Microsoft Surface Neo is coming next year with two 9" screens and a 360-degree hinge
Remember Microsoft's Courier tablet? The rumored device was all the rage in the mobile world from 2008 to 2010, with its dual touchscreens and pen input support, but it never got to see the light of day, having been canceled before release.
Today Microsoft has introduced the Surface Neo, which is an obvious spiritual successor to that concept. It has two 9" touchscreens, a 360-degree hinge, pen support, and bezels - many of them. Each side is 5.6mm thick, so when folded you're going to hold something that's 11.2mm thick. It weighs 1.3kg. There's Gorilla Glass of some sort on top of "the thinnest LCD ever created", according to Panos Panay, chief product officer of Microsoft's Devices group.
The Surface Neo is supposedly launching in about a year from now, to be available for the holiday shopping season in 2020. It runs Windows 10X, which is designed specifically for dual screen devices, and is powered by an Intel Lakefield processor, with an "11th Gen" graphics engine that controls both screens.
The new, thinner Surface Pen attaches to the back, while the keyboard is separate to the Neo but attaches magnetically to the back, so you can 'fold' it out and set it on top of one of the screens. When you do that you'll see extra input options like emoji in the extra screen space that's left, or use that as a trackpad.