Surface Phone specs, rumors, news: Microsoft building the 'ultimate mobile device'

The anticipated Surface Phone from Microsoft will be brought into the market as the "ultimate mobile device." Meanwhile, the Surface Phone might be built to run x86 apps on Continuum mode.

News of Microsoft bringing in a Surface Phone into the mobile market were based on speculations, until it was recently confirmed by The Commercial Times of Taiwan that production trials for the said device have begun.

Confirmed by MSPoweruser, the Surface Phone is already under production trials by the Surface Studio and ODM Pegatron, the company that produces Apple's iPhones. The Microsoft smartphone is expected to debut in 2017 or early 2018, and it is expected to have features that are more advanced compared to other smartphones.

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said that they have stopped competing with the two mobile giants — Apple and Samsung — and will focus on what they can bring to the market.

"We don't want to be driven by just envy of what others have, the question is, what can we bring? That's where I look at any device form factor or any technology, even AI," Nadella said.

Although it seems Microsoft has missed the period of the mobile boom, the company is already involved in "structural innovation" when it comes to smartphones. This is in reference to HP's Elite x3, which is partly Windows PC in structure.

"We will continue to be in the phone market not as defined by today's market leaders, but by what it is that we can uniquely do in what is the most ultimate mobile device," added Nadella.

One of the features that Microsoft is working on is the x86 emulation for ARM64 to be applied in the upcoming Windows 10 Redstone 3. This feature will allow the Redstone 3 to run x86 apps on ARM64 devices, and it is anticipated to also be applied to the Microsoft Surface Phone.

This new feature was discovered to have the name CHPE from a Twitter post by WalkingCat and was later pointed out by ZDNet that the "C" might mean Cobalt, which is the codename for the x86 emulation for ARM64.

The Microsoft Surface Phone is expected to debut in 2018.