Dell could be building the Surface Phone

There was a rumour some time ago that Microsoft was developing their Surface Phone as a reference design for other OEMs to turn into actual devices, much like the OEMs were allowed and even encouraged to freely copy the Surface Pro design for their Windows 10 tablets.

That idea has just become more concrete with a new rumour by Winfuture.de, who seems to have laid their hands on a pile of internal Qualcomm documents.

They report Dell is working on a dual-screened Windows 10 on ARM device called Januss.

The device would be powered by the Snapdragon 850 processor, have an LTE modem and several phone-like characteristics, such as a single USB-C port, several cameras, accelerometer, digital compass and gyroscope. Winfuture notes that laptops do not normally have gyroscopes, suggesting we are looking at either a tablet or foldable phone.

The device was being developed by ODM Compal and has been in development since Summer 2017, with last reports of work being early 2018.

At present, it is not known what the exact design of the device will be, or if it is still coming to market. If Dell was, however, working on a convertible, foldable tablet/phone hybrid, it seems likely that other OEMs may be doing the same, which may mean after waiting years for the Surface Phone, we may be surprised by a pile of them arriving at the same time.

Such a device will likely run Andromeda OS, with a lot of evidence that developed specifically for dual-screened hinged devices is continuing inside Microsoft.  Would wide support by a number of OEMs encourage our readers to purchase this new class of device? Let us know below.