The Surface Duo made quite a splash at launch, and then the reviewers got their hands on the device. The shortcomings in the software were immediately evident, and it all went downhill from there, culminating in fire sale pricing for certain models. It’s really too bad, as the hardware was pretty good (not perfect, certainly). I initially bought a device at launch with some significant trade-in incentives, but sold the phone 2 months after owning it. It was just too buggy to rely on as a primary device, and I couldn’t see the point of it as a secondary device when the software was so frustrating.
That brings us to today. I picked up an AT&T locked model on woot.com for $175. I suspect there was some pricing error somewhere, but I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. For $175, it was certainly worth picking up again to see what progress the software had made in the intervening 18 months. So, I gave Amazon/Woot my money and 3 days later, my second shot at this device arrived at my door.
The first impressions were much the same the second go-round: the device is strikingly thin and absolutely gorgeous.
Is it a phone or a tablet?
I don’t think it’s a phone or a tablet, at least not in the sense we traditionally think of those things. It’s both and neither. It’s its own category of device. It can make calls, but that’s not really what it’s best at. It’s used differently than either of those things. It’s not as big as an iPad mini, but when unfolded it’s not far off. Spotify recognizes it as a tablet, presumably due to the width of the screen(s).
During this time, I had picked up a Samsung Galaxy S22 to use as my daily driver. When I wanted a quick glance at a notification, I would pick up my the S22. For everything else, I’d use the Duo. This worked rather well in practice, as I could read a book at a brewery on the Duo, but check directions to said brewery on the smaller S22.
This quick glance functionality need not be something like an S22. The same functionality could be replicated with any smaller phone (Pixel 4a, iPhone, etc.) I also wonder if a good Google smartwatch would help with glance-able information like that. Currently, I’m actually using an iPhone 12 Mini as my secondary device for pictures and to run an Apple Watch SE.
If it’s not a phone or a tablet, what’s it for?
Having two screens forces you to think similar to having two screens attached to your desktop compared to one large screen. This forces you to think about multitasking fundamentally differently than you would on say an iPad mini, or even on a Samsung Galaxy Fold. I’ve not used the multi-window implementation on the Fold, but I haven’t seen one yet on Android that felt intuitive. Apple’s multi-window also takes too much learning to get right, and it feels more limited in what it shows you compared to having two apps open on the Duo.
When I started using this as my primary device, I struggled to think of scenarios in which running two apps side by side would be useful. However, two apps at once is rare, but not *that* rare when you consider messaging apps. I found having a content app on one screen like Kindle, YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, etc. plus being able to chat between Telegram, Signal, Discord, etc. on the other is actually quite useful.
It also makes a handy companion for things like Elden Ring where you need to keep track of what you’re doing while constantly looking up locations of stuff (assuming you’re trying to clean up the last bits of an area, not explore a new one).
The Hardware
The most striking feature of the Duo is its thinness: each side being 4mm makes the overall profile very small. This has the drawback of making it feel fragile at times. A skin on the back does wonders for slipperiness and makes it feel less like I’m going to break it whenever I put it down. I’m somehow more aware that what I’m handling is a glass sandwich with very thin pieces of glass. Very unlike a normal “candy bar” style phone, which typically feels solid and thick and resilient.
Yes, it has large forehead and chin bezels, but I don’t really notice them in practice. Would I like them to be minimized? Hell yes. I believe the bezels are a concession for thinness, and I think that’s more important for this device.
I cannot speak enough about how satisfying the device is to fold and unfold though. It’s just plain fun to use! The hinge is great (even if it seems to be getting slightly crunchier over time), and it just feels nice to open and close.
Admittedly, adding the skin made me cautious about folding it all the way around so I was looking at one screen. The tolerances for the device are such that if you do fold it all the way back with a skin on it, you’re putting a little extra stress on the chassis due to the thickness of the skin. I solved it by never folding it 100% of the way back, but others have used the included(!) bumper to alleviate that concern.
Miscellaneous hardware feature impressions
- The single speaker is tinny and limits the screen you “want” to use to the left one in one-handed mode. This is workable since you can select which screen you want to use when folded in the settings, but the speaker is still terrible quality.
- The screens are high enough PPI that I can’t make out any odd rendering, and they’re color matched to each other well enough that I’ve never noticed a difference in white point between the two. I also don’t notice any viewing angle instability on either screen.
- The vibration motor is just garbage. It doesn’t ever feel nice. It causes the phone to vibrate annoyingly on a desk and also feels bad in the hand when getting notifications or when you have haptic feedback turned on. On a $1400 device, I find that probably the most unacceptable part of the Duo. The camera you can maybe say is a sacrifice to thinness that needs better image processing to even be usable, but the vibration motor makes the device feel cheaper than it should.
- The camera is awful, full stop. It does what it can, and things like Gcam (a port of Google’s Pixel camera app for other devices) certainly help, but you cannot overcome the lack of capability of the sensor. This was 100% a sacrifice to thinness, which I understand. Gcam takes much better photos than the stock camera app, which somehow tends to wash out photos — even in full sunlight. I wouldn’t ever use the camera for anything more than a video call; at most, I could see using it for a quick selfie if you have the Duo in hand and open already.
The Software
At launch, the software was a buggy, unreliable mess that prevented me from enjoying the hardware. It’s what forced me to sell the original Duo I bought. However, the February 2022 patch has made the gestures and general OS significantly more reliable — to the point where I’m more willing to use it as my primary device. I used it as essentially my primary device while traveling for a wedding, with the exception of quick notification checking and photos.
Multitasking
The multitasking interface is strange. Having two devices open is great, but accessing recently used apps as you would on a normal android phone is much clunkier. This is because the normal swipe gestures that move between the most recently opened apps in chronological order, are used on the Duo for sliding apps between screens. I use these constantly on Android and iOS, so losing them was rather annoying. I can make do now with having to swipe up from the bottom and hold to access my open apps, but it feels less fluid than it does on other devices.
That said, moving apps between screens works great, assuming you can quickly access your apps from the home screen. It’s kind of fun to flick apps between the screens. Spanning apps isn’t particularly useful, even with something like Kindle; I prefer to keep Kindle to one screen and use the other for messaging or just fold it back.
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
Not all the bugs have been squashed. Some apps still behave a little oddly. The most notable is Telegram, which tends to freeze and become unresponsive when I tap a message notification, requiring me to manually close the app from the multitasking menu. This is also an issue on the Duo 2 (review coming soon!), so it seems there’s something inherently wrong with how Telegram and Microsoft’s customizations to Android work together (or don’t work together I guess).
Additionally, It periodically has issues detecting which screens should be on. Sometimes you want both on, but it gets confused and turns one off. Opening and closing the device seems to fix that most of the time. Similarly, it’s not 100% perfect at detecting which screen you want on in its folded mode. This is a bit better with the latest updates, which allow you to choose the left or right to be on when in folded mode. That’s less fun than it auto-detecting which should be on, but at least it fixes that problem.
Apps
Android really wasn’t built to handle the screen size of this device. Its aspect ratio and size combine to make it a frustrating thing to use in certain apps such as Spotify and Instagram. The edge-rejection touch handling makes some of the touch targets in Spotify super frustrating, and Instagram stories are zoomed in such that the top and bottom are chopped off.
Some apps give you a more tab let-y view, which can be nice. Spotify auto-detects the device as a tablet, which is actually nice as it gives you a more information dense layout. The Messages app gives you the tablet view, but it doesn’t do a great job of showing useful views on a screen so small.
Instagram in particular is really horridly coded for this device. When you create a story, Instagram lets you compose it in the long, skinny format typical of today’s smartphones (about 18:9 if I had to guess), and when you review your own stories, you see them zoomed out with dead space on the sides. However, when you view someone else’s story, the top and bottom are chopped off. This is not a great user experience, and Instagram should at least give you the option for which view you would prefer, but they don’t. They’re very clearly capable of providing both; they’ve just chosen not to.
Conclusions
With the February 2022 update, I do think it could be my primary device. It’s stopped getting in its way enough that I could use it as my phone. There are some UI lags every so often that makes my Galaxy S22 feel noticeably smoother still.
Day to Day Use
The most consistent things that bugged my about the phone were:
- The too-wide aspect ratio – Android apps don’t like this ratio.
- The complete inability to snap a quick photo.
- The perceived fragility – deservedly or not.
- The single speaker that sounded awful
However, when I took it as my primary device on a trip, It did amazingly well, and it’s my new favorite travel device. The ability to run a messaging app alongside looking up where to go next is incredible, and it was great in the airport and on planes due to how (relatively) small it gets when folded. It’s really too bad that comes with the caveat of “but you have to take another device to take pictures on your travels.” Or maybe I can just get my husband to take all the pictures when we travel.
Additionally, a *good* Android Wear smartwatch would improve the glanceable information situation enough that the only shortcoming would be the camera. But one of those doesn’t exist yet. I’d like to try the Galaxy Watch 4, but I also don’t want to use Samsung’s apps to make that work. Hopefully the Pixel Watch is worth using when it launches this fall.
It’s Still One of My Favorite Devices
The Surface Duo had amazing promise and honestly is a really fun piece of kit, but I don’t think it’s cool enough to justify the $400+ in 2022. Switching to the Surface Duo 2 really showed what could be accomplished with some minor tweaks to the formula. Stay tuned for an article comparing the two in detail. if you want to get your feet wet, maybe pick up a Duo if you can find it for <$300, but with the Duo 2 going on sale with trade-in incentives at Microsoft and Best Buy, I would 100% opt for that phone if you can swing it.
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