The Surface range should be enriched with a new device bigger than a smartphone but smaller than a laptop. A kind of “book” with two touch screens, whose code name is “Centaurus” internally. Its release would be scheduled for the end of the year.
While Apple unveiled its new iPad a month ago, and that we discovered Monday an iPad, Microsoft is more mysterious on the next Surface. However, the wait is expected to end soon as The Verge reports that the firm has begun to demonstrate internally a dual-screen device and that employees are hurrying to see the novelty.
Known internally as the “Centaurus”, it would be the missing link between the tablet, the PC laptop, and the Surface. In fact, it would be an extension of Courier, and a modernized version of the Libretto, the two-screen “notebook” released by Toshiba. A kind of digital book, which turns into a netbook when you run it with a virtual keyboard.
Ideal for a lighter Windows
According to The Verge, the launch would be planned before the end of the year and the idea would really be to position it as a backup device, as can be a tablet with a small footprint compared to a laptop. It would also be the first device with Windows Lite, the lightweight version of Windows 10, designed just for this type of device, but also probably dual-screen laptops, as Intel presented at Computex last week.
Ten years ago, this was what the Courier project looked like with its two touch screens, its hardcover and its stylus. Too avant-garde at the time, the future will tell if this type of device can appeal to an audience that must already juggle between a smartphone, a laptop and often a tablet.
