The Surface Duo is a

dual-touchscreen A dual-touchscreen is a computer or phone display setup which uses two screens, either or both of which could be touch-capable, to display both elements of the computer's graphical user interface and virtualized implementations of common input dev ...

Android

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

manufactured by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

. Announced during a hardware-oriented event on October 2, 2019 and officially released on September 10, 2020, it is part of the

Microsoft Surface Microsoft Surface is a series of touchscreen-based personal computers, tablets and interactive whiteboards designed and developed by Microsoft, running the Microsoft Windows operating system, apart from the Surface Duo, which runs on Andro ...

series of touchscreen hardware devices, and the first device in the line that does not run

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

. It also marks Microsoft's first smartphone since the dissolution of

Microsoft Mobile Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft i ...

and the

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...

platform. The Surface Duo received mixed reviews, with critics praising its design and battery life, but mixed on its multitasking features, software quality, and believing that its hardware (including its RAM, camera, and wireless network support) was outdated and underpowered for its class. A successor, the Surface Duo 2, was unveiled in September 2021.

Specifications

Hardware

The Surface Duo is a

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

-styled device, with two 5.6-inch

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic LED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light i ...

displays with a 4:3 aspect ratio. When unfolded, they form an 8.1-inch surface with a 3:2 aspect ratio and total resolution of 2700×1800. The 360-degree hinge allows the device to be used in several "postures", including being fully unfolded as a flat surface, a landscape mode where the

virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form ...

occupies the entirety of the bottom screen, and the other screen folded backwards for single-screen use. It is compatible with Surface Pen styluses. It uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 system-on-chip with 6 GB of RAM. Microsoft stated that it worked with Qualcomm to optimize the device for multitasking. The device contains two batteries with a total capacity of 3577 mAh, which are split between the two halves. The Surface Duo is sold in models with 128 and 256 GB of non-expandable internal storage. The Surface Duo includes an 11-megapixel camera; nominally front-facing, it can be used like a rear-facing camera when the other screen is folded backwards. When unveiling the Surface Duo, Microsoft avoided referring to the device as being a "phone", with chief product officer Panos Panay primarily referring to it as a "Surface device"

Software

The Surface Duo ships with Android 10 and

Google Mobile Services Google Mobile Services (GMS) is a collection of proprietary applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) services from Google that are typically pre-installed on Android devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. GMS ...

, and is pre-loaded with both Google and Microsoft-developed apps. The two displays are designed to act like a

multi-monitor Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer sy ...

configuration on a PC; individual apps can be displayed across the displays, an app on one display can open external links on the other, and supported apps can display different views on each display. Microsoft stated that it would contribute the associated APIs for these features to the upstream Android Open Source Project (AOSP), so that this functionality could be leveraged by other dual-screen and

foldable smartphones A foldable smartphone (also known as a foldable phone or simply foldable) is a smartphone with a folding form factor. Some variants of the concept use multiple touchscreen panels on a hinge, while other designs utilise a flexible display. Conc ...

. Microsoft committed to upgrading the Surface Duo to Android 11 by the end of 2021. The update was released in February 2022. Android 12 L was released in October 2022, seven months after its release. Microsoft stated that the update would include visual elements of

Windows 11 Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 11 ...

and

Fluent Design System Fluent Design System (codenamed "Project Neon"), officially unveiled as Microsoft Fluent Design System, is a design language developed in 2017 by Microsoft. Fluent Design is a revamp of Microsoft Design Language (popularly known as "Metro") ...

Reception

''The Verge'' noted that the Surface Duo was thin and had a relatively light weight for its class, and observed that its design "encourages you to be intentional with your use of the device and to be intentional in not using it." It was felt that the dual-screen configuration of the Surface Duo made multitasking more natural and less "tacked on o Android than other devices, and that apps such as Amazon Kindle and Microsoft Outlook were well-optimized to the dual-screen setup. The camera was criticized for its placement on the device and its low quality (being described as akin to a

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...

and poor for a $300 phone, let alone one that cost $1,400), and the device was also panned for being underpowered for its class (including a lack of support for 5G and NFC, and an insufficient amount of RAM for a multitasking-oriented device), although noting that Microsoft had likely used the time since the 2019 announcement to optimize its software to the Snapdragon 855. In conclusion, it was felt that "there are more than a few glimmers of vision and potential in the Surface Duo", but that "the execution is bad in places, and a lot of people aren’t going to get what Microsoft is going for." Mary Jo Foley of ''ZDNet'' described the Duo's hardware as "premium and drool-worthy", and found it to be the first Surface-branded device that was able to fulfill Microsoft's promise of "all-day" battery life, but felt that its multitasking systems were not intuitive (drawing comparisons to

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

, which "assume users can easily figure out how to do basic things and errs on the side of providing too little information"). IFixit gave the Surface Duo a repairability score of 2/10, citing that although its displays and black glass "can be replaced without disassembling any other components", its construction contained extensive use of adhesive, and that its USB port was soldered directly to its mainboard.

Timeline

References