
Bold move, Cotton, only it did not work out as intended.
The dual-screen Surface Neo PC running Windows 10X and the foldable Android handset called the Surface Duo were both new territory for the Redmond giant. And new territory comes with new challenges, which in this case are trifold — hardware, software, and the OS itself.
Microsoft then announced in May that it was repurposing Windows 10X for single-screen devices, while the dual-screen support was pushed back indefinitely.
This led some to speculate that the PC will actually just ship with vanilla Windows 10, and be eligible for upgrade to the Windows 10X flavor once its ready. After all, this is exactly what Lenovo has done with its ThinkPad X1 Fold.
Clearly, this is not the case for the Surface Neo, which remains the hero device for Windows 10X.
As it ought to be.
