New rumours have surfaced of Microsoft's Surface Phone in the works. According to Forbes, Microsoft listed MSM8998, which is currently being termed as Snapdragon 830, as one of the chipsets that will support Windows 10 Mobile. However, since then, the listing has been altered. While Microsoft has now removed Snapdragon 830 from the ‘Minimum Hardware Requirements’ page, it still lists the MSM 8953 SoC, which according to rumours, is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625.
If the rumours are true, Microsoft's Surface Phone will have all the ingredients to be a beast of a phone, powered by the Snapdragon 830. From what we know till now, the Snapdragon 830 will support 8GB of RAM and will be manufactured using the 10nm production process. If the Snapdragon 830 supports 8GB of RAM, this will give Microsoft a good hardware base to take its Continuum feature to the next level. The current generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, which is being used in most flagship smartphones of today, already supports dual-channel 6GB LPDDR4 RAM of up to 1866 MHz.
Microsoft’s Surface Phone has been rumored to be in the works since 2012, with the specifications improving every year. Hence, this rumour should be taken with a pinch of salt as Microsoft may just announce a new Lumia smartphone instead of a Surface-branded one. Nevertheless, we would like to see the Surface Phone, which could come at par with the overall quality of a Surface Book, and offer the best specifications possible.
Image credits: Nadir Aslam