[EnderMB]

I really hope that we see a single-screen Surface phone in the future.

IMO, Microsoft have done a fantastic job with the Surface Book. If they could replicate that high-end build quality while providing a solid feature set and a clean Android build, I can't see it not selling well. Throw a headphone jack in, and I'd wait in line for it!

The dual screen is interesting, but I don't see its use just yet.

[mattferderer]

I see a lot of value with this phone prototype over the laptop version.

It gives a better typing experience than a phone currently does & offers unique controls for apps on the 2nd screen.

Whereas with the laptop version I assume people will be missing their keyboard typing experience or complaining about having to carry around a bluetooth keyboard. I still hope they improve their concept of docking an Android phone & using it as a laptop replacement with a keyboard, mouse & monitor.

Hopefully it makes people watch videos in landscape again & quit recording in portrait mode. That alone would be a win!

- Edit - I just read a better article explaining their keyboard concept for the laptop version. That seems like a slightly better experience than I was imagining. Hopefully it's harder to lose than their pen.

[pdpi]

Speaking of the Surface Book, my aging MacBook needs replacing, and I was interested in seeing a Surface Book 3 release as an alternative. Sad it didn't materialise.

[bhauer]

The Surface Laptop 3 looks very compelling though, especially with the Ryzen option.

[pizza234]

The Surface Laptop unfortunately doesn't work as tablet.

I'm very "disappointented" by the event, as it seems that the Surface Book series is dead.

If this is the case, I guess that the reasoning has been that who want a powerful machine just buy a regular laptop.

It's a shame for those who use the SB both as tablet and dev machine (which is the intended audience). At this point, it's not sure how the SPX will be usable as dev machine (e.g. I guess it will have relatively little memory). The vanilla SP is an alternative, but 12.3" is small for me (and can't imagine for those who own a 15" SB).

[EnderMB]

I'm interested in how many people actually use their Surface Book as a tablet.

I know a load of people with the standard Surface that use it like a tablet, but very few people that regularly use their Surface Book's detachable tablet functionality. I can probably count the number of times I've ever wanted to take the laptop apart on one hand.

[pizza234]

I use it a lot! The SB tablet is the state of the art (sadly, because evidently there have been no advancements). Nothing is so light: even the Surface Pro X is inferior (13.5"/730g vs. 13"/770g). This comes from the interesting design choice of stripping as much as possible from the tablet itself (the Surface Pro instead, is intended to be more functional, when in tablet form, since it's coupled with lightweight bases).

In the past, I used it primarily to read electronic versions of several paper magazines; this format is (IMHO) best read on a large screen - the sweet spot is around 14, so 13.5 is the closest (I reckon the 15" is too big; the SB laptop form factor has a bulky design).

In the present, I use it for studying (textbooks, mostly) - for textbooks, even 12.x" is fine, so even a Surface Pro would do.

Having said that, I like it as a tablet so much that I've pretty much ditched the base and bought another laptop for development. The SB laptop form factor just sucks (IMHO), as it's very bulky, and Microsoft has an insane pricing strategy, that makes it unjustifiably expensive for developers looking for a serious dev machine. Nowadays it's more competitive due to being old, but the 16 GB models have never been competitive, both in price and form factor, to competitors like the Dell XPS.

Of course, I don't imply that many people use it this way because I do, so I really don't know the general use cases :-)

[WorldMaker]

Why would they make a single-screen phone for Android when the market is already saturated with them? (It's silly enough for them to make a dual screen phone for Android when all the existing OEMs are already trying to hype future foldables or multi-screen beasts.)

[EnderMB]

I wouldn't call the high-end Android market saturated. There are a number of players, but it's a market of compromises. If you want a stock Android experience, you go away from Samsung. If you want a headphone jack, you go away from Google and OnePlus, etc.

The Surface range is good because it packs so much functionality into a nicely designed package. The same design principles, with a full feature set, would sell like wild-fire, and would put a lot of other phone manufacturers on notice.

[WorldMaker]

The high-end Android market is about as saturated as it can get, because multiple generations of hardware sales keep showing new high-end options dropping out because high-end users (mostly) just want iOS and buy iPhones.

Most high-end phones for Android don't sell like wild fire. AT&T and Verizon stores (among others) are pretty clear that Android is "cheap" and the iPhone is luxury/high-end.

I don't think Microsoft has an answer for that existing market dynamic here for Android phones. There doesn't seem to be enough of a value proposition that Microsoft might have anymore luck as Android device competing against the iPhone.