If Surface Phone gets cancelled like Surface Mini, I'll continue to use my 640 and look for options (mid-range W10 phones, 4th gen Moto G?).
But that would be the case anyway, Surface Phone gets cancelled or not
The rest is at least partly OT, sorry for that
Surface (Pro) is something new, they say. It's a tablet that can replace laptop. I'd say they just put decent hardware in a thin tablet. Any well-thought and well-made convertible can do the same while keeping keyboard along all the time. Maybe
that was the thing, stopping being cheap and seeing value in good specs and good design. Apple.
Surface Book is again something new, they say. Laptop that can - replace your tablet? I don't know what to even think about that. The Hinge... Surface Pro with extra battery (and GPU in some models if not all?) in keyboard section + hype-class muscle wire locking device. Sci-fi airlock stuff without exploding bolts
I can believe OEMs thinking WTF when they saw it. Idea? Nice. Practival? Maybe. Pretty? No
Surface Phone will be something new, everyone thinks. If MS can pull off something in the scale of Hololens (it's cool, potentially practical, independent and small; I want one for, IDK,
something), they may have a winner. Dual rear camera at opposite ends of the phone so that it can take real stereoscopic images and overlay world and graphics in cardboard VR. If it's mini-Surface Mini or flip phone with The Hinge - Panos will really have to do his
Jobs on the stage. They won't let
that happen.
I don't see Win32 as a reason to have x86 in a phone when small (comparable to Continuum dock) x86 PCs with full Windows are available and cheap. Common thing for both: external display, mouse and keyboard required. Same amount of stuff to carry. Maybe Surface Phone
is phone + dock/PC with some fancy USB/WiFi/NFC wizardry that TheVerge cannot understand or appreciate. ARM + x86. Space-tech metal that feels and smells better than what Apple uses. Who knows