Well! Sorry, this Microsoft folding phone won’t launch until next year

Microsoft has been trying to make a new kind of mobile device for years. We knew it first as the Courier, a journal-like device with a foldable screen that should have competed against the iPad. Years later, we got wind of an Andromeda project which apparently was the name for Microsoft’s foldable Surface Phone.
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We learned more details recently about the handset, which suggested Microsoft hasn’t given up on the idea of inventing a new Windows-based form factor, and a new report says that’s indeed the case. The company still wants to make a Surface Phone, but the device will not be launched this year.

Instead, Microsoft has decided to overhaul the handset, according to Thurrott’s sources, to make sure the Surface Phone, or whatever it’s called when it launches, will be a premium device ready to offer a high-end experience like the other devices in the Surface brand:

Multiple sources have told me that Microsoft plans to overhaul the software and hardware before releasing the device. At this time, the software and hardware do not create a compelling solution that would move the needle for Microsoft and more importantly the Surface brand which is why when it came to the ‘go, no go’ decision earlier this year, it was not given the green light.

The next possible release for the Andromeda device would be in late 2019, the report notes. Microsoft is looking to pack better specs in the device, and the best it could use this fall would have been the Snapdragon 835, which is Qualcomm’s 2017 flagship chip. But Qualcomm is already developing better chips for Windows devices, which will be ready in the coming months.

A wild rumor also says that Microsoft might be developing its own Android phone, although we’ve got no details on that device.

Samsung, meanwhile, is expected to launch its first foldable phone in early 2019, according to recent reports.