Microsoft announces new dual-screen foldable smartphone, the Surface Duo

Microsoft is officially making phones again, although it'd prefer a term other than "phone" for its latest device.

The company at an event Wednesday officially announced the new dual-screen foldable Android smartphone, the Surface Duo, which essentially looks like a smaller version of the the Surface Neo, another dual-screen foldable device Microsoft also announced. Each display on the Duo is 5.6 inches.

As The Verge reports, this long-rumored re-entry into the smartphone arena comes two years after Microsoft officially killed its Windows Phone operating system, and Engadget writes that the last time Microsoft made its own smartphone was with the "underwhelming" Lumia 950 and 950 XL in 2015. This is also Microsoft's first Android phone, notes CNET.

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Still, Microsoft is already urging against referring to the Surface Duo as a phone, despite the fact that you do use it to make calls. "You're going to talk about it as a phone, and I get that," Microsoft Chief Product Officer Panos Panay said at the Wednesday event. "...[But] make no mistake. This product is a Surface." Even so, Wired writes that although Panoy "doesn't want you to call it a phone," there "is no doubt that this is a phone."

Whatever you want to call it, the Surface Duo is still a ways away, with Microsoft saying it will arrive holiday 2020.