Microsoft’s smartphone history could have looked very different. Years before the Surface Duo arrived, and before Microsoft’s Nokia acquisition reshaped its mobile ambitions — the company was rumored to be developing a Windows Phone entirely of its own. That phone never made it into stores, but we may finally know what it looked like.
Newly published images, shared by a user on Discord and Telegram and first spotted by Windows Central, may have finally given us a look at that mysterious phone. The prototype reportedly dates back to 2013 or 2014 and may have been developed under the codename “Raven.” With its clean metal frame and unmistakable Microsoft styling, it looks right at home alongside the Surface hardware of that era. It also offers a fascinating glimpse at the Windows Phone Microsoft could have built before Nokia changed its plans.
This really does look like a Surface Phone
The prototype isn’t particularly striking by modern standards, but that’s part of what makes it interesting. It has a silver metal frame that closely resembles the finish Microsoft used on the Surface 2, along with a Microsoft logo sitting prominently on the back. There are dedicated navigation buttons beneath the 720p display, while an unknown Qualcomm processor is reportedly running things inside. The phone is also shown running an early development version of Windows Phone from September 2013, created while Microsoft was working toward what eventually became Windows Phone 8.1.
The rest of the hardware sounds very much like a smartphone from that era. Separate volume buttons and a camera shutter sat along the right edge, with the power button positioned on top. The bottom housed both a headphone jack and micro-USB connection, while the SIM card slot was located on the left. There’s no confirmation that Raven was destined to become a commercial Surface Phone. Microsoft almost certainly experimented with numerous prototypes around this time, and this could have been one of them. There’s another intriguing possibility, though. Microsoft was also reportedly exploring the idea of a “Skype Phone” around 2013 — a data-focused device that could lean on Skype for calls and messaging rather than conventional cellular services. Whether Raven had anything to do with that project remains unknown, but the timing certainly makes the idea interesting.
Microsoft’s phone story went another way
Whatever Microsoft had planned for Raven, its Nokia deal changed the equation. Microsoft announced its acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services business in 2013, with the transaction closing in 2014. Any plans for a separate Microsoft-designed Windows Phone may have become far less important once Lumia hardware was coming under the same roof. Microsoft continued releasing Windows phones afterward, including devices such as the Lumia 640, Lumia 950, Lumia 650, and Lumia 550. But the company gradually stepped away from Windows Phone, and by 2017, it was clear the platform was no longer a priority.
The company eventually returned to smartphones with the Surface Duo in 2020, but that was a very different beast: a dual-screen Android device rather than the traditional Windows-powered Surface Phone people had once imagined. That makes this mysterious prototype a particularly fun piece of Microsoft history. We’ll never know whether it could have saved Windows Phone, but after all these years, we finally have a glimpse of the Surface Phone that might have been.
