“Hasn’t it learnt its lesson? Microsoft should stay out of making phones”, muttered one.
“Which narrative should we go with for this one? The long-rumoured Surface Phone has finally arrived! The Microsoft Courier is back from the dead! After the death of Windows Phone, Microsoft finally gave in and made an Android phone!” snarked another.
Other lines included the comment that Microsoft was announcing a phone a year before it was going to hit the shops. We guess they have not noticed that Apple has been making the same phone for years and pretending it is something different.
The Microsoft Surface Duo is a dual-screen Android phone which should be out this time next year.
Microsoft's chief product officer for the Devices group, Panos Panay, said the device was designed to bring together the "best of Microsoft" with the "best of Google". This means the Duo is a fully Google-approved Android device, with a full suite of Google apps plus pre-loaded Microsoft apps.
Between the two screens, the device has a 360° hinge. You can fold the phone closed with the two screens protected on the inside, or you can fold it all the way in the other direction with the screens on the front and back. In this form factor, the Surface Duo looks like an extra-wide smartphone. We have no information on the spec yet.
Microsoft demoed all the usual configurations of a 360° hinge on a laptop: lay it out flat on a table in horizontal or landscape orientation, hold it like a book, use it like a mini-laptop, fold it over and use it like a normal, single-screen phone, or prop it up in a tent position for movie watching. The hinge can do it all.
You can run two apps side-by-side and drag links and other items between them. Some Microsoft apps have special support for the dual-screen interface. One example of an email app worked a bit like a tablet UI: you get a inbox on the left screen with an individual message on the right.
The one thing the Surface Phone has going for it is that it's thin. When folded, it doesn't seem like it has the pocket-busting thickness that other dual-screen smartphones have.
