Windows phone was the main focus at build last year but at the Build 2015 keynote this morning nearly forgot that Microsoft made phone. From demoing announcements on an iPhone to an iPad, a windows phone only made the cut during one particular demo.

Microsoft announces Continuum for phones - where almost any screen can deliver a PC experience. #Windows10 #Build2015 pic.twitter.com/5gCRIkY4T5

— Windows (@Windows) April 29, 2015

That short demo was enough to wow the crowd about Windows 10 for phones. We've already seen how continuum helps the Surface Pro go from tablet to a full fledged PC. Well continuum for windows 10 phones does exactly what the Surface Pro does with tablet mode.



With a few peripherals like your keyboard, mouse and monitor, devices will instantly be a fully functioning desktop. Don't expect to be running full win32 apps like Photoshop but simple less CPU intensive apps like office should run just fine.


All the magic is powered by the shared code and UI of universal applications on windows 10. When plugged in to a monitor, the phone will automatically sense that it's in desktop mode and will inturn launch the desktop version of that app opposed to showing the phone UI.
Con
However, Joe did mention on stage that this feature requires more horsepower and that current Lumias do not posses that yet. That is why the demo was actually just a simulation. This is definitely a hint that future windows 10 phones will have better hardware to support this feature and Microsoft might very well just market this as key feature on Windows 10.