Today, Microsoft had its annual fall hardware launch, where it showed off a new configuration of the Surface Pro X, and the all-new Surface Laptop Go. It"s been a year now since the last event, where the firm announced its bold plan to go all-in on dual-screen devices, promising a brand-new version of Windows called Windows 10X that"s built from the ground up for this new category.
The Surface Duo, which runs Android, started shipping in August. The Surface Neo, which is larger and based on Windows 10X, is still missing in action. It"s no surprise, since Microsoft was clear that it"s been delayed. In fact, Windows 10X is now officially coming to single-screen PCs first, with dual-screen support coming when Microsoft decides the time is right.
Since last year"s event, there"s been a Surface Neo product listing on the Microsoft website. For a while, it said it was coming in holiday season 2020, and then a few months after it was officially delayed, that message was removed. Now, the listing has been removed completely.
In fact, you"ll still see it in search previews (at the time of this writing), but when you click learn more, it just takes you to a generic Surface page with all of the current products.
It"s unclear if this means that the product has been canceled or if it"s just being removed because it"s been delayed indefinitely. Frankly, this might be one of those things that Microsoft announces and it eventually quietly disappears. It certainly wouldn"t be the first time. The company still hasn"t publicly said Sets (a feature announced for Windows in 2017 that would allow for tabbed apps) is dead.
The Redmond firm might also be using the Surface Duo as a test case for how much of a customer base there might be for dual-screen devices. And with the rest of the industry trending toward devices with foldable screens, it"s possible that that might be where the base is.
Obviously, we"ve reached out to Microsoft for a statement on why the product listing was removed. We"ll update this article when we hear back.
Update: Microsoft has issued a statement to Neowin to say, "Earlier this year, we announced that we’re pausing development for Surface Neo. We do not have any updates to share at this time."