Microsoft finally launched Surface Duo 2, the successor of Surface Duo, Microsoft's folding phone cum tablet. It comes with a lot of improvements, both in the hardware and software realm, over the previous generation Surface Duo. So let us get into it.
Specifications -
The Surface Duo of last year lagged one step behind as far as the processor goes. It had a Snapdragon 855, which was one step behind the contemporary current processor. This time, Microsoft has fixed it. The Surface Duo 2 comes with a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 5G processor, which is the latest and greatest you can get currently.
This time the Surface Duo 2 has a proper back camera system. It has a three camera-system at the back consisting of a 12MP main wide camera, a 16MP ultrawide camera, and a 12MP telephoto camera. It also has a 12MP front-facing camera, and a 'dual led - dual color flash'.
The camera system at the back can record HDR video. It also has the capability to record 4K videos at both 30 and 60 fps, slow motion video at 120 or 240 fps. It supports HEVC and H.264 video recording formats.
The Surface Duo 2 has support for cellular 5G, and it also supports Bluetooth 5.1 and WIFI 6.
The Surface Duo 2 has 3 storage variants - 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. It comes with 8GB DRAM LPDDR5 Memory.
The Surface Duo 2 has one Nano-SIM slot and also supports eSIM.
IMPROVEMENTS and PROBLEMS
The quality of the hinge on the new Surface Duo 2 is quite nice. Many of the bugs present in the software last year are also fixed. Now there is an actual camera system on the back instead of the front-camera-only approach of the last-gen Surface Duo. The back cameras still aren't that good, but they are a significant improvement.
There are still many software bugs present in the UI. Hardware flaws are also present. Whenever the Surface Duo 2 is closed, there is a space left between the two screens, where dust or small particles can settle and damage the screen or the hinge. Apart from these flaws, one other major flaw is also present. Whenever you use both the screens horizontally like a book, there is a gap in between both the screens which creates a big vertical barrier between the content you are watching. Like if you are reading a blog, half of the blog would be on one screen and another half on the other. Think of it as cutting the blog in two pieces from the middle. What's worse is that the content is not fully cut. It means that the part of the content that was supposed to be where the gap is present is just missing! This is a huge problem which Microsoft will have to fix, if and when there is a 3rd generation of Surface Duo!
Apart from these flaws, we must remember that this still is a very experimental area and is still under active development. So hardware and software issues are very much expected. The Surface Duo 2 is not at all ready for a day to day normal usage, and Microsoft knows it very well. They have made significant improvements over the previous generation, and we must appreciate that. We must remember that whatever tech we have today, was just like this in its development phase!
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