Everyone is getting in on the fold lately. Who can blame them? I’ve often waxed lyrical about the power of a good hinge. Yet just because a hinge can be cool doesn’t mean every phone should have one, as proven by the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Galaxy Z Flip. Yet the failings of others often pave the route of success for those willing to learn from everyone else’s mistakes, which is exactly what Microsoft appears to be doing with the Surface Duo phone and it’s dual screen which, I have to admit, looks really cool. What makes the device even cooler is that the world doesn’t have to wait much longer for it as Microsoft has confirmed that it’s launching next month.
The Surface Duo is an Android phone that sports all the usual features you’d expect from a smartphone, with just a touch of style. In terms of internals, the Surface Duo sporting a Snapdragon 855 processor with 6GB RAM and a varying storage capacity of 128GB or 256GB. You’ll find a 3,577mHz battery which is pretty standard, nothing special about that. If anything, that battery is smaller than you’d expect given that it’s running two screens at the same time. Speaking of which…
The real draw of the Surface Duo are the dual screens. The devices comes with two OLED displays, each running a 4:3 aspect ration and a 1800×1350 resolution. Nothing all that interesting until, like a squad of Power Rangers, they unite their powers and create a massive 8.1″ screen that displays at 2700 x 1800 and features an aspect ration of 3:2. Now those are some specs! The screens are held together by hinge that isn’t built into the glass of the device; the screens have been designed so that the hinge sits within the display but doesn’t require the actual glass to fold, meaning it should be far more reliable than something like the Galaxy Z Flip.
There’s only once camera on the Surface Duo: An 11-megapixel f/2.0 shooter that can be used for HDR multi-frame shots, 4K video recording at 30fps and 60fps, and up to 7x digital zoom…which isn’t great but you’re not buying this phone for the camera.
Odds are you’re not buying this phone at all. As far as we know the Surface Duo isn’t among the slew of Microsoft Surface products that have recently made their way onto South African shores and we have no idea if that will change. Which is probably not too big a deal since the Surface Duo costs a disgusting 1,400USD, which at the time of writing, works out to R25 350. Still less than the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G but man, you’ve got to be really desperate for a solid hinge to break the bank like that.
(Source: TNW)