Dual screen phone, all day battery, fast USB charging, and NEW FOR $400?? Sounds like a steal!
Well big asterisk.
Bought Mine a few months ago for $375 +tax/shipping. Watched countless reviews about it’s buggy, too expensive. But a lot of them ended up selling it and buying again when the price dropped.
Here’s my TLDR lowdown
Good:
- Battery life
- Side by Side apps. Copying something on one app and pasting on the other screen without having to close or switch apps. Just have them side by side.
- Sleek and satisfying closing it gives a great smooth “air rushing out perfectly” close (hard to explain)
- HDR OLED screens
- Fast charging
- nice control/integration with M$ “your phone” app.
- Often gets strangers being amazed and asking questions when I whip it out anywhere.
Meh
- (the big one) 1/5 times doesn’t know which screen is facing up when folded all the way. Super annoying when it happens but taking off the included bumper helps a bit.
- depends on your pockets, can be to wide.
- full screening across both screens like videos you obviously have the separation in the middle. ALTHOUGH, if you like gba emulators, you can have fullscreen on top and controls on bottom screen which is REALLY convenient to keep the controls off the game screen
- Loudspeaker only on the left screen. sounds decent but would prefer on both.
- no wireless charging.
- when you have two apps open, only one screen responds to touch. not both at the same time. Not bad just something I noticed.
Bad
- CAMERA. Quality is circa 2015. Pressing the camera shutter and it take a full almost 2 SECONDS to take the picture. that’s terrible. Luckily I don’t buy phones for the camera but still annoying. Surface duo 2 has a much better camera on front and back, but it hasn’t come down in price yet.
- Still on Android 10. Phone publications still say M$ promised 11 before the end of this year. Still nothing as of writing (Dec 24)
I understand why people hated it when it was released for the price at retail $1400 with all the bugs.
BUT
At $400 NEW or less with a possible update that fixes the bugs and hopefully the camera speed, I was in the market for something new, I was willing to try.
My take, do I like it? YES. it’s interesting. Don’t think you’ll fold it into “laptop mode” and type on it like a keyboard, doesn’t work given the size.
But I like playing emulators, or watching youtube on the top while scrolling through reddit.
So up to you. here is just what I noticed dailying a Surface Duo (1st gen) in 2021