I really think the trick is not to try to hide the hinge, but to use it as a demarcator as seen here.
This feels like a very well thought out product. I might end up buying one of the full surface laptops + Duo because of my work flow. But, damn I would have loved to own one of these.
disclaimer: work for MSFT
I think hardware and software made by the same company can have big advantages.
For me personally, I don't really see much use case for something this size the same way I don't see much use case for an iPad. If I have a lot to do, I'll use my laptop. If it's something quick, I'll use my phone. I don't have much need for an in between currently. I'm sure there are use cases for this that I haven't thought about, though.
And not to say I wouldn't want one, looks great!
EDIT: As a phone replacement (new product video for Surface Duo just shown), this is even more interesting!
As somebody who has tons of textbooks in PDF form, the ability to use something like this (or the iPad Pro, which I currently own) for reading, annotating and otherwise working with them is pretty damn useful. I'm especially excited about the Duo, since PDF's are unreadable on even my 6.5" smartphone and I don't always want to bring my iPad with me everywhere.
Now, ten years later, it feels like most challenges the Courier (and now the Surface Neo) tried to solve have been solved by bigger screens, better multitasking and great pencil support.
New note taking and productivity apps benefit from the big screen and fluid resizing of apps that the iPad Pro and similar tablets provide.
The separation in the middle that made the courier look awesome ten years ago, now feels like an unnecessary hardware separation between the two sides of the display.
I love the idea of being able to write new form-factor-sensitive apps as needed for a tiled window manager that resizes to accomodate a keyboard, or a ZUI on one screen, CLI on the other, or the traditional browser in one screen, terminal and VS in the other.
IFF they don't lock this down so much with Windows Lite/Windows 10 X (apparently 10 is now glued to the word Windows no matter what), Centaurus / Surface Neo has the potential to be an excellent device.
Edit: and am I glad it wasn't cancelled, not sure if I want to handle another Booklet PC being cancelled on me after getting excited about it.
I'm also worried about use on the go. When you're holding it in your hands, a folding device is a pain to use. If there was some reason you couldn't have a single large screen maybe ok, but as you say this is a solved problem.
The other device they announced (Surface Duo) is Microsoft hardware running Google software (Android).
Makes sense, as it's really the only way to get into the phone market and still have an app ecosystem.
If my friend has a Microsoft Surface Duo and I say "open your Duo" do I mean to unfold the phone, or open the google video calling app?
https://www.cnet.com/news/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-...
https://www.cnet.com/news/how-windows-8-kod-the-innovative-c...
Might finally be able to drop the paper notebook in my backpack if they can make screen larger on this one.
