There has been a recent uptick in stories about a phone that went on sale in September 2020, which seems a little strange until you realize the phone in question is more than a little strange. The phone is the Microsoft Surface Duo and I was one of those silly people who purchased it on day one.
The Duo was first shown at an MS Surface Event in October 2019, almost a full year before it went on sale. I was immediately enamored by the products Panos Panay, the MS executive overseeing the Surface Product line, was showing. This included the Surface Pro X (which I bought and still use), the Surface Neo (a product that now will never see the light of day, demonstrating an the Windows 10X operating system which also will never see the light of day), and the Surface Duo, our subject for today.
The Duo is built around the concept that two screens are better than one, no matter how large that one screen may be. If your computer setup utilizes more than one screen, you already have a clear idea as to why. As Panay stated during his presentation, the human brain lights up differently when working with two screens. It’s why so many professional computer setups have multiple monitors (two is just the beginning) rather than one ginormous display. It’s why you see laptop external docks, to allow connection to more than one screen. It’s at least in part why people are so pissed off at the new Apple M1 iPad Pro and iPadOS 15 which still doesn’t support multiple screens (and I’ll have more to say about that fiasco on another day).
When you first pick up the Duo, it seems impossibly thin, especially when you open it up. The experience of opening is smooth, the tactile sensations are superb. You are handling a unique device and it feels like it.
And then you try and use it.
At first, all seems well. Mine needed several updates before I could actually get to it. Even with all that, it had issues that right off drove me to distraction. Chief among them is that it always feels buggy. There’s a persistent feeling that you’re never quite sure how it will respond to touches and gestures. There’s a clear way it’s supposed to behave and then there’s the way it actually behaves. Part of this is probably because of the hardware, the digitizer; the bulk is in the software and the changes MS made to Launcher for the Duo.
MS Launcher has been available for Android for a while now and it’s a competent product. It offers a great deal of customization and a useful layout. It’s also just pleasant to look at and use. I stick with OneUI on my Samsung phone, but MS Launcher 6 is my alternate pick.
Not quite all of that disappears with the Duo. Customization is nil and gestures are changed or eliminated. It’s often simple things. On other Android phones, Launcher allows you to swipe down from anywhere on the screen to bring down the notification shade; Launcher on the Duo doesn’t do this and I’m at a loss to understand why. This is how I set up each and every Android device I’ve ever had, from the moment the feature became available, and here’s a “premium” Android device that says, “Nope, not here, buddy.”
On Android, you swipe up from the bottom and hold to bring up a display of recently used apps. On the Duo it’s a 50/50 proposition as to whether that will happen or it will open the app drawer instead. You then can’t tap on the other screen to close the drawer, you must swipe it down and try again. And then you try again and the app drawer comes up again, only this time it jumps to the other screen. On and on, it’s a continuous parade of little glitches that interfere with any attempt to use or enjoy the Duo.
On the Duo, Launcher is also shockingly ugly. The aesthetics are terrible. The fonts are ugh, the boxes are even more so. It’s all rather beautiful on any other Android device, but on MS’s own flagship it looks like crap.
This is tremendously frustrating because when get around all of the glitches, when it behaves precisely how it’s supposed to, it’s a marvelous device. The bezels may be large, but the screens are crisp and clean. When you use an app that understands how to span the two displays, it’s a marvel. You can create app pairs, a shortcut that opens two apps at once, one on each display. So with a single tap you can see both your email and calendar. Wonderful!
If you just need to plow through your email, you can span Outlook across both screens. Now your mail list sits on the left, an open email on the right. I cannot overstate how much faster this makes going through the morning email dump. On a desktop or laptop or even a tablet, it’s pretty straight-forward. On your phone, it’s a mess. On the Duo it’s a breeze.
This is key to having any degree of an enjoyable experience with the Duo. The productivity apps you use must be dual-screen aware, able to span the displays correctly. Most MS apps do; Outlook does, the Echo browser does not. Many of the reviews I read were about these issues. Trying to use the Gmail app across two screens is horrible; using Outlook is wonderful.
MS worked with Google to adapt its single-screen OS to a dual screen device. Many of the changes are now baked into Android 11 (and, presumably, 12). But this, of course, brings up my greatest frustration: The Duo is still running Android 10 and all the patches required to even begin to make it “work” properly. At the time it went on sale, Android 11 was getting ready to roll out and MS stated it would be ready for the Duo almost immediately. Indeed, they promised years of OS updates for the Duo.
It’s June 2021, Android 12 Beta 2 is now out, Android 11 is everywhere, and the Duo remains with Android 10. 11 has (had?) the promise of fixing many of my complaints. This is the month it’s supposed to roll out to Duo devices. So far, nothing.
The Duo also shipped with an obsolete chip because of space restrictions colliding with Qualcomm requirements. Qualcomm required that Snapdragon 865 buyers also purchase and install their 5G radio. There wasn’t room to put both in the Duo, so it ended up with the outgoing Snapdragon 855.
This was all to run a last-generation OS that only functions with a bevy of custom patches. The end result is that the Duo feels like an early beta product that is not ready for primetime. My daily phone remains a Samsung device, currently the S21 Ultra. My Duo gets a backup SIM and remains an awesome device for plowing through emails and updating my calendar for the few times I’m on the road. At home, it sits in a drawer, waiting for that promised update to Android 11.
Everyone is writing a review or revisiting the Duo because the rumor mill is alive with talk of a forthcoming Duo 2. At its core, this device will utilize the Snapdragon 888, which has the 5G radio built into the System on Chip rather than as a separate component. Presumably the Duo 2 will at last run Android 11…just as Android 12 begins rolling out.
My experience with the Duo has made me wary of what MS promises versus what they deliver, but I’m still a serious fan of the dual screen concept. I prefer it over a simply larger display, a la the Samsung Z Fold. And I love the hardware design so much that I’m dismayed by the rumor of a camera bump that may come with the Duo 2. I cannot stress how much this will ruin the tactile use and feel of the Duo.
For me, this was a costly experiment. You can opt to play with one now at a significantly cheaper price. With all my reservations intact, I’m still looking forward to what Microsoft produces with the Duo 2, including, hopefully, a better name.
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