Software giant Microsoft is planning to release a new smartphone which will be released next year. Sources who are privy to the plans of the company said that the upcoming phone will be introduced to the public as the "Surface" smartphone, which will be a hybrid of both Surface and Lumia devices, a report from Latinone said.
According to the report, the company's upcoming "Surface" smartphone is an attempt of Microsoft to recover and re-establish its mobile division. It was said that the new phone is expected to have a powerful feature that will inspire competition from popular rivals like Apple's iPhone, Huawei, and HTC, among others.
Windows Central reports that Microsoft's "Surface" smartphone will be powered by Intel and will run using Windows 10 mobile operating system. The phone is originally slated to be released in May 2016 but recent rumors claim that the company has cancelled the production of the new phone. The company has instead manufactured a new flagship phone which is slated to be launched in the second half of 2016. However, tech analysts claim that they are expecting the same phone but with a different name.
"The phone was previously referred to as the 'Panos Phone', though it has recently changed to becoming the Surface Phone, hinting it may have shifted from a pet project to something more official. Panos Panay is in charge of the team that designed the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, meaning we may see a smartphone with a similar design. Intel is apparently heavily involved in the development of the new Surface Phone. It is supposedly working with Microsoft to make x86 apps (Windows desktop apps) compatible with the Surface Phone. That would be a huge leap in app availability, something that has plagued Windows Phone for years, by bringing over thousands of compatible desktop apps to the Surface Phone," Digital Trends said.
