Microsoft adheres to a marketing ploy of persuading people buy its wares by creating brand new product categories, and with its newly introduced Lumia 950 and 950XL smartphones, it deviates from the script only a little.
Its Surface series of tablets featuring a desktop system and detachable keyboard are now starting to replace laptops among some consumers.
Perhaps inspired by this, its two latest smartphones come equipped with a modified version of Windows 10. In describing one of the new devices - but referring to both, Microsoft is billing it as “the phone that works like a PC”. But how legitimate is this bold claim?
The phones’ OS runs in a similar way to Windows Mobile. There is no star button or recycling bin on the screen, however, and they don’t run regular desktop software.
“You cannot just run an exe file on it,” said a Microsoft employee at its Hong Kong launch event on Thursday.
“You still need to download apps from the app store.”