Microsoft continues to shore up the Surface brand, an increasingly attractive and extensive line of its own hardware in the number of models and market segments it serves, including Microsoft’s return to mobile telephony with the Duo series.
And we say series because Microsoft will not stand on the original model. Although it has not yet been commercialized, a purchase operation that our colleagues from MCPRO allows us to anticipate that a Surface Duo 2 is already in development.
Movial is a Finnish software, services and design engineering company, which has worked closely with Microsoft during the prototype and development stages of the Surface Duo. The collaboration must have been so important that Microsoft has acquired Movial’s operations in Romania, Taiwan and the United States.
It has also decided to incorporate some 60 employees, into its own full-time staff, integrated into the Microsoft Devices department to continue the company’s investment in the development of platforms based on Android and to begin with, in the development of the system that will govern Surface Duo 2, its support and updates.
Although Movial will continue to operate as an independent company from its headquarters in Finland, there is no doubt that the operation is a confirmation of Microsoft’s ambitions in their renewed efforts to re-enter the mobile telephony segment. Although on a much larger scale, we already saw a similar move when Microsoft acquired Nokia’s smartphone division.
As for the Surface Duo, there is no doubt that it is the most anticipated Microsoft own-brand device in recent years for precisely that reason: the return of the software giant to the smartphone segment. Microsoft would have made some changes since the terminal announcement.
It would still be a device with two independent displays linked by a 360-degree hinge and drop down like an open book. The screens would be AMOLED 5.6 inches with a resolution of 1800 x 1350 pixels and on-screen fingerprint sensor.
Among the changes we see a slight, but appreciable, chassis thickness reduction that we hope is reflected in the total weight. It looks thinner than the version seen in its presentation. An improvement of the camera system is also being advanced, with an 11 megapixel sensor on the front.
As for its engine, there is still talk of Snapdragon 855 as the most propagable chipset. The 865 is already on the market, but it was the top of the range for 2019 and we believe that it will be more than enough for this terminal, combined with 6 Gbytes of RAM and 256 Gbytes of internal storage. Its battery would have a capacity of 3,460 mAh.
And Android. The Surface Duo will be the only Microsoft own-brand devices without a Windows operating system. And this is where the Movial operation comes in and the hiring of 60 of its employees.
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