Before Microsoft acquired Nokia, the company was heavily rumoured to be working on its own in-house Windows Phone device that was expected to ship in 2014 under the Surface moniker alongside its Surface Pro device. Unfortunately for Windows Phone fans, such a device never saw the light of day, but newly published images of a mysterious prototype might have just given us our first and only look at what Microsoft was exploring internally.
Possibly codenamed Raven, there isn't much information available about this prototype, other than the fact that it’s from the 2013-2014 time frame and is running an early pre-release build of Windows Phone 8.1. It’s powered by an unknown Qualcomm chip, has a 720p screen, features a Microsoft logo on the back, and a silver metal frame that matches the colour of the Surface 2 that released that same year.
We can see in the photos that it has dedicated hardware keys for navigation, which are also coated in the same silver color as the chassis. The build of Windows Phone that it’s running appears to be from September 2013, and is from an internal development branch building towards what eventually became Windows Phone 8.1.
While not viewable in the images, I understand the device features individual up and down volume buttons and a camera button on the right-hand side of the device, and a power button on the top of the device. It also features a micro-USB port and headphone jack on the bottom side, and a SIM card slot on the left side.
This is likely one of dozens of prototype designs that Microsoft’s hardware teams cooked up during this era, but it’s certainly a fascinating look at what could have been, and it does look so clean. Development on this device was likely paused once Microsoft moved to acquire Nokia in 2014.
Back in 2013, I remember hearing from sources that Microsoft was experimenting with the concept of a "Skype Phone," a Windows Phone device with mobile data that utilized Skype for calls and messaging instead of traditional carrier networks. Perhaps this device was going to be that? Who knows.
The Surface Phone we eventually got arrived as the Surface Duo, which started development in 2016 and launched to the public in 2020. In that time, Microsoft shipped Nokia designs in the form of the Lumia 640, 650, 950, and 550 running Windows Phone, before abandoning the platform in 2017.
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