5 ms·

I was a windows phone user for ages, I’ve got several surfaces, and I’m super hyped about dual screen phones. Unfortunately this device just isn’t made for 202

by nxc18 6y ago

I was a windows phone user for ages, I’ve got several surfaces, and I’m super hyped about dual screen phones. Unfortunately this device just isn’t made for 2020 (or 2017) usage: small battery with no wireless charging, not waterproof, no NFC (aka no wireless payments), questionable/unproven camera, processor with 2017 specs driving two screens. On top of all that, surface has particularly bad hardware reliability. Of the devices I’ve owned, each has had to be factory serviced. My Nokia phones from the windows phone 8 era all needed to be factory serviced. And all that for the low price of two iPhones. Sadly this is yet another innovative device that will be killed by making the wrong trade offs. I expect it to be copied and executed much better by Apple or maybe Samsung (I tried the Note 10 recently and the stylus is much better than the surface pen).

ogre_codes 6y ago
Samsung already has a folding phone, and it seems pretty clear they are going to push hard on the flexible OLED screens since it's something no-one else currently does well.
eightysixfour 6y ago
I actually think this device was made for me. I carry an iPhone for my personal phone, but I keep a separate device for work where most of the things you just mentioned don't matter. I need it to last a work day and waterproofing, NFC, and the camera won't matter to me in that context, etc. There is a good chance this will replace my laptop for ~75% of my work, which is dominated by meetings, not focused work time.
- jszymborski 6y ago
  Might I ask what your use-case is?
  - eightysixfour 6y ago
    My role is a bit delivery management and a bit account management so I have a lot of facetime (well, pre-COVID) with B2B clients and I am also responsible for making sure delivery teams are on track. An average day for me is 50%+ meetings and the rest of the time is spend coordinating actions (slack, text, emails, JIRA boards, Aha, etc.) as a result of those. Right now I bounce around between a laptop (Surface Pro) and a paper notebook. I could also probably do most of my job with an iPad Pro but the idea of the split screen appeals to me enough for me to overcome the switching cost that, for whatever reason, the iPad Pro did not. Having a decade old note taking system that I still actively use inside of OneNote is also a contributor to my interest. My biggest fear for the Duo is that the stylus experience is subpar, so I'll certainly be trying that out first.
ZainRiz 6y ago
Sounds like the perfect phone for 2020, when we're all at home and just need to surf the internet from our couches
FroshKiller 6y ago
To me, battery life isn't that big a deal for phones. You can pick up a 10,000-mAh portable battery pack on sale for under $20. If I'm going out, I put one in my bag.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
If it was running Windows 10 like Surface Neo would it have changed your mind, assuming you would see some productivity benefits being a Windows ecosystem user? But its doubtful Neo would see its light and even if Microsoft released a tablet with Windows 10 IMO it's again getting into the same mess of Windows Phone era. If Neo gets successful, it would likely need to release a smartphone with Windows 10 and if Duo gets successful it would need to scale it up to tablet(which is what likely to happen). >My Nokia phones from the windows phone 8 era I concur, I bought a Lumia 640 for development of our app for Windows Phone ecosystem. One day I used a different charger (Of same spec) and the phone charging port went kaput; Searching the web, it seems to be a very common problem but MS never bothered to call back the devices. But, there are similar stores for Google Nexus line of devices and I think for early Pixel devices too.
- nxc18 6y ago
  tl;dr Consumers have higher expectations for the quality of mobile hardware and software (driven by iOS and nowadays Android) than Windows can currently provide. The reliability issues are bordering on a dealbreaker for me at this point. I've had lots of Microsoft hardware; maybe I'm just unlikely, but the only thing that didn't need factory service was an Xbox One. I'm not a Microsoft hater by any stretch, but having to get a Zune 80, Surface 3, Surface RT, and Xbox 360 factory serviced really soured me. I've had several Android and Apple devices at this point and none have needed factory service. Windows 10 still isn't tuned well for mobile, and the few parts that are just aren't generally reliable. I'm actively working on a UWP app right now and the problems are endless - issues with resizing windows, crashing when themes change (built in apps like Maps have the same issues so its not my code), broken vector icon rendering, etc. The whole thing is based on COM, which tends to lead to leaky abstractions when exposed through higher-level APIs. It is hard enough to make high-quality software on Windows that developers often fail and it leads to weird quirks. Even with traditional desktop apps, getting things like maximize behavior right with customized windows is actually very hard (see Slack, Teams or VS Code on a high/mixed DPI setup). Here's a small taste of what a modern Windows developer gets to deal with, to accomplish the simple task of displaying a vector icon: https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/1494 https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/1494

by nxc18 6y ago

ogre_codes 6y ago

Samsung already has a folding phone, and it seems pretty clear they are going to push hard on the flexible OLED screens since it's something no-one else currently does well.

eightysixfour 6y ago

I actually think this device was made for me. I carry an iPhone for my personal phone, but I keep a separate device for work where most of the things you just mentioned don't matter. I need it to last a work day and waterproofing, NFC, and the camera won't matter to me in that context, etc. There is a good chance this will replace my laptop for ~75% of my work, which is dominated by meetings, not focused work time.

jszymborski 6y ago
Might I ask what your use-case is?
- eightysixfour 6y ago
  My role is a bit delivery management and a bit account management so I have a lot of facetime (well, pre-COVID) with B2B clients and I am also responsible for making sure delivery teams are on track. An average day for me is 50%+ meetings and the rest of the time is spend coordinating actions (slack, text, emails, JIRA boards, Aha, etc.) as a result of those. Right now I bounce around between a laptop (Surface Pro) and a paper notebook. I could also probably do most of my job with an iPad Pro but the idea of the split screen appeals to me enough for me to overcome the switching cost that, for whatever reason, the iPad Pro did not. Having a decade old note taking system that I still actively use inside of OneNote is also a contributor to my interest. My biggest fear for the Duo is that the stylus experience is subpar, so I'll certainly be trying that out first.

ZainRiz 6y ago

Sounds like the perfect phone for 2020, when we're all at home and just need to surf the internet from our couches

FroshKiller 6y ago

To me, battery life isn't that big a deal for phones. You can pick up a 10,000-mAh portable battery pack on sale for under $20. If I'm going out, I put one in my bag.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

If it was running Windows 10 like Surface Neo would it have changed your mind, assuming you would see some productivity benefits being a Windows ecosystem user? But its doubtful Neo would see its light and even if Microsoft released a tablet with Windows 10 IMO it's again getting into the same mess of Windows Phone era. If Neo gets successful, it would likely need to release a smartphone with Windows 10 and if Duo gets successful it would need to scale it up to tablet(which is what likely to happen). >My Nokia phones from the windows phone 8 era I concur, I bought a Lumia 640 for development of our app for Windows Phone ecosystem. One day I used a different charger (Of same spec) and the phone charging port went kaput; Searching the web, it seems to be a very common problem but MS never bothered to call back the devices. But, there are similar stores for Google Nexus line of devices and I think for early Pixel devices too.

nxc18 6y ago
tl;dr Consumers have higher expectations for the quality of mobile hardware and software (driven by iOS and nowadays Android) than Windows can currently provide. The reliability issues are bordering on a dealbreaker for me at this point. I've had lots of Microsoft hardware; maybe I'm just unlikely, but the only thing that didn't need factory service was an Xbox One. I'm not a Microsoft hater by any stretch, but having to get a Zune 80, Surface 3, Surface RT, and Xbox 360 factory serviced really soured me. I've had several Android and Apple devices at this point and none have needed factory service. Windows 10 still isn't tuned well for mobile, and the few parts that are just aren't generally reliable. I'm actively working on a UWP app right now and the problems are endless - issues with resizing windows, crashing when themes change (built in apps like Maps have the same issues so its not my code), broken vector icon rendering, etc. The whole thing is based on COM, which tends to lead to leaky abstractions when exposed through higher-level APIs. It is hard enough to make high-quality software on Windows that developers often fail and it leads to weird quirks. Even with traditional desktop apps, getting things like maximize behavior right with customized windows is actually very hard (see Slack, Teams or VS Code on a high/mixed DPI setup). Here's a small taste of what a modern Windows developer gets to deal with, to accomplish the simple task of displaying a vector icon: https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/1494 https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/1494