surface duo 2 review

1. Surface Duo 2: Can This Be Saved?
2. Surface Duo 2 Long-Term Review: Revisiting A Different Kind Of Foldable
3. Microsoft Surface Duo 2 Review: One Year Later
4. Microsoft Surface Duo 2 Review
5. No Surface Duo 3 in 2022? Im OK sticking with the Duo 2…
6. Surface Duo 2 One Year Later: Defying Expectations!
7. Surface Duo 2 One Year Review | Still my favorite phone

Surface Duo 2: Can This Be Saved?

[Music],hey whats up mkbhd here so you remember,the original surface duo the dual screen,foldable android device from microsoft,had a lot of potential and a lot of hype,behind it we were hoping it would be,great,and then it just wasnt really that good,at all disappointingly it had pretty,weak performance the software was very,buggy and uh the camera,was trash but like the one nice thing,about it was it had really nice sleek,thin,hardware and a great hinge,but there was a lot to fix but now one,year later we have,the sequel the shiny new dark colored,sequel the answer to microsofts,nightmares the surface duo 2.,sweet so this isnt the full review i,havent had it for very long but i have,some initial impressions on it which are,that,i think that this device and all,microsoft has done to it has revealed,that this idea,may,not really have a great feature it may,be fundamentally flawed,in the way its used like microsoft went,through and valiantly improved a ton of,stuff about this especially versus the,original they found a lot of flaws they,made them all objectively better,and yet some of that stuff still,also made it worse see pretty much all,the changes microsoft has made are,objectively better than the last one so,theres a bunch of stuff here they have,all new high-end specs inside theyve,made the displays bigger and faster with,thinner bezels and they added a set of,real cameras on the back and there is,much better software implementation to,tie it all together but yet this surface,duo has a completely new set of problems,that this surface duo didnt have but,then the cherry on top is this new one,is now uh 14.99 1499,thats actually more expensive than the,first one which started at 13.99 before,it plummeted the whole year it was out i,think it was eventually like 900 off or,something like that so you might think,wow thats a bold move making an even,more expensive surface even when the,first one flopped so hard but,this was also clearly gonna cost more to,make so you might remember when the,first surface duo came out it had,one-year-old slightly out-of-date specs,this ones launching with the highest,end chip its a snapdragon triple eight,is eight gigs of ram and up to half a,terabyte of storage and theyve done a,lot with this new display here so first,of all its slightly bigger its 8.3,inches corner to corner now with nearly,the same size footprint because the,bezels are smaller all the way around,especially that top bezel no more flash,needed since the main camera system is,on the back now and this display is also,now brighter up to 800 nits and it is,higher fresh rate now its a 90 hertz,panel weirdly there is no option to,change refresh rate anywhere in the,display settings like you cant knock it,down to 60hz if you want to but whatever,everything is smoother especially while,scrolling but the the main new thing,here with this display is it curves over,the edges in the middle near the hinge,from both sides so it kind of gives this,sort of subtle waterfall look and the,dual screens now kind of have this,effect of looking closer together,almost like its one giant folding,screen and this definitely encourages,you to span apps across both displays,more often and yet treat it like one big,display,the only problem with that is when you,do,lots of those important pixels in the,middle of the screen are now just,spilling over that edge into being,unreadable but also some are completely,missing like you cant read whatevers,supposed to be in those middle few,pixels so any pictures or any text that,are supposed to be in the middle of the,screen are now just gone which is beyond,annoying its a its a bit of a problem,for any sort of reading and you can,forget about spanning games horizontally,imagine trying to aim something with the,crosshairs missing now its the surface,duo so horizontal gaming isnt really a,huge thing this is actually a great form,factor for,split gaming like this,emulator games all that sort of stuff,split screen top bottom gaming and,thats actually one of the biggest ive,had a little bit of time to play with,this game passes on this device and its,a lot of fun but yeah,the,missing text in the middle of the screen,uh,not great but then the other big change,to the hardware as youve already seen,is it has real cameras on the back now,its got a whole triple camera system a,12 megapixel primary plus a 2x telephoto,and a 16 megapixel ultra wide all,stacked into this camera bump that has,matte rails all the way around the,outsides theres a flash next to it,theres hdr portrait mode optical zoom,like these cameras theyre not amazing,but they are way more capable than,before so objectively,if we just ignore the design for a,second thats,better like theyve put better cameras,on this phone device but you know,obviously microsoft never really wanted,to bolt cameras to the back and ruin,their like perfectly clean sleek thin,design thats why they didnt do it with,the first one and they got the great,hardware but then that meant to take,pictures of stuff youd have to flip it,open and use the selfie camera like that,and then this was just a webcam it was,pretty bad so this time yeah theres a,set of real cameras on the back theyve,caved and done it and i can confirm,theyre all better than the webcam was,so having some optical zoom having the,ability to take decent videos thats all,nice i mean its a 2x telephoto which,isnt that great but its something but,now that theyve made this change which,a lot of people including me were,wondering if they would do it or not,it turns out that this is now a bit,more annoying to use so obviously with,this mesa sticking out the back youre,now unable to fully open the surface duo,to flat anymore so anytime you use it,with one hand fold it back its got to,be slightly open like this just a few,millimeters short of going flat which is,enough to be easy to slip your finger in,and like close it quickly but it is not,as comfortable to use it for a while and,hold it like this with one hand now i do,admire that theyve shaped this camera,bump to match the exact angle that the,back screen folds over and touches it so,that it lays flush just a neat little,little couple degree adjustment there,its nice it feels like theres also,magnets in here to hold it against that,camera bump but now as youve noticed,thats covering the cameras which means,anytime you want to take photos you have,to swivel it down because closing it up,covers the camera so now you have to,have it open fully like this every time,you take pictures,i dont know maybe you do the viewfinder,open at the top and then the photos,populating at the bottom,and thats cool enough when it works,maybe thats more fun for some people,for taking pictures but,overall yeah thats its physically less,convenient especially when you just want,to snap a quick photo real quick so you,can see why this idea even though its a,really cool idea,feels broken like microsoft found ways,to make this,objectively better especially on paper,than the last one but yet it got,more annoying it got worse to use and i,think fundamentally i was thinking about,all the different ways that they could,maybe,save this maybe they can fix this in,some way maybe making it thicker,maybe,you know filling it in so that the,camera bump isnt a bump what are the,things that they could do,i couldnt come up with any because i,feel like the thing that is flawed about,this is the lack of any,outside display just this passport,design like of course theres a ton of,software optimization thats gone into,making this ui work with two screens and,thats super cool,maybe making it a little bit thicker,would give you some more battery to,power these two screens for longer but,that wouldnt really solve anything you,know i thought a lot about the aspect,ratio,about the layout of everything but even,the layouts better here too now the,power button and fingerprint reader are,combined into one believe it or not it,wasnt on the first one and i re

Surface Duo 2 Long-Term Review: Revisiting A Different Kind Of Foldable

this video is sponsored by surfsharkvpn,just last week on this channel we were,exploring what it means to blur the line,between smartphone and computer,but i guess the reality is that ive,been thinking about it since about 2007,when i realized during an otherwise,uneventful walk around my college town,that i could post a new live journal,entry,yep i was one of those guys,right from my pocket instead of going,home for my computer,this week instead of replacing a pc with,a smartphone were talking about,bringing a pc feature,to a smartphone,the idea,of a second screen,yes this is the surface duo 2 from,microsoft and yes youve seen it before,on mr mobile,but its not the phone you remember,[Music],i cover a lot of folding phones on mr,mobile but the surface duo isnt like,other foldables its not trying to hide,the hinge between its two halves its,using it as the border between two,separate workspaces,if its book-like design seems like too,much for a daily carry smartphone well,dont think of it like a book think of,it as a phone with the second screen you,deploy when you need it,now unfortunately the first surface duo,was fatally undercooked at launch and,even the sequel was beset with enough,bugs and bungles to obscure microsofts,vision for getting things done but i,promised that if the sequel got better,id give it another look and three,substantial software updates later,thats just whats happened,well its not quite up to the level it,should be and yes i will talk about that,the biggest issues with keyboard,responsiveness and gesture controls have,finally been mostly resolved,in the words of my windows central,friends the duo 2 is actually good now,that means ive gotten a much clearer,picture of the dual screen philosophy,that is the duos raison detre,french,raison detre,it helped that i got into twitch earlier,this year,watching live video is a completely,different animal than watching youtube,because you need a full screen for the,feed and the live chat,and of course when youre streaming on,twitch well that extra real estate is,even more helpful,in my work world its helpful too each,week see i need to file a bit of,paperwork for the mr mobile videos i,publish and dual displays make it a lot,easier you know i can take info from the,production list and youtube app from one,screen and transpose that info into the,delivery form on the other,same goes for reviewing thumbnail art,from my design team i can keep it in,view in air table on one side and give,feedback in slack on the other,but you dont have to be in the content,business to appreciate a second screen,in the past few weeks ive helped my,friend search for wildly overpriced,brooklyn apartments with messenger on,one side and zillow on the other,when my other friend sent me a link to a,news story i could open the page while,still keeping my place in the,conversation and that also came in handy,when i wanted to quote one of the,articles more,absurd paragraphs back to him,a calculator alongside venmo,evernote alongside google docs you get,the idea,heck if you build your home screen right,you dont even need to open an app the,right widgets will give you daily and,weekly weather your schedule and your,recent notes instantly available as soon,as you open the phone,sadly there still arent many apps,optimized to span across both screens,witness the annoying gap in spotify and,the columns that dont line up in apps,with tablet mode layouts,ideally app developers will have an,easier time smoothing out those rough,edges once google rolls out android 12l,slated for later this year,and if you use microsoft apps you can,already see where that will go,outlook in particular is a pleasure with,its list of emails or calendar events on,the left and details of the same on the,right and of course,the full screen app that really makes,this hardware shine is amazon kindle,even back when the first duo couldnt do,anything else right it was still a,better e-book than anything out,there the same hinge that makes that,book posture possible also enables a,feature that ive wanted ever since,those palm centro live journaling days,2007s htc tilt first put the notion in,my head that a kind of pocketable laptop,might be possible and you know the,surface duo is that,its always been able to sit like this,but only recently has the swift key,keyboard been swift enough to actually,keep up,i wish the keyboard didnt bury the,settings and function row in the hinge,when you set it to full size and why it,doesnt stretch all the way across the,lower screen is a mystery as massive as,all this wasted space,anyway you can take this fully to the,absurd place with a mouse if you want or,go with the far more sensible accessory,of the surface slim pen,as i covered back in december this is,far more capable now than it was at,launch and the magnetic mounting,approach makes for a mighty convenient,one-handed handle,speaker playback is higher quality than,youd expect from a device this thin and,callers had nothing but good things to,say about the audio quality coming from,my end as well,and if the laptop paradigm doesnt do,much for you well how about a nintendo,ds,being able to play a classic like fire,watch in my hands with a dedicated,screen for controls it kind of made my,week,again microsofts vision has never been,the problem its just that weve had to,wait until now for the execution to,well mostly catch up,yep that means theres still some pain,to pass around and no its not just the,camera,well get to that,right after this,cheap simple reliable usually you have,to pick two but my sponsor surfshark has,consistently been ranked all three by,sites like toms guide surfshark is a,virtual private network or vpn that,gives you private access to the open,internet what does that mean well for,one thing it can prevent your internet,service provider from giving special,treatment to certain types of content,like throttling your video streaming,speeds,speaking of video ever try to watch a,show but its not available in your,region well surf shark can help there,too,and if your travels take you to a,country with internet censorship laws,surf shark can help keep you connected,whether youre on your smartphone tablet,or laptop get the vpn that eats other,deals alive hit up surfshark at the link,below and pay as little as 2.49,a month when you sign up for two years,using the code below thanks to surfshark,for sponsoring this video,at a little over five months old the,surface duo ii is starting to get into,price drop territory but so far those,have been limited duration so at press,time this is still a fifteen hundred,dollar phone before you drop that kind,of cash you need to know what downsides,youre facing,most importantly those keyboard and,touch response fixes are still only most,of the way there,occasionally in certain apps for,seemingly no reason itll still slow,down from time to time also this might,be a cloud gaming situation but that,firewatch gameplay session became real,frustrating the minute i had to try,climbing a ladder,and more broadly microsoft still hasnt,managed to wrangle android into,delivering the perfect dual screen life,heres a good example ive got reddit,open on the left and when i tap a link,id like it to open on the right,well nope in native reddit or in,baconreader the link opens where it is,completely ignoring the available second,screen,the same is true in chrome or edge,unless you take the explicit step of,long pressing to open in a new window,the second screen will just sit there,dumbly doing nothing,it gets worse in instagram which really,shouldnt be a surprise given that,platforms shameful showing on anything,but an iphone,switch accounts and the app will switch,screens for no good reason,elsewhere it just depends on the app,telegram is half broken crashing all the,time and just generally being a dope and,if youre doing something that takes a,while and has pop-up prompts like,setting up a smart watch say well the,app will occasionally leap

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Microsoft Surface Duo 2 Review: One Year Later

so you may be watching this video and,you may be wondering should I buy a,Microsoft Surface Duo 2 or you may be,thinking obviously not because its the,worst phone ever and if thats you,honestly I think you are very,misinformed the Microsoft Surface Duo 2,is a terrific device and I really think,a lot of you should consider buying it,even over the Galaxy Z fold 4 and Im,gonna tell you why in this video lets,get into it,[Music],foreign,[Music],gotten a lot of flack over the years and,I think thats absolutely heinous its,an atrocity of all types of magnitudes,that people do not appreciate this phone,but I cant understand why the original,Duo well it had a lot of issues at,launch and then the duo 2 it still had,some issues at launch and a lot of those,Tech YouTubers arent going to try this,phone for more than two weeks so they,threw it in the trash after a few of,those issues and they tried to move on,to other phones but this phone has been,supported very well from Microsoft and,weve gotten a lot of updates over the,months and I have to say this phone is,really a good phone that a lot of you,really need to understand a little,better and I say that because a lot of,people dont understand why you would,use a Microsoft service Duo too they,look at it and they just wonder why,would you have two separate screens they,think that makes absolutely no sense,they look at something like the Galaxy Z,fold 4 and they look at how you could,have Twitter blown up on one screen it,looks so beautiful and then when you,blow up Twitter on the surface Duo 2 and,you span it across both screens it,obviously doesnt look very good and a,lot of those people are just,misunderstanding what the surface Duo 2,is meant to be this phone is meant to be,a multitasking phone its meant for,those people who want to do two,different things at the same time on,separate screens its sort of like dual,monitors on a computer a lot of people,prefer having dual monitors rather than,having one gigantic Ultra wide monitor,theres a reason why people want to,separate things on a computer and in the,same way some people want to separate,things on their phone as well so lets,give a good example of why the duo 2 is,so good so if I open up one app like,Twitter on one screen if I go to the,other screen and I open up YouTube for,example what youll see is its just so,darn smooth I could open up things,quickly I dont have to worry about,opening up a separate menu I can open up,one app on this screen and this screen,it still has its own home screen open so,I can open up another app over there,just like that and on Samsung phones,they do have good multitasking features,dont get me wrong but you do have to,jump through one or two extra steps,every time youre looking to open an app,and that right there could lose you a,lot of time also some of you want to,separate things whenever youre actually,doing your work thats another benefit,of the duo and I understand you can,separate apps on something like a Galaxy,Z fold 4 but the difference here is that,you actually might want a little bit of,extra separation between pages when,youre reading a book or you may prefer,separation lets say youre doing some,emulation if you want to emulate some,games you may want to have something on,the top screen here like the game itself,and you may want to have a controller on,the bottom there are a lot of great ways,that this Duo 2 can multitask and,function and I also have to talk about,durability as well because with the duo,2 you dont have a screen protector,built into the screen and Samsung does,that because the folding phone bones and,the folding screens they are a little,more fragile and you have to be very,very careful with them well the duo 2,has two actual glass screens youre not,worrying about plastic screens or having,a folding screen so because of that,because theyre two separate screens,they are a little bit easier to protect,in that way now I understand they dont,work very well with screen protectors so,that is a little bit of a negative thing,but the fact that the Glass isnt quite,as fragile that is very very important,now I do want to talk about some of the,cons of this phone I understand that,when youre using a Duo 2 again its a,very nice two screen phone when you open,it up and when you open it up to use,with one hand it is a little bit bulky,to use with one hand the screen is so,wide here so if you do put it up to your,ear for example for phone calls thats,going to be a little bit of an issue,its just going to be a little bit big,and some of you might not like that some,of you might prefer the z-fold 4 using,it on that cover screen because it is a,little bit smaller its a little bit,easier for phone calls but using this,bigger screen green its also a big deal,if I decide to use this phone in tint,mode for example I could put it up in a,little tint like this and Ill have a,nice full screen video not on a dinky,little screen like on the z-fold 4 Ill,have a nice full video here on the,screen because the screen size is a,little bit larger on these screens but,some people are going to find it to be a,little bit of a drawback for one to have,this little camera bump on the back so,the duo one didnt have that now the duo,2 does have this camera bump and thats,a little bit annoying because if you are,closing up the phone to use it in,one-handed mode here well thats a,little Annoying that you have to deal,with this camera bump it would be really,nice if it was flush but its not a big,deal I think a lot of people will get,used to it but that is something to keep,in mind and also if you are using your,camera you have to have your phone open,so on the fold 4 for example you can,have your phone in the one screen mode,and you can use the camera just fine you,can use the selfie camera like that as,well but with with the duo you can only,use the selfie camera whenever youre,using your phone like this and if you,want to use those rear cameras you do,have to open it up which is a little bit,of a nuisance this phone is also not,water resistant like something like the,z-fold 4 and the cameras are not as good,so even though they added this really,big camera bump the cameras arent as,good as something like the z-fold 4. but,if you thought the cameras were bad on,the duo at launch I am here to tell you,they have improved a lot since the,launch a lot of updates have came out,they really removed most of the shutter,lag from The Duo 2 and now when I take,pictures with this I am pretty impressed,my original Duo 2 I did not like the,pictures at all they did not come out,well almost all the time and now I at,least get good pictures of my family or,good pictures when Im going outside I,can get a good experience with this,phone when Im using it day to day so,this is a really good phone I think this,phone is great for those people who want,to multitask if youre wanting to to do,two things at the same time this is,going to be terrific at that now if,youre wanting to do one thing and,youre not wanting to multitask well I,think the z-fold 4 is better for that I,also think the cameras are better on the,z-fold 4 and I think theres a lot of,other things to like about it but one,thing we have to consider is that the,duo 2 I dont know if youre going to be,able to buy it new because it has sold,out pretty much everywhere hopefully it,comes back in stock eventually but it,has been on sale for 9.99 which is a,really really big deal and if you look,on places like eBay or swapa Ive seen,this phone sell as low as like 700,thats a pretty good price to find it,for in mint condition then you could,always buy a dbrand skin those are like,25 bucks that could cover up the glass,here to protect it and you could buy one,of those cheap Microsoft bumpers those,are around 20 bucks theyve been on sale,normally theyre 40. thats a little,high for a little silly bumper but you,could get one of those and I think,thats pretty suitable protection for,this device so if you factor i

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Microsoft Surface Duo 2 Review

this is lisa from mobile tech review and,its back and better this is the,microsoft surface duo 2. this is a,handheld pc slash android phone now,running android 11 with a redesign same,basic premise sort of like a passport,foldy design displays fold in displays,fold out but last years model was,expensive at 13.99 and it was lacking in,specs clearly the specs were,set two years before the device ever,released so what microsoft did is they,remedy that but what about the software,and other things were going to find out,now so the bad news is this year it,starts at 100 more it starts at 14.99,for the,gig model you can also get it with 256,or 512 gigs youve got a price increase,with each 100 so this is an expensive,phone as to whether or not theres gonna,be fire sales like there were with the,original duo within six months of its,release well i cant say it depends on,how well it does and all that sort of,thing what i can tell you is the basic,design may look the same but one of the,differences is obviously you can now get,it in black as well as the original,white and yes the black does show,fingerprints and well show you some,shots of just how nasty can look just,handling it for 10 minutes but still it,looks kind of good in black so thats,cool,in terms of the specs changing its all,for the better this is modern flagship,it should be because well its 1500,bloody dollars right so we have the,snapdragon 888 processor which is,currently the top of the line available,for android phones and you have eight,gigs of ram which is fine and im,already talking to you about the storage,options there now we have a 90 hertz,refresh rate for the dual oled displays,as again this is two oled displays they,are a little bit bigger so the total,spanning,diagonal measurement is 8.3 inches each,one of them is 5.8 inches and ill talk,about the displays in detail later but,thats good to see a fast refresh and,its a variable refresh theres no user,control over that it just does its own,thing,instead of the interior selfie camera,which you flip the phone the other way,to use as a world-facing camera this,time we have dedicated triple rear,cameras so youve got your main camera,your ultrawide and your telephoto which,is a 2x telephoto,thats something a lot of people want,and even i feel like it was a hurt i,mean i was bullish on surface duo and i,liked a lot about it the versatility for,multitasking and stuff but,having a i mean seriously potato camera,was just not a viable option so now,these are passable cameras but well,talk a little bit more about the cameras,so thats good to see we have nfc on,board and no you dont have to open it,up and hold it like a book to use it you,can have it in the folded smartphone,position to use it too theres still no,water resistance here so that even hurts,more when you get fingerprints all over,and im sure that some of you will be,de-brand skinning it and all that sort,of thing or you can wipe it with a damn,cloth its fine i think technically its,ipx one which is probably damp cloth,safe and thats about it,its got gorilla glass on the outside,and gorilla glass invictus for the inner,displays which is currently the,strongest gorilla glass available thats,probably a good thing for those who do,leave it in phone mode with the displays,facing out when you put it down on the,desk youre not going to worry as much,so those are some good improvements,there weve got wi-fi ax bluetooth 5.1,and of course 5g including millimeter,wave for those of you mostly who are in,the united states right now where we,have more of it deployed but still not,enough and its sold unlocked in the,united states its not sold by carrier,so it will work on any carrier the major,carrier that you wish in the united,states and data speeds and reception on,it were just fine so those are the good,things there,now,microsoft was very good about listening,to feedback and all that sort of thing,and part of the problem with the device,was,microsoft glacial development speed so,something that they designed two years,before release was already outdated but,also at first they were going to have,this run a windows mobile version of the,operating system right just like the neo,also which never came to fruition,so at the last minute they had to switch,everything to android and make it more,phone centric when clearly this is still,more of a handheld pc laptop replacement,for multitaskers given that you have two,screens and now with android 11 better,support for dual screens and multiple,windows running and all that sort of,thing,but in some cases i can see why they did,what they did in the first generation,and almost wish that they hadnt but,they had no choice for the second what,do i mean by that the cameras on the,rear now we have a camera bump whereas,before you can fold it with the screens,facing outside,and it would fold completely flat and,still be reasonably slim honestly enough,well now the camera bump keeps the two,planes of the phone separated which,looks a little weird it doesnt feel bad,hand in fact a wedge is a little bit,easier to hold on to,but,yeah i can see aesthetically speaking,and,ergonomically they might have thought,well we dont want to do that it was,more nifty when you could just flip it,inside out and switch the cameras but we,have no choice now doing with that,the fingerprint scanner is now embedded,in the power button which makes a lot,more sense and its very good very fast,theres no facial recognition whatsoever,on this phone now,the overall use case for the phone,hasnt changed like i said its gotten,better with android 11 since there,actually is dual screen support but this,is the alternative to something like the,samsung galaxy z fold three which has a,literal folding flexible display for,those of you who are worried about the,durability of that cracks right at the,crease all those sorts of things and of,course the z-flip too though thats in a,different price bracket right,but for those of you who see the utility,and having two apps running at once,which often is really handy for example,i use onenote to do my review crib notes,and i want to have a web browser open in,the other screen to actually look at,data information about the product that,im reviewing or if youre doing,something like a microsoft teams or a,zoom caller whatever it is,oftentimes i need to have a document,open and just that fact alone means a,single screen phone isnt so great even,if it has split screen mode i mean,youre talking little bits easier so as,a business phone doing those sorts of,things it makes a lot of sense and its,kind of really delightful honestly even,if youre watching for fun stuff instead,of business stuff youre watching a game,play through in youtube and on the other,side youve got discord open so youre,talking about the game there are a lot,of things that make this really,delightful to use and different and of,course if youre using ebook readers,weve got amazon,modified version of kindle available and,pre-loaded on this google play book,supports it you can actually have facing,pages if youre holding like a little,mini book its kind of cute its kind of,fun it kind of is delightful to do,the bad part about this is it is a wide,phone now i have really big hands but i,have borked a tendon in my wrist so i,can really feel the weight and the,twerking on this sort of thing its not,the easiest hold for doing things like,taking photos now the other drawback and,why microsoft initially tried to just,stick with the interior camera is you,have to actually open up the phone to,take pictures with the rear cameras,which is kind of weird but then again,its kind of ergonomic too sort of like,using a galaxy z flip so im holding it,like this and this is pretty stable,right and ive got my photo viewer down,below so i can see the pictures that,ive taken but its not as bad as it,sounds but then this is a little more,unwieldy than just pulling a phone out,of your pocket and going a snap snap,snap right

No Surface Duo 3 in 2022? Im OK sticking with the Duo 2…

yeah im good if we ride this one out,sure sure the internet is talking about,another foldable right now were,supposed to be really excited about that,new phone this was the time i wanted to,revisit the duo 2 and talk about some,philosophy on a duo 3. i kind of hope,microsoft doesnt make an android slate,this year but im getting a little ahead,of myself if i were the type of tech,reviewer to give out awards the duos,would be the perpetual recipients of,most improved this year award almost a,year into the duo to hardware and,microsoft continues to demonstrate a,commitment to the duos improving,performance squashing numerous ui bugs,and delivering one of the best concepts,for how android on a tablet should work,yes its still on android 11 but what we,see is a highly modified version of,android 11 up to date on security,patches and google play system updates,and many of the improvements coming to,android 13 were born out of the work,microsoft and samsung showcased on their,tablets and foldables so at once this,feels a little behind but with 2020,hindsight its maybe better that we,didnt deal with all that android 12,clumsiness when samsung oneplus and,google all had to pull android 12,updates we never had to deal with that,in duo land theres a bleeding edge idea,of tech and theres a practical idea of,bleeding edge tech with the duo id be,good skipping android 12 entirely and,just going straight to android 13. the,custom software from microsoft was,already ahead like opening an app by,sliding a notification gestures to move,apps and split screen all that stuff has,been working pretty well even on duo one,but the recent updates weve seen a lot,more than just security patches,hundreds of megabytes of updates if your,impression on the duos were cemented in,the early days of reviews people just,wildly flicking around the duo in ways,that no one would ever use any other,phone then you might have missed that ui,navigation is buttery smooth now where,the cameras used to be a little on the,laggy side its now one of the snappiest,performers available samsung could,definitely take some notes on shutter,lag and hand in hand with google app,updates the experience for things like,drag and drop is more consistent now i,mostly use microsoft office so it would,make sense that a microsoft tablet would,support dragging and dropping an image,in a microsoft app but this is also,functionality available in google apps,updated to support those interactions,android 12l and 13 are heavily focused,on bringing more advanced functionality,to tablet interactions the duos on,android 11,were decently ahead of the curve when i,say things like,this is the gold standard of android,tablet interactions i still stand by,that i would regularly recommend galaxy,tabs as some of the best android tablets,to buy not because of android but,because of decks so you could avoid,using android on a larger surface area,the duo is helping change my mind on,that and were seeing how android 13 is,baking in natively the kind of,customization microsoft had to develop,on their own but microsoft did it,two os generations before google in my,use after almost a year of poking around,this thing its one of my favorite,tablets of all time,and its a solid if often clumsy phone,and thats whats always critical about,reviewing a niche device and whats,often overlooked in lazier,first week embargo reviews it should be,pretty clear that the duo was never,meant to function exactly like a,traditional single screen phone but so,much of the review commentary is just,focused on the familiarity of how your,phone currently works and how this is,different just because its different,doesnt mean its worse so not to say,that its been all roses theres still a,couple little sticky spots i hope can be,addressed and i think microsoft will one,of the most annoying gremlins is still,the side panel blanking out you swipe to,the side and you should see widgets and,info and news and very regularly when i,just want a quick glance at whats going,on i get this not particularly helpful,and its not so much a bug of the duo,but unexpected results in various apps,that arent quite sure what to do with,the keyboard and different orientations,android thinks its one continuous,tablet screen that defaults to opening,apps half screen many apps still dont,know what to make of that the app is in,portrait view but the tablet is in,landscape,couldnt help that that was so corny uh,thankfully i have rarely faced the blank,screen issue when you fold the duo back,it turns a screen off it should wake,that screen when you open it back out,its apparently very common for folks to,be in the middle of using the duo open,and have the duo think its only in a,single screen orientation it has,happened to me a couple times and then,you jiggle the panels and the duo wakes,back up and youre back to normal but,its not a common occurrence in my use i,have to preface im regularly using the,duo as a companion tablet to another,phone and i,hated the microsoft bumpers for the duo,1 and duo two and the most ive ever put,on a duo is just this skin i love my,little composition notebook skin on my,duo one some other folks like shane,craig over at scary if literal have been,tracking these issues more consistently,definitely check out his channel for,more regular duo coverage and one factor,might be how clean your hinges are and,whether theres any pressure from a,bumper or a case,wigging out the hinge sensor not,entirely sure what might be causing it,for some users out there with a gadget,thats trying to be this smart its,really trying to be clever i have to,reiterate i wish microsoft would just,give us a deliberate toggle to turn,screens off and on when we need them,this was a practical benefit to using,the lg dual screen phones automatically,it works fine most of the time but,theyre going to be sometimes you need,to turn a screen off i do not want both,screens on when im trying to use the,camera i dont want interactive elements,on the bottom display when im trying to,line up a shot on the top display i,would prefer to use the whole bottom,panel as a more deliberate handle to,steady my camera but microsoft wont let,me do that the duo is very clever but if,you use one i guarantee there will be,moments where its not really smart,enough to properly figure out its own,orientation how often that happens your,mileage will vary but i gotta tell you,duo does it for me im a dual monitor,desktop kind of guy i plug portable,monitors into my laptops and i like,using a second screen with my steam deck,i like dual glass displays for,multitasking over a single larger,plastic screen the duos are used heavily,around my home for that kind of,multitasking i fire up a friends live,stream while i also keep a recipe up,while im cooking dinner i got into the,really bad habit of watching videos,while also playing games on the fly,document work im managing a spreadsheet,while im timing my benchmarks email and,navigation i just think in two apps at,the same time other products are good at,delivering that use but theres nothing,as natively familiar at managing a,multitasking experience as dual display,but for all my fondness on the duos im,good if we take a year off i understand,the development process happening and,why were still on android 11 but id,really like to see what this team can do,to incorporate microsoft customizations,into android 13. when it comes to the,hardware were also in a very,interesting position with current soc,design and what i think the surface team,is trying to accomplish here im not,sure thered be much benefit to taking,this form factor and dropping a higher,performance and thirstier chip into,these panels weve seen some encouraging,improvements from qualcomm refreshing,their current eight gen one chip getting,better power and thermal performance i,would be concerned it might still be a,little too hot to deliver a better,experience when i still pick up my dual,1 theres very little by

Surface Duo 2 One Year Later: Defying Expectations!

contrary to semi-popular belief the,surface 202 is not dead yes Microsoft is,still supporting it its supporting it a,lot and were going to talk about that,in this video but there have been some,concerns about it because theres been,limited inventory most places have been,out of stock not getting them restocked,quickly and thats led to some,speculation that the phone is basically,the life supports being pulled on it and,that couldnt be farther from the truth,and Microsoft actually put out a,statement on this saying no the phones,lived well but much like everybody else,were suffering from supply chain,constraints materials all sorts of,different things that make it difficult,to resupply and to keep making more of,them so theyre still supporting the,phone and in fact theyre well theres,no fold three this year this is,something thats being punted to next,year and I gotta say and I talked about,this in a previous video I think thats,about the best decision that Microsoft,could have ever made,for a phone for two reasons one it shows,that theyre committed to this one,providing longer term support making,sure that their focus remains on this,device which is sorely needed not,because it needed it as a device but,because the company needed it to show,they could actually support something,and follow through two because we dont,need a new phone every year theres not,enough people out there that are willing,to pay the amount of money that,Microsoft wanted for this much less do,it year over year like we already did,with the duo because the duo to the duo,2 needed to happen the original Duo not,so great but I actually saw you could,buy an original Duo for about 300,something bucks on a website the other,day legitimate one I bought one for,there before I think it was giztop or I,cant remember what it was but uh Ill,go back and look see if I can find it,Ill put a link in the description but,the duo 2. so there have been some price,drops here and there it was like a 1600,phone when it first came out they have,it available on Amazon right now for,twelve hundred and twelve dollars brand,new not renewed,I think thats pretty fair however,probably pull that a little bit cheaper,now Ive seen it recently theyve had,some price drops that lasted very,temporarily for 999 dollars at 9.99 I,think that this phone is totally worth,it and if youre interested in it youve,been wanting to pick one up 9.99 I think,is probably the sweet spot and thats,one of those things if youre a day one,adopter especially with the Microsoft,phone a niche device like this,youre gonna have to pay full the price,of admission youre not going to get the,cheaper on sale price however I have,loved this phone I still do love this,phone and its one of those things where,I actually I always have a SIM card in,this I I pay and I keep a SIM card in,this year round because when I travel I,love to use this I love it for reading I,love it for multitasking one of my most,favorite pastimes is this is my perfect,ideal Lounge phone and a lot of times,when I would go out to the gym with my,family theyve got like a kind of like a,little Beach area outside not really,Beach but its like set up you can go,out and swim they got a little water,slide and an area for the adults to lay,out while the kids play I love to take,this with me and I will read my eBooks,on here I will just browse Twitter and,and also do things like research read do,things at the same time because you can,do that with two full-size screens,thats what the beauty is of this phone,its the two full-size screens and they,work independently of each other its,not like okay you open an app over here,and its running you open over here it,freezes this one no you can use them in,tandem at the same time and its,beautiful because look at all this space,that you get on both screens on both,sides and one of the great Beauties is,you can even hit the icons and set them,up where it will open up both apps,simultaneously on both screens and you,can configure that however you want its,really cool so I like to call this phone,the phone that Microsoft needed that,nobody wanted and they needed to take,this one on the chin for the team,especially after the debacle and the,horrible horrible horrible support and,launch and basically continued updating,of the original Duo which got more life,a year later during the first year,basically they launched that phone and,you knew immediately as soon as the duo,came out they basically moved on and,ditched it and had already were,preparing for the duo too much much,better phone here here I like the build,quality better I like the camera setup,on the back I know a lot of people have,had heartache because of this camera,bump it doesnt let you close it all the,way its not flush but that doesnt,really bother me as youre holding it is,not something that really gets in the,way so I never really saw the drama,behind that but this obsidian color is,beautiful I love the way it looks still,its very hard to protect one of these,without putting a skin on it I dont,like to put the skins on here I just,bought the Microsoft bumper which does,help,but it doesnt help enough it would be,neat if they had a very very thin glass,screen protector glass protector I guess,you could put on it this thing is very,very prone to surface abrasions good,gosh when I got rid of my original,surface Duo it looked like somebody took,a Brillo pad and just scratched the,whole thing up and I babied it for the,entire year this one has a couple I have,babied it even more than the last one,but yes the performance on the phone,top-notch Snapdragon Triple Eight you,got the two beautiful screens you got 5G,youve got all the power and performance,you could possibly ask for you have the,Microsoft Surface pen slim 2 which have,support for that it actually is a lot,better than the original one the the,slim pin versus the two I was kind of,hesitant about it but the the writing,the ergonomics on it and I think it,turned out to be good even though I had,to spend like another 140 bucks to buy,the second pin I did and I liked it so,going back to the idea this is the phone,that Microsoft needed that people didnt,want they needed to to show that they,could actually support a phone and if,you look back at Microsofts storied,history of devices especially with the,Windows operating system for Windows,mobile all those devices they basically,gave up on that and then you had some of,the other phones Windows is just or,sorry Microsoft has just never really,supported their stuff long term it never,lasts and they they suffer from a lot of,the same problems other big companies do,where they have more money than they,have to worry about liability Microsoft,is crazy stinking Rich they could afford,it they could take it on the chin they,could lose billions of dollars probably,and still just to stay in the game but,theyre not pulling an LG and where they,would lose a billion dollars a year just,to continue making devices so whatever,everybody heard they were making this,folding concept phone with the original,Duo theyre like nobody wants this well,at first they liked it everybody liked,the idea and then it showed up and then,people are like this is terrible they,did a bad job with the software its,laggy its got Its got so many glitches,and it just wasnt supported well and it,took months and they still didnt fix it,it took almost a year for the phone to,get to where it needed to be finally it,has Android 11 and its a completely,different phone like completely,different night and day foam so they did,a lot better with the surface Duo 2 and,the software experience is better the,compatibility is better you can tell,its definitely a second generation,product they did a lot here and made a,great phone I like it I love it I want,more of it I cant wait till we get the,duo 3 next year because hopefully,theres some more Lessons Learned still,what we need is some sort of an,indicator on the outside which this,Windows

Surface Duo 2 One Year Review | Still my favorite phone

it has been one calendar year since,Microsoft released their follow-up to,the surface Duo the surface duo 2. in,this video Im going to talk about what,the experience is one year later and to,do this Im going to be referencing my,original review which was published,about a year ago so were going to be,bouncing back and forth when you see the,black and white stuff thats going to be,the old review Im going to kind of be,commenting on what I thought then and,how it has maybe changed or not changed,now the first thing Im going to do in,this video might be a little bit telling,as to what my thoughts are and where Im,going to be going with this because the,first thing Im going to do in this,video is Im going to take my sim back,out of my z-fold four,and put it into the surface Duo too Ive,been bouncing back and forth between,devices a lot my pixel 7 Pro my z-fold 4,my Duo two for different reasons to,review the pixel to test the One ui5,beta here it needed to go back in here,but I keep being drawn back to Duo two I,keep wanting to come back to this device,back to my dual screen phone and I think,maybe that will kind of put you in the,right headspace for where my head is at,in regard to this phone so lets pop,these Sims out unfortunately on the fold,you actually have to take that off,to get to your sim which is a little bit,annoying,all right there you go the Sim has been,moved over now we can get into some,business here so at the risk of maybe,sounding redundant I do want to quickly,go over the hardware of Duo too some,people may have just forgotten what the,hardware was some people maybe never,knew in the first place maybe youre,looking at this thing as a new device,and you want to know how far behind it,actually is so lets take a look at the,hardware now this is surface Duo 2 it is,one of the most unique and strangest,looking smartphones on the market its,very very recognizable with its uh just,the form factor that it is in we have,two 5.8 inch displays that run at 90,Hertz a lot of times when you look this,thing up online itll say that the,screen is 8.3 inches for some reason,theyre measuring diagonally across both,screens that does not really make sense,to me its 5.8 inches from there to,there that is the size of these screens,they are covered with Corning Gorilla,Glass victus 401 PPI pixel density I,think that theyre both very solid,looking screens I just tried the double,tap to wake and that isnt anything that,functions on this device of course you,will notice that these screens are both,very very wide they are shorter not,necessarily shorter but theyre,definitely wider than your average,screen so this is something that youre,going to have to actually get used to,youll have to decide if this is,something that you like or not when you,look at something like the z-fold 4 or a,more normal screen it is definitely a,different form factor for me and for,people like myself a lot of us really,like that wider screen but again that is,something thats going to be,preferential we do have eight gigs of,RAM here running the Snapdragon Triple,Eight processor this is the 128 gig very,and this thing still does perform quite,well that processor is still quite fast,definitely fast enough the act of,opening and closing apps is just as fast,and as fluid now as it ever has been and,after this Android 12 update the,animations do actually feel even,smoother and nicer than they did before,yes it will score slower on a geekbench,benchmark than some something like the,z-fold 4 might but youre not going to,notice that in day-to-day use this thing,the Snapdragon triplet is still plenty,fast enough in terms of this rather,large camera bump on the back we do have,a 12 megapixel standard a 12 megapixel a,2X telephoto and a 16 megapixel Ultra,wide as well as a time of flight sensor,for portrait mode we will talk about,this camera setup and how the,performance is a little bit more in,depth later there is also a 12 megapixel,selfie camera on the inside stereo,speakers one is going to be up here and,one is down here which may seem a little,bit weird but when you know basically,any posture and youre still gonna have,stereo sound if youre like this you,have stereo sound if youre watching it,this way you have stereo sound if youre,in phone mode you have stereo sound,theres always going to be stereo sounds,that actually makes a lot of sense to,have it in that particular configuration,there is a side mounted fingerprint,scanner that is built into the power,button as well as a volume rocker there,above that the screens do curve ever so,slightly around the inside side and one,reason for that is the glance bar youre,actually able to see notifications on,the spine of this device if I actually,lets go to some music that I will have,playing and Ill show you kind of how,that looks,when youre changing the volume youre,actually going to be able to see it rise,and fall right there on the spine of the,device youll also be able to receive,like I said notifications for text,messages emails things like that right,there on the spine should that be,something you want to take advantage of,if you dont know surface Duo is a dual,screen device this is not a folding,AMOLED display something like the Galaxy,Z fold Line This is an actual two,separate screens separated by a hinge,down the middle and that is because this,is not trying to be a pocketable tablet,no instead what this is trying to be is,its trying to be something that,replicates the dual monitor setup that,so many of us do use at our house or at,our place of work some people are good,using one monitor in front of them using,one screen in front of them some of us,like to have two monitors as I have here,and so by virtue of that having two,monitors on my mobile device makes a lot,of sense honestly nothings changed from,a year on and even from two years on,going back to the original surface Duo,this is still exactly the same for me I,just got done using my z-fold 4 which I,have turned off uh for a while Ive gone,back and forth default two now Im using,the z-fold four the same thing is true,okay these are two very different,devices this is an Android tablet that,can fold up and yes it can do,multitasking and it can do a lot of cool,stuff in terms of multitasking but it is,not a dual screen phone and the way that,they behave the things that you do with,them the way that your workflow works on,a dual screen device versus a folding,tablet is just going to be different and,in my prior review I kind of talked,about this a bit and Ill talk about it,a bit here as well because I think that,its really important is a lot of people,have been deciding do you want to buy,the fold do you want to buy do well,theres reasons to buy the fold right,this is all subjective but Im going to,very quickly kind of tell you why I,think I prefer Duo over the fold so Ill,go over this as quick quickly as,succinctly as I possibly can but,basically this is it on Duo if I want to,launch Twitter Ill launch Twitter if I,want to launch a second app all I have,to do is go over to my launcher or go,into my app drawer whatever I want to do,its the same exact process to launch,the second app boom there is the second,app if I do the same thing here on the,z-fold 4 you can launch Twitter great,there it is but then if I want to turn,around and launch the Play Store I need,to go into my app drawer here and I need,to look for the Google Play store and,then I need to drag it over some people,might tell you hey that is a very skinny,looking couple of apps thats true,although you can rotate the z-fold and,at that point it is a pretty similar,look to what we have on the Z fold 4 and,in fact you can also open multiple apps,over here you can open up more,applications so lets go and open up,YouTube in a floating window lets do,YouTube music down here another one,maybe thats something that is really,important you you really love having a,whole bunch of apps open at once to me I,find this to be kind 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