Now it's the perfect time for a Microsoft Surface Phone
With Apple solidifying its iPad Pro and iPhone strategy, with form factors and specs designed to cater to the remaining consumer groups left out of the loop last year, it might be a good time for Microsoft to plan for its own announcements.
The Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book were two great decisions that granted Redmond a special place among consumers: a place that Microsoft hasn’t earned since before the original Surface tablet.
With the Surface Pro 4, Microsoft offered consumers a product designed for the those who want power and flexibility in a smaller form factor. The surface Book, on the other hand, is a product aimed at power users looking to push the boundaries of work and entertainment, on one of the most powerful hybrid tablet PCs on the market.
What about the Surface Phone?
The Surface Phone doesn’t exist yet. It’s a concept, an idea, one that feels tangible and concrete as much as a Surface Pro 5 does. The Surface Phone is expected and anticipated, and it is most definitely coming to consumers.
Microsoft has a golden opportunity, thanks to the 9.7 inch iPad Pro, as Apple is pushing for consistency and a uniformation of specs and brand. It’s time for Microsoft to carry on with a uniformed brand to take over, and begin the painful process of finally saying goodbye to the Lumia brand.
The truth is, Microsoft doesn’t need more phones. It needs Surface devices that fit the lifestyle of their users, nevermind classification. Microsoft Windows 10 is the wildcard element, an operating system that is designed to turn any touchscreen slate with proper hardware into a multimedia, computing powerhouse, capable of making phone calls, keeping up with electronic communication like email, text and instant messaging, as well as entertaining, with streaming video, and games.
Microsoft needs a 5.5 inch touchscreen device that complements the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4, and any variations of them, better than any Lumia device can. This is a device that outperforms anything comparable to it, from a battery life standpoint, to performance and accessories, and which expands, and extends to other desktops, and workspaces, with Continuum, with the ability to turn into a desktop device when needed, which still being a mobile communication hub.
The Surface Phone may not come in this quarter, or the next. Perhaps it will happen later in the year, but one thing is certain: it needs to happen, to give consumers a sense that Microsoft Surface is every bit as solid a brand as Apple, and show its truly aggressive side.