I'm a bit of a Microsoft fan these days. That wasn't always the case - I can recall a time when I felt they were dominating the world and I have an aversion to monoliths. Now it seems that the world is divided into four or so massive monoliths I'm never going to win that particular argument.
In the past I've backed the underdog - for a while I was a Palm champion, extolling the virtues of their products. I wrote a large part of the Journeymen on the T5 while shuttling between north Wales and Arkansas on a project using a Palm keyboard. It was the tiniest laptop you ever saw. I loved the T5, arguably the precursor to the smart phone that was smashed by the iPhone appearing at about the same time my T5 was dying. Repairs were impossible, new models unlikely, so for a while I played around with middle-market Android phones.
Then I jumped on the Windows phone - surely the kiss of death when I adopt. I bought a top end HP Windows phone to complement first my Surface RT laptop, then my first Surface Pro. The RT didn't die - my son-in-law is trying to get it to run on Linux at the moment, but it did become a problem as nobody was supporting the ARM chipset, hence the move to a grown up Surface Pro.
I'd evaluated the first instance of the Surface Pro for a former employer as a device to use carrying out fire safety audits of commercial premises and at the time thought it too bulky and heavy - the later generations addressed that. I'd still have my Surface Pro 4 if it wasn't for the paving stones outside my front door. Them and gravity. So I bought my second Surface Pro a while back, a V6. I've also found myself on my third keyboard - unintentional experiments with the first two demonstrated that Coors is a poor lubricant and single malt whisky even worse. I'm still using the original Surface Pen but the nib is looking ropey these days - since lockdown I've been teaching engineering students science and maths on the Surface Pro with the assistance of Microsoft Whiteboard. That pen has seen some use and is soon to be replaced.
Anyway, back to the Windows phone - I loved the way it worked, how it integrated with my Surface Pro, my diary, my life. I stopped writing books on mobile phones a while back but if any phone would support that, the HP would. I guess I got what Apple aficionados get with the Apple environment but without the crowds or the self affirming back slapping and knowing glances. I don't think I met more than half a dozen other Windows phone users in the time I was using the HP, and none seemed as keen as I was. Eventually the first HP went the way of the first Surface Pro - landing face down on my patio out back. Is it me, or is it just gravity? Newton has a lot to answer for in this household.
I bought a second hand model on eBay and that worked but eventually Microsoft gave up on the Windows phone idea, which was a bummer for me, and then WhatsApp stopped supporting it. I replaced it with a OnePlus T8, which is kind of cool, love the pop-up selfie camera and I've skinned it with a Windows overlay so it works as an Android but fits in with my MS toys - sorry - equipment. I've still got the second-hand HP in a drawer in the shed, it hasn't even hit a hard surface or had alcohol poured over it. There's still time.
Microsoft have seemed to come to terms with exiting the phone software arena, and have embraced Android in an anti-Apple kind of way. They produce the skins I mentioned that lets me use my Office 365 software seamlessly, access the OneDrive and apart from a lack of Windows tiles makes me feel all Microsofty inside. And after a few years of leaks, rumours and even an official announcement ahead of the pandemic, they're returning to the fray with a Surface branded phone.
Patent leaks over the last few years showed Microsoft were interested in creating some sort of folding phone but they've moved away from the Samsung approach and in a ballsy way have bucked practically every trend by linking two screens together with a brace of hinges. They are, it must be noted, very good at high tech hinges as anyone who has used a Surface Pro or a Surface Studio will attest. They don't even call the new device, the Surface Duo, a phone. It's clearly pitched as a computer with two screens, smart features and - oh, by the way, it takes calls too. Finally someone has realised that the majority of phones today are used for anything other than making and receiving phone calls.
Given the spec it is feasible that I could end up writing my next novel on a Duo, a la Palm T5, but at the current price - about £1400 in the UK - I would need something in addition to the current offering. I know Microsoft make a special hinge for the Surface Studio - they call it the anti-gravity hinge - given my track record with tech I could do with that technology being extended to the rest of the device before I shell out that much money!
An alcohol repellent product would be a boon, too.
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