Microsoft's foldable Surface device isn't ready for a 2018 launch

For a long, long time now we're been hearing rumors that Microsoft is working on a Surface Phone or mini-tablet, with the device apparently folding in half when needed. New reports suggest the hardware and the software for the compact Surface are now being reworked, with no launch expected until 2019.

That's according to sources speaking to Thurrott, sources who say Microsoft isn't happy with the quality of what they've managed to put together so far. It's not a case of going right back to the drawing board, but Microsoft is apparently taking a few steps back.

The good news is, as per the latest leaks, that the project is still being actively worked on and isn't in danger of being killed off completely (at least not yet) – that will come as a relief to the thousands of people who signed a petition asking Microsoft to please, please release a Surface Phone in the near future.

What we think we know so far

Based on everything we've heard so far, it sounds like the new Surface device will use smartphone components, and be smartphone-sized, and fold in half – but it may not be marketed as a "Surface Phone". Microsoft itself seems to be referring to it as a "pocketable" device in a new hardware category of its own.

The device is going to run the Andromeda OS, a new modular revamp of Windows 10 – modular as in different bits of the software can be added or removed depending on what kind of hardware it's running on. This too is unofficial, and is likely to turn up in 2019.

Given what happened with Microsoft's last mobile venture it's perhaps not surprising that it wants to get everything perfectly right this time around, hence the extra delay in the phone-tablet-laptop hybrid. It seems clear that Microsoft is working on something like a Surface Phone – as for whether it'll ever see the light of day, we'll have to wait and see.