Weekly poll: Did Microsoft get the Surface Duo right?

Technically, the Microsoft Surface Duo was announced last October, but the company only shared detailed specs this week, when pre-orders for the foldable phone began. Now that we have the full picture, we can better judge whether the company has done it right when it returns to smartphones.

There’s no denying that the Surface Duo is an exciting tech – the two ultra-thin halves and 360-degree hinge let you tuck an 8.1-inch display in your pocket, while the company has adapted the user interface to deliver. unparalleled multitasking.

The hinge allows the Surface duo to work folded down so you only use one of the screens or sit alone on a table in a laptop-like layout. And while Samsung already has a few cool features for the latter mode on the Galaxy Z Flip, these are geared towards social media uses, while the Surface Duo focuses on productivity.

On the other hand, the starting price of $ 1,399 puts a lot of pressure on the Microsoft foldable. That quickly climbs to $ 1,599 if you go for the 256GB storage version and the Surface Pen. At this point, the Surface Duo will cost more than any other phone in the US except the Galaxy Fold, while offering only a Snapdragon 855 chipset and a bit of 6GB of RAM.

Of course, the 855 is no slouch, but it’s a generation (or three if you count the older versions) and not quite on par with its rivals. The LG V60 with its dual screen accessory costs $ 810 and while not quite as stylish, it has a much larger battery and the Snapdragon 865.

Speaking of the 3,577mAh battery, Microsoft promises that it will last all day, but we can’t imagine that will if you use both displays a lot. The 18W load is not particularly reassuring either at the time when we see the first 100W + solutions available on the market. We’ll have to wait for the reviews to see if things are as bad as they seem or if Microsoft has done some optimization magic and the Surface Duo is doing better than expected.

Then there is the single camera mounted above one of the screens. Not many people have a dedicated camera these days, and this one certainly doesn’t seem to do a great job for everyday shooting. Its sensor is smaller than the front camera imagers of most flagships, not to mention the major ones.

Another potential problem is the lack of 5G and the glasses that are too thick. While 5G coverage is still limited, expect future protection from a device in this price range. And speaking of the future, these glasses seem to come straight out of 2016 and stand in stark contrast to the overall sleek design.

But at the end of the day, this is a first-generation product and some imperfections are to be expected. The question is – is there enough innovation that you are ready to live with them? Or did Microsoft just not get what people wanted and deliver an unsaleable product?