Product reviews are weird in 2020 and no device I've seen this year has been stranger than this Microsoft Surface Duo. Microsoft's return to phones comes in the form of a foldable, dual-screen, hinged Android device that looks like two tiny iPads connected to each other. The two 5.6-inch OLED screens form an 8.1-inch display connected by a unique hinge that Microsoft has said has been in the works for years. It's 9.9 millimeters thick when closed, 4.8 mm when opened, weighs 250 grams, and costs $ 1,399 for the starting configuration with 128 GB of storage. Microsoft has started pre-orders and will ship them on September 10th. International pricing is not yet available, but $ 1,399 will convert to £ 1,070 or AU $ 1,960.
Continue reading: Unzip Microsoft Surface Duo: The dual-screen phone offers the following
I was skeptical of dual-screen devices and wasn't sure how to use the Surface Duo. Wannabe version from Samsung possibly even more expensive Galaxy Z Fold 2? ((This is how the Surface Duo compares with the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Motorola Razr.) Weird tiny dual-screened version of the Microsoft Surface Tablet? A bit more?
In a small white box in front of me is a device that looks like a small book. The Microsoft Windows logo is embossed on the top. I open it up and bend it a couple of times. I feel like I have a small Moleskine notebook made of glass and metal in my hand. Within? No ads. Only switching through glass. This is not a working version of the Microsoft Surface Duo will be revealed today. This is a special clear prototype that was sent to me in advance so I can see the circuits and feel how the hinge works.
I haven't had a chance to use an actual working device yet. Instead, I got this specially made, see-through prototype. Kind of ridiculous. And yet, even holding it, I'm already falling in love with the feel of the thing.
This feeling isn't new.
I've been wrong on dual-screen devices before
Back in 2004, I remember opening up an absurd two-screen device that I felt was sure to fail. It had a stylus. It promised twice the viewing area for whole new experiences. I thought it was insane. It was the Nintendo DS, and I soon realized it was a lot more amazing than I expected.
I think about that Nintendo DS whenever I see a product with dual screens or folding screens. But I think about it the most when holding a nonworking shell of the Surface Duo for the first time. I've seen the Galaxy Fold, and the Moto Razr, and all the other dual-screen laptops and tablets that seem to be sprouting up like weeds. The Duo seems a lot more like a Nintendo DS or some sort of magic Moleskine. It's tiny. But not that tiny. It depends on whether you're perceiving it as a tablet, a phone or a funky digital book.
Microsoft promised to reinvent the idea of dual-screen computing with the Surface Duo and Neo a year ago. The Surface Neo, which will boast two 9-inch screens, has been delayed until 2021. But the Duo is arriving in a few weeks, sooner than expected, maybe right alongside Samsung's new Galaxy Fold update, in the middle of a pandemic year where everyone's budget has collapsed and their need for gadgets has become a lot more practical.
The Duo is a phone, but Microsoft clearly doesn't want to call it a phone. Maybe what Panos Panay, head of Microsoft's devices business, told me and CNET editor Ian Sherr last week will turn out to be true. Maybe it really is a new device category.
Skeptical? Heck yes
I told my kids I was going to review a dual-screened, phone-slash-tablet thing from Microsoft. My oldest son looked at the folding nonworking device and said, "That's weird." But my youngest son was totally into it. "Whoa, does that mean you can play two games at the same time?"
My oldest son says his younger brother is an optimist while he's more of a realist. It's also interesting to hear how two kids who never saw a dual-screen thing besides the Nintendo 3DS react to the idea in the first place.
Microsoft's goal, here, is clearly to make the whole idea make sense from a multitasking perspective, helping to solve problems on phones that are already overburdened. I'll say this much: Being stuck at home on infinite Zooms while trying to work has made me more aware of the need for multidisplays than ever before.
Here's what Microsoft's proposition could mean for transforming the foldable device space - a space that clearly hasn't taken hold yet, but which Google, Microsoft and a lot of other companies are trying to compete in, using physical folding devices and even wearable virtual ones. Will an extra screen solve Microsoft's phone problems, or will it evolve phones into something many people might not even need? Or is Microsoft's work on functioning, practical dual-screen apps the sort of necessary work these devices needed in the first place?
2 screens: Are they better than 1?
"As it turns out, it might feel familiar, because there's this thing, it's called Windows," Panay says about using the two-screened Duo. "The idea where I can now formally put two windows next to each other." That's what the Duo experience should be, according to Panay: familiar, not strange. Or that's the hope.
Of course, the Surface Duo is running Google's Android software, not Windows.
I listen to this over a Microsoft Teams interview done remotely, where I also get a tour of a showroom inside Microsoft's Building 87 - the same building where the Microsoft HoloLens was developed, and which I visited in person a year ago.
Microsoft's Duo team operates from research that says two screens are more productive than one, so Microsoft treats the dual screens like a portable pair of monitors. But that's been the pitch we've heard from every other dual-screen phone- and tablet-maker. Microsoft's angle is aiming to get those screens looking as work-friendly as possible, and make the whole thing feel easy and comfortable to use. The displays are separate rather than folding. That's to allow for more durable glass and to work with Microsoft Pen without denting the screen, according to Microsoft Technical Fellow Steven Bathiche.
The 4:3 aspect ratio on the two 5.6-inch OLED displays is meant to handle the work-friendly part. The idea is to make web pages and documents look readable without weird reformatting, and compare to the same work being done on a laptop or tablet.
The two 5.6-inch displays combine for an effective 8.1 inches - I say effective because those two displays are still split by a little seam in the middle. Panay says that size is amazing for web browsing, but the clear seam in the middle means it won't be ideal for big videos, necessarily. For that reason, viewing big movies isn't part of Microsoft's Duo pitch, although looking at videos on one screen while doing something on the other definitely is.
One thing I find interesting about Duo is that it can stand up easily at a ton of angles: At least, the nonworking model I held in my hands does. It feels like a device I might use to watch something on in one screen and take notes on in another. Again, kind of 3DS-like. But that really depends whether the final product feels useful or awkward.
Apps will work, but not all be dual-screen optimized
Microsoft's core productivity apps - including Outlook, Word and OneNote - work in dual-display modes and can recognize each other to allow information to be easily thrown between apps. That's similar to the sort of drag-and-drop ideas that are being worked into the iPad's dual-app multitasking modes. But other Android apps won't immediately get that extra level of detail.
Google's core apps, which include Gmail and Drive, will hopefully be optimized for the Duo soon, but it's unclear when. A few other third party apps are being courted to make Duo-optimized dual-screen Android versions, most notably Amazon's Kindle app, which will have two-page reading. "The reading experience is crazy," Panay boasts. "It's like picking up a book - you turn a page, it goes from the right to the left, and you just fall into it. You fall in love."
How many others app-makers will come aboard? That's the challenge with a new form and an operating system Microsoft didn't even create. The Duo, running Android 10, is a sort of living concept car for future dual-screen apps and devices.
The dual-screen ideas and the way Microsoft handles them in apps will influence where the Surface Neo goes next year. And it may affect what future devices choose to focus on, too. "When we construct those [dual-screen] We don't just want APIs for developers on Duo, "says Panay." If dual screens are also available on collapsible screens, these APIs are intended to flow into Android so that developers can build for any dual screen phone. "
However, it is unclear whether Google's plans for dual-screen devices will sync with Microsoft's, or whether this is a temporary connection of convenience before the relatively small group of dual-screen and folding phones potentially expands on a larger scale over the next year.
"I can't tell you what Google is working on," adds Panay. "But I think if companies want to use dual-screen capabilities or make progress, we'll lay the foundations for application expansion and rotation to the right." Way to span these screens to use both screens. "
No. 5G, large bezels: sacrifice to get up to size
I also get a clear message from Microsoft that size is everything for the Surface Duo. In order to bring the duo into a comfortable and compact form, some functions had to be left out. There's no 5G or Wi-Fi 6 because, according to Pavan Davaluri, a 16-year-old Microsoft veteran and surface engineer we spoke to, the battery power isn't currently available for the size of the duo. "There are some basic things in 5G that would need to be brought to life to fit into a 4.8mm design," says Davaluri. "This type of technology does not yet exist. We are actively working on it."
Likewise, the larger bezels on the top and bottom of the Surface Duo displays, which are clearly not as borderless as other phones, don't seem ideal. It's less screen real estate for the size. Davaluri admits that this was part of a compromise to get the duo's battery and components into such a thin design. Microsoft focused on display quality, hinge mechanisms, device size, and battery life over frames and 5G. "Bezel optimization and 5G on a large scale, for example, are solvable problems in my opinion," adds Davaluri.
The Surface Duo feels really thin. The non-working device I was holding in my hand is thinner than an iPhone 11 Pro (8.1mm) when opened. It's thicker closed, but it doesn't feel nearly as bulky as a folded Samsung Galaxy Fold, which is 17.1mm thick when closed. And it doesn't feel like two phones are glued together either. It is more like a book in its dimensions.
The all-glass front and back of the Duo look sharp, but the design was chosen to improve antenna reception. Will the duo be durable enough? The device uses Corning's Gorilla Glass 5 everywhere, but Microsoft wouldn't make any claims about the reliability of drop tests. As for the sleek, sturdy double hinges, it is expected that we would expect "years" of use, but not a certain number of folds to survive. "The Surface Duo hinge has been designed and tested to work well beyond the life of the product," promises Microsoft.
Better to be good and better last because a device like this isn't cheap. Starting at $ 1,399, it's not far from other premium phones - and at $ 2,000, it's more accessible than the Galaxy Fold. But it's a lot of money in a world where you can also buy a phone and laptop for a lot less.
2 screens but only 1 camera
The Surface Duo doesn't seem to be about its camera, which is a surprise when almost every other phone does lots of them. Inside is a single 11 megapixel camera that can become an external camera if the duo displays are flipped over. The f2.0 camera has some AI and a portrait mode and can record 4K video at 30 and 60 frames per second with HDR and slow motion video. It lacks optical image stabilization, nor any of the other zoom and focus features you find in other phones.
I don't know what the camera will look like, but Microsoft is clearly downplaying it as a core feature of the Surface Duo. And in a world more camera-focused than ever, that seems like an odd timing.
A specific tool in the toolbox
Microsoft is not striving for a one-gadget approach that does everything. Instead, it suggests that this is a device that may work for some, but not necessarily for everyone. The idea of specialized devices is not new: our lives are already flooded with intelligent speakers, smartwatches, modular game consoles and tablets that often slide back and forth between cell phones and laptops.
Panay seemed reluctant to label the duo as a new category of device because it really isn't. It's an Android phone. Or a pill. "It's really been five years of invention ... we just think there's a new category here," adds Panay.
However, Microsoft's argument makes sense, especially as a software developer who lives between devices from iPads to game consoles to VR headsets. With the Surface Duo, I remember the first wearables before smartwatches became a thing, or the first smartphones before the iPhone or early VR headsets before Oculus. Dual-screen devices still need to pin their identity.
I also wonder: In a world where screens through VR and AR headsets and glasses (or televisions and displays that can be seamlessly synced to your phone) can be anywhere and increasingly virtual, what is the purpose of a pocket device with two screens?
Steven Bathiche, a Microsoft Technical Fellow who leads the Applied Sciences Group, has a broader view of where devices like Surface Duo fit. "Everything is best for one thing and worst for something else," he told me from what looked like his home.
"I see a world where we have more and more fundamentally specialized tools that you can use to get things done," says Bathiche. "But they are connected through software and via the cloud so that they feel like they are working as a unit."
For a company that also uses expensive professional tools like Microsoft's $ 3,500 HoloLens headset with mixed realityIt's unclear which customers will be the first to pick up a Surface Duo. However, as a concept car that you can use to test apps and build a road that other devices will follow, it makes perfect sense. I just don't know yet if I want to jump on board.
