A folding phone that unfolds like a book, into a tablet? Yes, please.
But from a design standpoint, I have issues with it. It’s thick, heavy, very narrow, and while its hinge could well be a technological marvel, it doesn’t actually feel that great to fold and unfold. There’s some resistance to it. Some occasional creaking.
Plus, that price… $1,800 is a bit steep, no? Then again, you’re getting the most powerful multitasking phone to date, with the most generous list of features – stylus support, a polished (and completely optional) desktop mode, multi-window app support, a fixed app dock…
But what if you were willing to make a few sacrifices? What if there was a phone with a much thinner and lighter design, that still unfolds into a tablet, and costs way, way less?
Well, there’s one phone I’ve been eyeing for a while, but due to its rocky launch and inflated initial price, I never got it. By all accounts it was very buggy and underwhelming in its initial days… and yeah – $1,400…
But that’s not really the case anymore, nearly 3 years down the road… Microsoft kept updating and updating this phone’s software, improving it, and now, it’s finally running Android 12L – the special edition for tablets and multi-screen devices!
The Surface Duo has improved a lot over the last three years, and even more importantly – its price dropped astronomically
How many flagship, dual-screen phones do you know, that went from $1,400 to just around $400 in such a short period of time? We can drop the “dual-screen” criteria and still struggle to find examples.
While iPhones retain their value for an absurdly long time, Microsoft’s gorgeous Surface Duo is now so affordable, that even calling it “a bargain” doesn’t seem to cover it.
So I pulled the trigger on a Surface Duo purchase recently, for the very fair price of just over $400.
The unique, classy, ultra-flat and minimalist form factor I’ve been looking for
I love flat phones, and I know a lot of you do too. Even if you hate Apple with a passion, you can’t deny its recent, flat iPhones are attractive. Heck, even the original iPhone SE from 2016 still looks good.With that in mind, the Surface Duo is flatness galore – it features two ultra-thin, flat screens, held together by a metal hinge.
We don’t have one folding display here, which are usually soft and plasticky. No, the Duo packs two separate screens, and they are covered with Gorilla Glass, and are as durable as you’d expect from any traditional glass-screen phone. And that hinge is incredible – sturdy, yet feels barely resistive.
Whichever way you yoga your phone – be it in “tent mode” or like a little laptop, or perhaps with one screen serving as a kickstand base – the two screens will stay the way you posed them reliably.
The back is glass too, glossy white color, and looks gorgeous. I immediately noticed that only the sides are made out of white plastic, including the volume and power keys. Sneaky, Microsoft. But it’s fine.
On the topic of the design, if you’re curious why I didn’t buy the Surface Duo 2, but the first one – simple – because only the first one is flat. You can open it fully until the two screens’ backs rest flat on each other without a camera bump messing things up.
Because yeah, the Duo 2 has an ugly camera bump, as a result of everyone pressuring Microsoft to use better cameras. I get why people were unhappy with the single camera that the Surface Duo has – it’s thin to fit in this form factor without creating a camera bump, and thus – it’s not exactly amazing.
But this was never a phone for selfie-taking social media influencers, it’s clearly for professionals, so I don’t believe Microsoft should’ve caved to the pressure and ruined the Duo 2’s flat-ness with a camera bump.
I’ve legit used this phone for weeks now and still haven’t taken a single selfie. Then again, maybe it’s just me. Anyway, there’s more to love for that sweet, sweet price of $400.
Solid glass screens, 4:3 aspect ratio, ‘member that one?
We’ve had this discussion in the comments section here on PhoneArena, so I know I’m not alone on this. A lot of you miss 4:3 phone screens – which basically means wider screens that can fit more content.
Especially when web browsing, reading, or watching videos – 4:3 just feels bigger and better to me, and thankfully, both of the Surface Duo’s screens are in that aspect ratio, as opposed to the widescreen aspect ratio that’s prevalent in virtually all phones nowadays.
As you’d expect, these are great screens for multitasking too! You can either unfold this phone like a book and fire up one app on one screen and another on the other, or you can expand a single app on both screens. Mind the hinge, though, because unlike a Galaxy Z Fold 4, here there actually is one, and it can cut into your content.
Both Surface Duo screens are OLED, sharp and beautiful to look at. They’re refreshing at 60Hz, which I know may not be enough for people used to flagship phones with 120Hz screens, but honestly, I’d rather take the longer battery life over sacrificing it for a (perceivably) slightly smoother interface. Speaking of which…
Either the battery life is fantastic (for such a thin device), or my iPhone 12 mini set some really low standards
So I switch between phones all the time, but one I stuck with the most over the last two years was an iPhone 12 mini. Yep, I flip-flop between phones that are either too huge or too tiny. It’s fun.Anyway, the iPhone 12 mini has what I can confidently call the worst battery life I’ve had on any flagship phone, and even worse – its battery degraded rather quickly to around 87%, so recently it’s been draining even faster. We’re talking 3-to-5 hours of use at best.
Meanwhile the Surface Duo, with its two big screens and ultra-thin design (so we can’t expect a big battery inside) easily lasts a day and extra. I guess I had very low expectations, but even so, I feel like this is quite impressive. For anyone curious, the Duo is powered by a 3577 mAh battery, which is actually not that bad, considering, again, how thin this thing is.
I thought having to close my phone would be a curse, turns out – it’s a blessing
Here’s an interesting one. By design you’re meant to close the Surface Duo like a book when you’re done using it, and there are no external screens or indicators to tell you when you get a notification, or anything like that.
Now, I actually keep it closed the “wrong way” around, with both screens on the outside, but having the option to close it and hide them turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Late at night, or during weekends, sometimes I just don’t want to be bothered by meaningless notifications or messages that can wait. Those pull me out of whatever I’m doing – be it enjoying a movie or working on a personal project.
As you can probably imagine – being able to close my phone and not see its screens – is now actually a feature in my opinion, not a drawback.
I know a lot of people want to detox from their phones, and the closest thing you can get to this is to just learn to leave it upside down, so its waking screen won’t bother you, but this is even better.
We have this primal urge to hold our phones and be near them now, so this is a way for me to not get sucked into it, while still keeping it close and reminding me that I’m not cut off from the world. Or whatever our brains are afraid of when our phones aren’t around, or go missing – things sure get crazy.
Oh, but don’t worry – there are still issues, and some can never be fixed
Speaker quality – what were you thinking, Microsoft?
The speaker quality. I can’t get over it. This phone has both a speaker and an earpiece too, but unlike any other modern phone, it doesn’t utilize both to create a stereo effect. You’re either hearing the earpiece during a call, or the speaker during everything else.And that mono speaker is tinny as all heck. Compare that to the Galaxy Z Fold 4, which I’ve said numerous times has the best stereo speakers on any phone right now – not only wide and crystal clear, but even bassy – and it’s night and day.
So that’s extremely disappointing for me. When I look at a device with two screens, I can’t help but think “media consumption would be awesome on this” but alas. While the screens look beautiful, the audio is lackluster at best, so consuming content never feels as good as it should’ve been.
Jelly scrolling – it’s not just on the iPad mini 6, kids!
Something else I’ve noticed, that I don’t believe many others have, is that there is a so-called jelly scrolling screen effect. Remember when the iPad mini 6 had it, how everyone raved about it, like it was the only device to exhibit jelly scrolling?
Nope, a lot of devices that I’ve used have it, and the Surface Duo is one of them.
It’s not a huge deal, though, and it’s only noticeable if you hold the phone in vertical orientation – the two screens don’t perfectly sync when you scroll up or down, and both exhibit ever so slight image distortion during scrolling.
But honestly, that’s just a bit of trivia for ya, because again – I notice this effect on many phones and tablets, it’s not a rare thing, and it’s not a dealbreaker either. Just mildly distracting.
Gestures work when they feel like it; screen is sometimes either too sensitive or not responsive at all
This one, however, is a pretty big dealbreaker. Coming from an iPhone, I’ve become accustomed to gestures “just” working, and everything being responsive.
However, sometimes you’ll fingerprint-unlock the phone (which itself is a bit too slow) and the screens will just be frozen and unresponsive to your touches. Great!
Other times it’s the exact opposite, I’ll be scrolling through Instagram, brush my finger to the screen the wrong way, and something crazy will happen – either I’ll shoot a message or start sharing a post without meaning to, or like a random ad; who knows?
That’s the beauty of ultra-sensitive phone screens – you can never feel secure about your social media app usage; you never know what might happen on accident.
The screen orientation either has a mind of its own, or no mind at all
One of the many cool things about this phone is that if you flip it around vertically, the bottom screen becomes a big and comfortable keyboard, which won’t obstruct whatever app you’re running, like it normally happens on single-screen phones.
However, flipping the phone around won’t be enough for the orientation to catch up, most of the time. I’ve learned that when the screen rotation doesn’t work, you have to gently turn the phone in the orientation that it thinks it’s in, and then try to rotate it again to the orientation you wish it was in.
Oh, yes, prepare to be entertaining for everyone who’s looking at you from a distance.
It doesn’t help that too often when I unlock the phone it’s changed its orientation to one that doesn’t even make sense relative to how the phone was sitting, making me go through this song and dance all the time.
But hey, I’d like to hear your thoughts…
What do you think about the Surface Duo today – steal or bust?
So yeah, despite those gripes, I stand behind all the things I said – I consider this phone-slash-tablet an absolute steal for its current price. And after all of Microsoft’s software updates – its user experience isn’t nearly as bad as it was at launch. It’s almost reached its full potential.With two big, 4:3 OLED screens, good performance, great battery life, and superb multitasking potential, combined with what I’d argue is the most beautiful, thin, light, flat smartphone design – it’s crazy that the Surface Duo only costs around $400 now.
It only goes to show you that how we perceive value is what really matters, not so much the actual value. I won’t point fingers and name drop expensive flagship phones, arguing they can do much less than the Duo, and don’t stand nearly as original, nor spark this level of excitement, yet have a pretty high price… But yeah…
Let me know what you think about Microsoft’s Surface Duo. Are you surprised Microsoft didn’t give up on it, like it did with the good ol’ Lumia phones, but it actually keeps updating it, and may even release a Surface Duo 3 soon?
Or do you believe it’ll give up on it too, because clearly – this dual-screen phone isn’t getting the love and attention it deserves?
