Microsoft Courier is one legendary official Microsoft concept that never saw the light of the day but has been intriguing fan’s imagination since long. This foldable device was leaked a long time back in a video that you can see below.

Recently this courier concept has resurfaced in several articles in the blogosphere. But as far as we know, the Surface Mobile/Phone will not look or work anything like what has been shown in the leaked Courier concept above.

While Microsoft still is working on a hinged dual-screen Surface Mobile device it will look much more different and also work differently.

  • Surface Mobile will be much slimmer than the Courier device in the concept. It may look closer to this patented design.
  • The black hinge portion between the two panels in the original courier device will cease to exist. In Surface Mobile, it will be part of the one unified display in “Tablet Mode”.
  • Even the customer use cases are much different in Surface Mobile from the Courier OS concept. While the focus on Note-taking and importance of gestures will still be there, the interaction pattern will be much more evolved.
  • Much of the UI will revolve around two modes: Tablet and Mobile mode in the new foldable Surface Mobile, Microsoft is working on. We shared some top features, UI and size specs of the Surface Mobile/Surface Phone in our exclusive article last week.

Microsoft is working on a foldable mobile device form-factor with a tipped release targeted at 2018. Surface Phone is long rumored to feature a foldable design and we have seen these designs leaking in many patents.

We also exclusively reported that 2018 may see Surface Mobile (Surface Phone) & Windows mobile devices from top vendors too. We still believe this is the case and Microsoft is in touch with its top Windows vendors for the next “refresh” of Windows in Mobile. Read our full Surface Phone coverage here.