Surface Duo 2 review: Microsoft’s second dual-screen hybrid is a letdown

Microsoft isn’t giving up on its dual-screen dreams. The company is back this year with a new Surface Duo that looks like it might fix some of the original’s flaws. Instead of a finicky and low-quality camera, the Duo 2 packs a triple-sensor system on its rear, in addition to a selfie shooter inside. The device also has a narrower overall footprint, faster-refreshing screens and some updated software. There’s also support for Microsoft’s Slim Pen 2, which should make drawing and taking notes a more intuitive experience.

But despite having addressed many of the previous generation’s issues and adding some useful features, the Duo 2 remains a frustrating device. And at $1,500, it’s still a pricey product with a niche, limited appeal.

Hardware and design changes

By now, you’re probably familiar with the Duo’s proposition. The second generation features a pair of 5.8-inch screens connected by a hinge. It’s also running Android 11 this year, with some tweaks to improve multi-display use. Combined, the two panels offer an 8.3-inch canvas, which is slightly bigger than before. You can flip one screen all the way around to use the Duo 2 in a phone-like single-screen state, use one side as a stand to prop up the other half or have both displays facing you like a book or tablet.

Like the original, this thing is an attractive piece of hardware with an impressively thin profile and a sleek silhouette. The Duo 2 is a bit heavier than its predecessor, and even heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 3, and I’d chalk most of that gain up to its camera module. Despite the chunky protrusion on the back of the right screen, though, the Duo 2 is evenly weighted and felt balanced when open.

David Imel for Engadget

My main concern when I first saw the camera bump was that two sides would no longer lay flush against each other when opened all the way up. But the bump was surprisingly unobtrusive, and while I didn’t mind using the Duo 2 as a single-screen device, it’s still a bit too wide to replace my phone, especially for one-handed use. Though the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is heavy and its screen is a little too narrow and cramped, it still offers a better experience in this mode.

When the panels are back-to-back, the system will keep the last screen you used active, while the other shows a message saying you can double tap it to switch over. It’s basically two phones sandwiching a camera and you can use one side at a time. You’ll notice odd aspect ratio issues here and there, thanks to the uncommon 1,892 x 1,344 resolution, but for the most part apps expand to cover the whole screen nicely if you enable the automatic span setting. It even worked with the notoriously finicky Instagram, except… photo captions would overflow into the edges and get eaten up, and Stories still had blank space flanking them. 

I did appreciate the 90Hz refresh rate when scrolling through my social feeds. The AMOLED panels are lovely, delivering crisp and colorful image and video quality. I do wish they got a bit brighter, though, since they’re about 200 nits dimmer than the iPhone 13 series.

When closed, the Duo 2 is basically useless since, unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 3, it doesn’t have an “external” screen. If you want to read your notifications while the device is laying on a table, you’ll need to leave it open or with one display facing out.

David Imel for Engadget

But Microsoft tries to offer you at least barebones notifications while the Duo 2 is closed via the new Glance Bar. The inside edges of the screens are curved slightly so you can see a little bit of the display through the hinge. When the Glance Bar is enabled, you can see the clock and other system info on this tiny sliver, and it’ll light up in different colors when you have incoming calls or messages. It actually drew my attention to the fact that the Duo 2 didn’t charge overnight by glowing red to indicate the battery was low.

While the Glance Bar is somewhat helpful, it’s also super tiny, which means you need to have Superman’s eyesight to see the clock from more than, say, a few inches away, which basically defeats the purpose. Plus, the Glance Bar works with just first-party apps for now, which means you’ll only get alerted to text messages and phone calls. Oh, and Teams calls, in case you’re that wired into Microsoft’s ecosystem.

The best uses for the Duo 2’s dual-screens

You can also use the Duo 2 in a few other modes (or “postures” as Microsoft calls them), thanks to the hinge, which is sturdy and smooth. It’s easy to open without too much force, yet strong enough to prop up one screen without it budging. Perhaps the best way to use the Duo 2 is in Book and Tent modes, the latter of which is wonderful for playing games while seated at a desk. It’s also handy for keeping an eye on Twitter or a YouTube live chat while working on my laptop.

David Imel for Engadget

Then, when you’re ready to turn your attention to something more intensive, switch over to Book mode and hold the Duo 2 up with both displays facing you. This can be very immersive on any device, and I had a similar feeling with the Z Fold 3. It’s not ideal for idle doomscrolling while you watch TV or firing off a quick reply to your group chats, though. When you have both screens on they basically demand you be actively engaged — whether it’s reading a book, or building a shopping list on one side while looking at recipes on the other.

The Duo 2 is satisfying in this mode if you’re holding it vertically. Flip to landscape orientation and the entire UI just struggles to keep up, especially if you’re using swipe-based navigation instead of choosing the older Android home screen, with back and recent buttons. In general, the Duo 2 feels a little clumsy when held horizontally.

Software quirks remain

I want to commend Microsoft for all the work it’s done to improve the Duo 2’s software. Compared to the hot mess of last year’s model, the system feels a little more cohesive. Part of that has to do with better support for multi-screen devices in Android 11. But quirks still remain and they’re still too numerous for me to list individually, so I’m just going to give you a few examples.

Like I said before, the UI doesn’t know what to do with the swipe-based navigation and in landscape mode, the typical swipe up to go home gesture doesn’t work. Instead, you’ll have to swipe in from the right to either go home or see all apps. To go back, you can only swipe from the left — bad news for anyone who preferred it the other way.

David Imel for Engadget

Also, trying to type in this mode is still a pain — you’ll lose more than two thirds of the screen to the keyboard (and a weird row of empty space at the bottom), so good luck trying to see what you composed.

Even in Book mode there are annoying quirks. There’s a pervasive touch input issue that other reviewers noted on the original Duo and it explains why I felt the Duo 2 is sluggish and finicky. Throughout the system, whether it’s trying to switch lenses in the camera or open the settings menu in a game, the system sometimes just doesn’t register a tap. I’d need to jab at it repeatedly for something to happen.

There are other issues too, but they happen inconsistently enough that I felt like the Duo 2 was gaslighting me. For example, the Microsoft Start app would randomly launch on the left screen when I had an app on the right. I promise you this wasn’t because I accidentally swiped over to the left to see the Start feed; This is a ghost app that appears on its own. There’s also that Instagram caption overflow problem I mentioned earlier that seemed to go away, but would reappear now and then.

Camera performance

The camera was one of the most frustrating parts of the original Duo, and I was hopeful that the second generation would be vastly improved. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. To be clear, the hardware is better. You get a triple camera system with a 12-megapixel main sensor, a 12-megapixel telephoto lens and a 16-megapixel wide option with a 110-degree field of view. The selfie camera also got an upgrade, going from 11-megapixels to 12.

Photos taken by the Duo 2 are better. In general, pictures were rich and bright, with sharp details, though the camera struggled in low light. There’s a weird cast in some of the photos where the camera seemed to white balance the same scene differently in back-to-back shots, but that’s a minor issue that other phones face too. More disappointing is the front camera, which delivered noisy, pale shots of my friends and I, and has a tendency to overexpose everything.

The biggest problem is that the Duo 2’s camera app still sucks. I thought that with a dedicated rear and front camera setup, the system would no longer have to guess what screen you wanted to use as a viewfinder. But instead of letting users decide which cameras they want to use at any time, Microsoft limits when you can use the rear cameras. If you unfold the Duo 2 so that the screens are more than 180 degrees away from each other, Microsoft disables the triple-sensor module and you’re stuck with the selfie option. Presumably, this is to prevent you from accidentally capturing the back of the device, but it just takes away user control. Why should Microsoft lock you out of the superior camera option on the Duo 2 just because the screens are open a little more than 180 degrees?

David Imel for Engadget

The UI is also supposed to allow you to use the spare screen as a photo viewer, so you can see your shots right after snapping them, but this didn’t happen consistently. And in a 10-minute photo shoot, the app crashed at least three times, showing a generic error message. To top it all off, the camera fails to keep up with rapid-fire shooting, sometimes taking a few seconds to snap a picture and save it to your gallery (I suspect this delay has more to do with the UI trying to pull up the image on the other screen than an actual processor issue). Throw in the touch input lag I mentioned earlier and the entire camera experience is a disaster. It’s as if Microsoft never bothered to test the camera at all.

Performance and battery life

Beyond the software quirks, the Duo 2’s high-end Snapdragon 888 chipset actually seemed to struggle at times. When I played a few rounds of Airplane Chefs in one-screen mode, the device ran hot and then completely stalled, leaving me unable to serve food to impatient passengers. This doesn’t just occur when I have the two screens flipped all the way around, either. On the whole, the area under the camera module tends to get warm. But when the Duo 2’s sides are stuck back to back, it seems to keep the heat from dissipating quickly enough.

Then there’s the countless number of times apps have just died on me. I handed the Duo 2 off to a friend with OneNote on the right screen, so they could try the keyboard. It refused to pull up the keyboard and shortly after stopped registering any touches. We closed and opened the device and the app still wasn’t working. Only a force quit revived OneNote. Oh and sometimes when I was using just one screen in landscape mode, a screenshot would capture the home screen instead of the app I was using on it.

David Imel for Engadget

The one thing I’m impressed with is that the Duo 2’s battery life isn’t any worse than before — which is a very low bar. This year’s model clocked 10 hours and 16 minutes with our video rundown test playing on one screen and the Android home page on the other. The original Duo came in at 10 hours and 32 minutes, and considering the faster screens, that seems fair. For what it’s worth, the Fold 3, which has a 120Hz panel, lasted 14 hours and 3 minutes.

Wrap-up

I could go on about all the little ways the Duo 2 struggles, but that would take forever. Some of them are minor and just require a little adjusting, while others, like the camera app, are downright unforgivable. Things Microsoft introduced to improve the experience, like the triple rear cameras and Glance bar, are only slight improvements. I appreciate the faster screens, but at this price they’re almost a given. I haven’t been able to test the Slim Pen 2, but it’s worth noting you’ll have to pay an extra $130 for it.

Like the Galaxy Z Fold 3, the Duo 2 is suffering a sort of identity crisis. Neither device works well as a phone replacement, but at least Samsung’s foldable has reliable software and good cameras. Despite the improvements, the Duo 2 is still a kind of gimmicky device that’s costly to boot and only people with $1,500 to burn and who really need a dual-screen phone should buy it.

Photos by David Imel (@DurvidImel)

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