I still think we are a years away from having anything small enough and powerful enough to dethrone the classical slab phone. Doesn't make sense to me.
Well, that's where you have trouble understanding what MS is saying.
Personally years for me is - a few years till voice really starts blowing up, which makes the smartwatch far more viable. I think we'll see the seed of that with Cortana's chatbot intergration. Microsofts bot framework is quite easy to code, and its already a popular platform only a year after its release. When those can become "skills" for Cortana (and MS says they will be loaded "on demand" and 'contextually", so you won't have to do anything to make them work, we will see the power of voice grow exponentially.
Which reduces a lot of the need for tapping and swiping, when it'll be easier in most cases to just say "hey Cortana, order me a cab". Or "play my funk playlist". Or "text sarah and tell her I am on my way".
For me I find that quite attractive, because I'd rather not carry a glass brick, to gain access to useful functions. I'd rather travel light. And voice ultimately, when it has its version of apps, ie "skills", will be more efficient and less fuss than talking something out of your bag or pocket, opening a program, fussing around with menus etc etc. You just ask and it happens.
I'm betting MS will release its chatbot intergration this year. If so, by this time next year Cortana will likely be capable of things, that make current assistants and smart home devices look positively stupid. You can already do things like find restaruants and hotels with chatbots. Cortana can already email and make phone calls. When that expands, as powerfuly as it definitely will - it'll be both impressive and highly useful.
And then, I think its about half a decade after that we'll see the folding tablet, and scroll device form factors, with the graphene OLED screens. The folding tablet FF being one that is quite friendly to existing windows 10. Windows 10 pretty much kills on a tablet versus its competiton. Although initially its likely this form factor will be expensive. Like 80s cellphone expensive. So we may not see that go maninstream for a few years after its release.
Obviously hybrids are a slowly growing. Phones that double as PCs, tablets that double as laptops. That may take time to ferment, but it has the advantage of paying for, less devices that do the same things. But whether its the ipad pro, or samsungs DeX on the s8 every company that is out there is betting on device convengence. And devices that scale - that's another area MS has invested in heavily, ie tablet mode, continuum etc. MS is far closer to scaling between device catergories than any competitor.
And then their's augmented reality. That also may take awhile to ferment. Which is something apple has just started investing in, in their iPhone 8. But if you can see the data in your glasses, you have no need for a screen. Hard to tell when HoloLens will release, and how long it will take to catch on. But it is currently in beta. You can get one. I think the final saleable, popular FF will need to be smaller for people to wear them all the time though.
But I think some of these things, are quite close, myself. While others may take longer, I think perhaps I agree with you "years" before the classical slab is dethroned as the premium tech to own, and adopt, but not "years" as in decades, more like "years" as in 2-5. Definitely voice will have dethroned touch to a significant degree.
Smart phones in their current form have only been around ten years. Things change quick in tech. And perhaps these predictions are all a little subjective - but MS is actually developing these products. So they may have some things up their sleeve we haven't seen, and may have a pretty good idea when these sorts of products will be truly market ready.
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