Microsoft Reportedly Planning Another Dual-Screen Device for Some Reason
Microsoft is supposedly working on a second dual-screen device that it wants to bring to market. No, not Andromeda — that’s the dual-screen smartphone-sized hardware platform. This device, codenamed Centaurus, runs Windows Core OS and reportedly bears some resemblance to Microsoft’s Courier project from 2010. Microsoft is pushing the idea of this device as a “dual screen 2-in-1.” and the hardware is powered by Intel.
Windows Central has more details on the writeup, and maybe I’m just blind to potential innovation in this space, but I’m really struggling to understand how this product is ever going to make sense to anyone. Windows 10 is not built from the ground up to look great on small devices. Maybe Microsoft can fix this. Maybe it treats the other display as equivalent to a second desktop, allowing content to be pinned there, while the first screen is doing its own thing. And yes, I can imagine a product where I use a special pen to write on one side of the screen and read data off the other side.
Alternately, I could look at content on my phone while writing in an actual notebook. I could hook a second display to my laptop and type information on the primary display while I watched a presentation on the second. True, writing in a conventional notebook may not be as sexy as a dual-screen device, but the notebook gets infinite battery life and has flawless palm detection. You can rest your entire wrist or lower arm on a notebook while you’re writing in it without the cursor ever jumping on you.
Windows Central writes:
Since Windows Core OS is adaptable, the user experience can change on the fly. For example, if Centaurus is being used in a tablet orientation, you can fold it into a laptop position, and the OS will adjust to provide an experience akin to a laptop. This would make one screen a keyboard and trackpad and the other screen a familiar desktop with a taskbar along the bottom and windowed apps.
Yes, it would. What it fails to explain is why anyone would ever want to use a virtual keyboard on a PC-style clamshell unless they absolutely must. Research has proven it — typing on a virtual keyboard with our fingers isn’t accurate and it isn’t quick. The ability to turn Centaurus into a laptop-style device is hampered by the simple fact that it isn’t going to be very useful in that mode. Functional? Sure. Desirable? No bets.
Supposedly Andromeda got canned because it was too small to use Win32 apps in phone mode and there aren’t enough progressive web apps or UWP apps to drive up usage. Making the screen slightly larger may make Win32 apps scale better, but the vast majority of applications are not designed to have a giant border stuck right up the middle. Neither are movies. And while you can always argue that people are supposed to use the top half of the device in these scenarios, the user paid for both halves, not just one. Nobody pays top dollar so they can hunt and peck at a terrible touch keyboard.
Microsoft is supposedly planning to launch this thing next year as the debut of a brand-new Surface form factor. I’m willing to be wrong on this point, but I just can’t see how this device ever goes anywhere. When products like the iPhone were new, they challenged developers and users to create entirely new methods of interacting with applications, displaying data, and sharing content. What Microsoft has done looks more like introducing difficulty for difficulty’s sake. Or maybe because Samsung already did it. Naming it after a mythical creature kludged together out of two species that actually exist seems incredibly appropriate.
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