Double screens will be a reality very soon. There are already dual-screen devices , such as Microsoft‘s Surface Neo, but it is not the only one and we have also seen mobile phones, tablets … It is becoming more common and therefore the operating systems are optimized and prepared for what is coming. This is how Windows 10x arrives, a version designed for dual-screen devices.
Although it is still not usual to see this type of device and although Windows 10x will be delayed according to the date originally planned , we already know what it will be like, what its main characteristics will be or what the one that will lead a great revolution in the operating system will bring as we know.
What is Windows 10x?
Windows 10x is not an extended version of Windows 10, as its own name can let us intuit. It is not an update to the operating system that we will receive on our computers after a few months and it will not replace the version that we know. It is not a replacement for the current system that we know for desktop, although it does have similarities. They are two different systems designed for two types of devices and that will coexist. It is a specific version for specific devices.
Specifically, it is the same operating system but with improvements and designed for dual-screen devices, with novelties, with new functions. It came in order to serve and be useful for devices with a double screen such as Microsoft’s Surface Neo and it is an expanded version of the one we know very well but with some new features for these screens.
According to Microsoft itself, “Windows 10x brings together the best of Windows 10 . “What we have done is take what we all know about the operating system, combining the familiar with innovation, to offer unique experiences on dual-screen devices.”
When will it arrive?
Windows 10X will be available from 2021 on double-screen and folding computers, although it was originally expected for the fall of 2020. Not only Microsoft brand computers but other brands such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS … According to the company, “the first wave of products will have Intel processors and will have different size, design and specifications”
For which devices?
It is a version for computers with a double screen or a flexible screen, but it will not reach these devices in the first place. Microsoft confirmed in mid-2020 that Windows 10x would be available for single-screen laptops in the first place. There is still time for dual-screen devices to become common and therefore Windows 10x will start to be used on normal computers very soon. Also, some of the 10x features are tested first on Windows 10.
It is not only intended for computers but for dual-screen tablets, laptops, folding, flexible screens or any device that works with a large touch screen and that can take advantage of its advantages and benefits.
News and changes
The interface changes in Windows 10x because it is a system designed for double screens, although it will remind us a lot of the tablet mode that we already have in Windows 10 and that improves the start menu or the sections.
Modes and displays
Starting from the base of Windows 10x as a version for Surface Neo, a device with two 9-inch screens attached, it is an interface in which we can run different applications on each of the screens to have greater control over multitasking. . But it also allows us to have a single application on both screens, intelligently expanded so that we can take even more advantage of it. It will also allow us to drag applications from one screen to another to use them together if we need to.
You can have apps open on one screen and take notes on the other , watch videos as you write, watch a series while composing an email, etc. In addition, to improve usability, you will have advanced support for touch pens and will have special gestures to work with the same app or with different ones.
They are expected to be five different modes:
- In book format with the two screens next to each other
- In laptot format like a normal laptop
- In tablet format
- In dual tablet format
- In tent format… Like a tent
Applications and wonderbar
The Start menu is minimalist and has been modified. The applications do not open as before, but will adjust to the screen as we open them. The use of the applications will be much more similar to that of operating systems on mobile phones such as iOS and Android.
There will also be a virtual trackpad or wonderbar, as Microsoft has called it. It is a kind of Toych Bar but it will give us greater accessibility and it will have direct access to emojis, for example. It will be in the free part of the screen when connecting a keyboard magnetically, as we can see in the images. It will help us as keyboard support and will give us direct access to emojis, GIFs …
