Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Vastly improved and still flawed
Our Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Duo 2 offers meliorate performance and cameras than the original. Just foldable devices like Samsung's Milky way Z Fold 3 offer a meliorate full-screen experience than this dual-screen device.
For
- Large boosts to processor and cameras from the starting time Surface Duo
- Optimized apps take advantage of both screens
- Elegant design
- Thin body
Against
- More expensive than first Surface Duo
- Total-screen experience marred by split brandish panels
- Photographic camera bump juts out from phone
- Prominent bezels
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Duo 2 offers better performance and cameras than the original. Just foldable devices like Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 3 offer a improve full-screen experience than this dual-screen device.
Pros
- +
Large boosts to processor and cameras from the first Surface Duo
- +
Optimized apps have reward of both screens
- +
Elegant design
- +
Thin trunk
Cons
- -
More than expensive than first Surface Duo
- -
Total-screen experience marred past separate brandish panels
- -
Photographic camera bump juts out from telephone
- -
Prominent bezels
Microsoft Surface Duo two specs
Starting price: $1,499
Screen size: Dual 5.iii-inch AMOLED (1344x1892) with 8.3-inch full-screen style (2688x1892)
Refresh rate: 90Hz adaptive
CPU: Snapdragon 888
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 128GB | 256 GB | 512GB
Rear photographic camera: 12MP wide (f/1.seven); 16MP ultrawide (f/two.2); 12MP telephoto (f/ii.4)with 2x optical zoom
Front camera: 12MP (f/2.0)
Bombardment size: 4449 mAh
Size: five.7 10 3.six x 0.43 inches (closed): 5.7 x 7.three x 0.21 inches (open)
Weight: x ounces
The Microsoft Surface Duo 2 looks to correct some of the original dual-screen device'south wrongs past modernizing some of the phone's specs. Gone is the aging processor, replaced by a electric current Snapdragon 888. There's 5G connectivity, besides, and multiple cameras this fourth dimension around instead of a single lens that pulled double duty for both selfies and sweeping vistas.
These changes at least get the Surface Duo 2 in the same ballpark every bit other flagships, though some of Microsoft'southward design decisions keep information technology from competing with the best foldable phones from Samsung. At that place's also the lingering fence over who actually needs a phone with expandable screens and whether Microsoft's arroyo is the way to go. This Microsoft Surface Duo two review looks at how this latest phone tackles those questions.
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Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Price and release date
The Microsoft Surface Duo 2 goes on sale Oct. 21, with a starting price of $1,499 for the 128GB model. Upgrading to 256GB of storage costs y'all an additional $100, and in that location's a $1,799 512GB version that's listed as out-of-stock at Microsoft as of this writing.
To put the Surface Duo 2's cost in context, it's $300 cheaper than the starting price of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, merely $500 more than than Samsung's other flip telephone, the Galaxy Z Flip 3. The Flip was the first foldable phone to cost less than $ane,000, and the Surface's toll proves that dual- and flexible-screen devices remain a premium detail.
We haven't heard which phone carriers will be offering the Surface Duo 2, but nosotros'll update this review with that information as information technology becomes available. The telephone is available unlocked through both Amazon and All-time Buy.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Blueprint
Whatsoever misgivings people had about the specs on the original Surface Duo, in that location were few complaints about the build quality on that phone. So it'southward expert to encounter that Microsoft isn't trying to reinvent the wheel (if wheels tin can unfold to reveal dual screens).
Like its predecessor, the Surface Duo features two glass panels that come together on a pair of very sturdy hinges located at the top and bottom of the phone. Considering the edges of the Surface Duo 2 are and then smooth, opening the telephone takes a little practice — I had my best success placing my thumbs on both side of the Duo and pulling autonomously — simply once information technology's open, those hinges proceed the screen in place. They're likewise flexible enough to continue the Surface Duo 2 open in different positions, including a tented view for watching videos and with the panels open up a full 360 degrees so that they're lined up flat against each other.
I tested the Obsidian version of the Surface Duo 2 and that black surface really picks upwards fingerprints, then proceed a cloth handy. You can besides get the Surface Duo 2 in Glacier.
The front of the phone features a Microsoft logo. Because that's a uncomplicated square, I'll occasionally forget which side is up and endeavor to open the Surface Duo from the wrong side. The dorsum is smoothen, as well, salvage for a rather prominent camera bump.
If the Surface Duo 2 has a blueprint flaw, it may well be that bump which sticks out farther than virtually phones. When I try to slip the Surface Duo 2 into the pocket of my jeans, that photographic camera bump normally gets caught, requiring me to practice a fiddling bit of wiggling to get everything to fit.
Then again, the Surface Duo 2 isn't the sort of telephone one easily slips into one's pants pocket. At 5.7 x 3.vi x 0.43 inches when closed, this device is meant to alive in a glaze pocket or a purse.
Open the Surface Duo 2 upwards and the width expands to seven.3 inches while the phone itself is a mere 0.21 inches thin. If you've got the specs of the original Surface Duo handy, you'll detect that'south a little thicker than before. There's no official explanation why, just the original telephone was to thin to support NFC coils for tap-to-pay support, and this new version now offers that.
Microsoft came up with a keen little play a trick on for the swivel area when the Surface Duo 2 is closed. That's where Microsoft has put a glance bar that lights up when yous've got incoming calls and text messages. My complaint here — the glance bar doesn't remain lit so if you weren't looking at your phone, you'll miss the notification. The glance bar also lights up as y'all charge the phone to testify you what percentage of accuse the Surface Duo has.
Unlocking the phone is as piece of cake as using the fingerprint reader embedded in the power button on the correct side of the phone (the same panel that contains the camera assortment). I found the fingerprint reader to exist fairly accurate and far enough removed from the volume rocker to avoid accidental touches.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: How it compares to Milky way Z Fold 3
Information technology's impossible to talk nearly the Surface Duo two without comparing it to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold iii, currently the best foldable phone bachelor. The two phones have different approaches — the Galaxy Z Fold 3 opens up to reveal a continuous 7.6-inch display while the Surface Duo 2 brings together to separate panels for an 8.3-inch work surface area. But both these devices are offering the same value proposition — get a tablet-sized screen in a device that's meaty enough to carry around.
Because the Surface Duo two offers more than screen when opened, it'south much wider than the Milky way Z Fold 3. But Samsung's telephone is taller and thicker, even when it'south opened.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Display
As I've mentioned, the Surface Duo 2 is a dual screen phone so that eight.3-inch workspace is actually two dissever five.8-inch AMOLED panels each offering 1344 x 1892 resolution. When the phone'southward open, that resolution is boosted to 2688 10 1892.
Both panels off 90Hz refresh rates, and while that'southward not the 120Hz variable refresh rate that the Galaxy Z Fold iii boasts, it still means pretty smooth scrolling.
The twin displays on the Surface Duo two are adequately bright, hitting 672 nits on a light meter. That outshines the 424-nit effect from the Galaxy Z Fold three'due south interior brandish, though it's not as bright as phones like the Galaxy S21 Ultra (821 nits) and the iPhone 13 Pro Max (1.038 nits when Adaptive Brightness is enabled).
Colors felt a little muted when I watched the Dune trailer on YouTube until I cranked up the brightness. That's when the sands of Arakis took on more golden hue. Likewise, the Nightmare Before Christmas on Disney Plus benefitted from maxing out the display so that the creatures of Halloween Town weren't obscured by shadows.
It was watching those videos that really cemented my master gripe with the Surface Duo two. Y'all're actually not watching videos on an 8.three-inch display. Rather, your best viewing experience comes when you spotter a video on either i of the 5.eight-inch panels, and that's not as expansive as you might remember, particularly given the rather thick bezels surrounding the viewable surface area of the display.
Oh, you tin drag an app to the middle of the Surface Duo 2 and aggrandize it into a full-screen manner that stretches across both panels. But there's a gap between the two screens, and while Microsoft says information technology'southward non as prominent as information technology was on the original Duo, that still means a long strip running through the middle of Jack Skellington's face that wouldn't be there on a more conventional display.
Some apps, similar YouTube, are optimized for the Surface Duo's 2 screens, though this ways that the video appears on one panel while thumbnails of other videos announced on the other. Your all-time best for watch videos is to swivel the two screens into a tent mode and sentry your program on one of the screens. Even then, the anarchistic aspect ratio of the Surface Duo displays can lead to some odd stretching and cropping. A soccer match I streamed on Paramount Plus, for case, had its edges trimmed off when viewed in full-screen mode.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Dual-screen experience
If the Surface Duo two isn't ideal for watching videos or gaming — and it'southward not unless those apps have been optimized for a dual-screen device — then what is Microsoft'southward smartphone skillful for? The respond is the aforementioned as it was for the original Surface Duo — multitasking.
The best utilise example for the Surface Duo is to run two apps side by side on each of the phone's panels. That way, you tin keep a note-taking app open while researching topics in a mobile browser, or y'all can take a chat app while referencing a document from Microsoft's Part suite of apps.
As earlier, the Surface Duo 2 supports app pairs, in which you tin can necktie together two apps to launch at the same time when tapped. My Surface Duo review unit featured a pre-assembled pair of Microsoft OneNote and the Edge browser, merely I was able to hands set i of my own with Gmail and Chrome, only by pressing and holding ane of the app icons and then selecting Group to pick its pair.
App pairs should make it piece of cake to jump into whatever work y'all demand to perform on the Surface Duo 2, though the feature remains a bit glitchy. When I was using the phone for awhile and went to launch an app pair, sometimes the app tied to the left panel of the phone wouldn't announced, while the right panel did. The missing app would show upwards in the recently used apps tray, but non on the display itself. Quitting apps or restarting the phone would address the trouble, but it seems like a pretty abrasive glitch.
You can access apps in full-screen manner by grabbing the bottom bar that you normally use to leave an app and dragging information technology over to the middle of the two screens. (If you want to switch which panel an app appears on, simply keep dragging until the app shows up over there.) If the app hasn't been optimized, it will expand to fill upwardly both screens, which gives you a bigger piece of work expanse, albeit one with that aforementioned gap running down the centre where the two panels meet. I'll take the visible pucker on the Milky way Z Fold 3 over that, thanks very much.
Fortunately, there are optimized apps for the Surface Duo ii that take advantage of both panels simultaneously. In Teams — yep, Microsoft's video conversation app has a prominent part on this telephone — you can see a video of your boyfriend meeting participants on i screen and the presentation on the other. Editing photos from the Camera app puts the controls on a different screen from the image then that you lot can clearly run across the changes as they're being made.
Third-party apps accept been optimized, besides, and Microsoft includes a few bundled onto the Surface Duo ii. TikTok is nowadays, with one screen showing videos in full screen mode while the other offers previews. Gameloft'south optimized several games similar Cobblestone 9, which puts the controls on the bottom panel when yous're property the Surface Duo in portrait orientation. The experience is OK, through having the controls so removed from the game display takes a petty getting used to.
If in that location's an issue here, information technology's that there'due south no manner of knowing which apps are optimized for the Surface Duo ii's screens and which ones aren't, short of dragging them to the eye of the device and finding out which ones open in both panels and which merely expand to make full upwardly the entire 8.three-inch workspace.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Cameras
Your days of getting by with just a alone 11MP photographic camera for all your photos as you lot had to on the Surface Duo are over. The Surface Duo 2 turns to a more conventional triple lens setup, with a 12MP broad camera serving as the main lens. To that, add together a 16MP ultrawide angle shooter and a 12MP telephoto lens supporting a 2x zoom. Those aren't world-beating specs, merely they at least permit the Surface Duo 2 to compete on more level footing with the best camera phones.
In addition to the hardware changes, you become a dedicate nighttime fashion along with low-light and HDR multi-frame photograph capture. In other words, Microsoft has put together a far more capable photographic camera phone — at least on paper.
The results in the real world look pretty good, too. While this shot of a fountain and the mosaic behind it is a lilliputian dark in the Surface Duo ii's rendering, it's a much better treatment than what the Milky way Z Fold 3 produced, equally Samsung's foldable phone over-exposed the scene. Other colors, like those ferns in the foreground are excessively brightened; the Surface Duo two's shot tackles those plants with more realistic tones.
Switching to the ultrawide angle lens on both phones to bring in more of the background, this time information technology'southward the Galaxy Z Fold 3 that makes the scene look a little dark than it was. As a result, the Surface Duo ii makes those gray, brown and silverish tiles look a lot more distinct and the shimmer in the bluish tiles backside the sunflowers is more credible.
Y'all can't really encounter information technology in this side-by-side comparing merely the Galaxy Z Fold captured more of the surrounding scene — those lamps are almost completely contained in the Samsung flick, while the Surface Duo 2 cuts them out. That's because Samsung's phone offers a wider field of view on that particular photographic camera — 123 degrees vs. 110 degrees on the Surface Duo 2.
To test out the Surface Duo'due south zoom lens, I stood across the room and zoomed in at 2x on a bookshelf to encounter if the titles came through clearly. They really didn't — there'south some noticeable baloney i you focus in on the volume titles, and the unabridged epitome is pretty dark. Things look much brighter in the Galaxy Z Fold 3'southward shot, and text is crisp and legible.
Indoors, we see how the phones approach the remnants of a pizza my daughter and her friend tore into. (The wine bottle in the groundwork is mine, concerned onlookers.) The Surface Duo 2 produced more natural looking colors, simply at the expensive of a rather tiresome looking epitome. In contrast the Milky way Z Fold 3 cranked upwards the warmth — virtually excessively so — only the pizza looks a footling more than appetizing in the latter shot.
The Surface Duo 2's promised improvements in low-light photography don't actually prove upwardly in this instance. Maybe the orange lights illuminating the Halloween decorations on our porch overwhelmed the Surface Duo, only everything is bathed in that light. The Milky way Z Fold 3's shot is more balanced, and although in that location's an orangish tints from the lights, the skeletons and skulls don't look similar they're coated in Tang.
Turning to portrait mode, the Surface Duo 2 does a credible chore with this picture of my daughter. The background blur is certainly stylish, though it did catch some of her shoulder on the correct. Simply the picture is well lit even though nosotros took it in a shadow. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 produced a much darker photo that washed out features similar the freckles on my daughter's face.
As for the Surface Duo 2'southward 12MP front photographic camera, it didn't touch the beam of sunlight striking my confront every bit I snapped a selfie. The upshot is an interestingly lit shot that makes my face look a lot ruddier than it actually is. The colors on the Samsung photo are more balanced, even if yous have the same problem with overly aggressive face up-smoothing that we saw in portrait mode. (Note that this comparison uses the under-brandish photographic camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 3, which typically takes more disappointing shots in our experience.)
Taken altogether, the photos produced by the Surface 2 Duo are fairly decent — nothing that will challenge the best camera phones, but certainly better than what the original Surface Duo produced with its only camera.
Microsoft Surface Duo ii review: Performance
When the original Surface Duo arrived, it featured a Snapdragon 855 arrangement-on-chip at a time when other leading phones had already moved on to the Snapdragon 865. That meant a gap in performance between those phones and the Surface Duo — non an easy thing to consume when you've paid four-figures for a phone.
The Surface Duo 2 does non repeat that mistake. Microsoft has turned to the same Snapdragon 888 chipset plant in the peak Android devices, including the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Microsoft augments that silicon with 8GB of RAM.
In terms of benchmarks, that translates to performance that'southward close to what you'd expect from phones with similar specs. On Geekbench five, the Surface Duo 2 posted single- and multicore scores of 1,008 and iii,384, respectively. That'southward a fiddling behind the 1,107 and 3,418 results we got with the Galaxy Z Fold 3, but it's not the sort of performance gap you're likely to find. The same tin can't be said of the iPhone xiii Pro Max and its A15 Bionic flake, which blows abroad the competition with respective GeekBench scores of 1,720 and 4,549.
The Surface Duo fared better in graphics testing, where it produced virtually 34 frames per 2nd on the 3DMark Wild Life examination. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 came in at 33 fps.
Apps run smoothly on the Surface Duo 2 and graphics look sharp enough in demanding games like Cobblestone 9 and PUBG Mobile. I did notice a slight lag when launch apps non stored in memory — particularly with app pairs when the first app would launch on the right screen and there would be a brief suspension before the second app launched on the opposite panel.
Using a top-of-the-line chipset does more than just improve the Surface Duo 2's performance relative to other Android devices. The Snapdragon 888 means there's 5G connectivity in this model, something the original Surface Duo lacked. Microsoft's spec sheet lists support for both mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G, then if you've got 5G coverage in your surface area, you should be able to connect to the faster networking standard.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Battery life and charging
To handle those 2 screens and the power demands of 5G, Microsoft outfitted the Surface Duo two with a 4,449 mAh bombardment, quite the spring up from the 3,577 mAh power pack in the original Surface Duo. That didn't translate to much of an improvement in battery life when we put the Surface Duo two through our battery test, in which nosotros take the telephone surf the spider web continuously at 150 nits until it runs out of power.
We first tested the Surface Duo 2 with only 1 of its screen active — the 9 60 minutes and 47 minute upshot is simply about average for a smartphone. Making both screens active reduced the phone's battery life to seven hours and 38 minutes. That driblet of just over two hours is consequent with how the original Surface Duo performed when we tested that telephone.
Anecdotally, the Surface Duo 2 packs enough power to become through most days, though particularly intensive rounds of testing caused the battery level to drib noticeably.
While the Surface Duo ii supports 23W charging speeds, Microsoft doesn't include a charger with the device — just a USB-C cable. I happened to have a 21W charger lying effectually, and that boosted the Surface Duo 2's bombardment from 76% to 82% after fifteen minutes. That may not seem like much, but it tin exist useful for topping off the phone's battery in a pinch.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Software and special features
The Surface Duo 2 runs on Android 11 — a significant determination by Microsoft, since it gives Surface Duo users access to the vast array of Android apps though the Play Store. But Android 12 is now out, and Microsoft is non-committal about when that update will come up to its dual-screen device, saying just that it will work with Google on the effect.
You lot tin employ Microsoft'south $129 Surface Slim Pen 2 with the new Surface Duo for cartoon in OneNote, diagramming things on the whiteboard in Teams and other sketching and note-taking tasks. I didn't detect the pen to be an essential improver for the phone, but if yous do get it, you'll also want to pick up a $65 Surface Duo 2 Pen Comprehend, which attaches to your phone.
With the Pen Cover, the Slim Pen 2 can magnetically adhere to your phone while also charging so that your stylus will always be at the gear up. Whether that'due south worth another $195 on peak of the Surface Duo 2's toll tag is another question altogether.
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: Verdict
To Microsoft'southward credit, the Surface Duo 2 addresses many of the complaints nosotros had most the visitor's original dual-screen phone. The specs are more in line with the premium price, the cameras are much improved, and dual-screen multitasking is a definite productivity booster.
Merely the reason people plow to bigger phones is for the expanded tablet-like work area. Because the Surface Duo two uses two split up displays, it actually doesn't offer that experience; rather, it'south simply two five.eight-inch screens that are woking in tandem most of the time.
For people who want to run apps side by side that volition exist enough to make the Surface Duo two an intriguing option. Only if you're looking to lose yourself in the expansive flow of an uninterrupted screen, the Surface Duo only doesn't provide that — non with the arroyo Microsoft has taken.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-duo-2
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