We shared an exclusive tip via our sources with you that says Microsoft is preparing Surface Phone / Lumia Flagship aimed at early 2017 (Spring) and probably powered by yet to announced Snapdragon 830. It is also interesting to note that Snapdragon 830 aka MSM8998 saw its first official sort of leak from Microsoft’s Hardware specifications page and we were the first to report it yet again. Later Microsoft removed reference of Snapdragon 830 from its page (further confirming its existence) but you can still check the original screenshot here.
Now, Intel’s latest move to cancel its future Smartphone SOC plans may reveal why Microsoft has to go for Snapdragon 830 instead of earlier plans of a X86 processor from Intel for its flagship Surface Phone. In a statement provided to AnandTech, Intel has confirmed this news.
I can confirm that the changes included canceling the Broxton platform as well as SoFIA 3GX, SoFIA LTE and SoFIA LTE2 commercial platforms to enable us to move resources to products that deliver higher returns and advance our strategy. These changes are effective immediately.
Snapdragon 830 is going to be a powerful processor and will support up to 8 GB of RAM. This also explains why Microsoft focused on finding a way to run Win32 apps using Continuum as demoed during Build 2016.
