Surface Neo won’t be arriving at the tail end of this year as originally planned – Microsoft had already admitted that. However, if you needed any further confirmation of this following Microsoft’s previous declaration on the topic of dual-screen devices, then here’s something to note: the official Neo web page has (finally) been changed to reflect that it won’t pitch up in holiday 2020.
Until very recently, the blurb on the Surface Neo website stated that it was “Coming Holiday 2020”, but as Neowin reports, that sentence has now been removed, which is effectively further official confirmation that it won’t be coming in that timeframe.
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It’s rather odd that it has taken Microsoft so long to remove that particular sentence, given that it was back in May that chief product officer, Panos Panay, made the announcement we mentioned at the outset. In that blog post, he let us know that Windows 10X wouldn’t debut on dual-screen devices – including Surface Neo – first, as was the original plan, but rather that the fresh spin on the OS will initially arrive on single-screen devices.
Panay said: “We will continue to look for the right moment, in conjunction with our OEM partners, to bring dual-screen devices to market.”
In other words, this was Microsoft’s admission that Surface Neo wouldn’t be launched during holiday 2020 as was the original intention, without explicitly mentioning its own take on the dual-screen device.
How late is late?
As to when Surface Neo might finally pop up, Microsoft hasn’t provided any clues to that timeframe, although going by the rumor mill, the dual-screen device may not debut until mid-2021, or possibly even later than that.
Indeed, as we theorized when we discussed Panay’s statement on Windows 10X coming to single-screen laptops first, there is a way in which his comments could be read as Microsoft now looking at an end of 2021 launch for the Neo. That’s well into the further reaches of the realm of speculation, though, and we certainly hope that it proves well off the mark.
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