Much Duo About Nothing (Premium)

According to a new leak, Surface Duo will use an older chipset and provide poor battery life. Surface fans won’t be surprised by this” We’ve been dealing with compromises and bizarre design decisions from day one. And did anyone really think Surface Duo was going to be a flagship killer? Or did we just think it would deliver that special something that all Surface devices provide?

The leaks that started this debate comes via Zac Bowden, who I find to be reliable. He claims that Surface Duo will ship with a Snapdragon 855 processor, 6 GB of RAM, 64 GB or 256 GB of storage, depending on configuration, and a single 11 MP camera/lens that will work for both selfies and normal shots. It will provide a 3460 mAh battery, but Zac says the Duo won’t be “an endurance champ,” mostly because of the two displays. And 5G compatibility, wireless charging, and NFC are all missing in action. Because of the timing, it will ship with Android 10, but it will be upgradeable to Android 11 (due in September) “relatively quickly.”

I have no issues with any of that.

And Zac is pretty positive about most of the specs, too, noting that there are good reasons for the component that will be questioned by most: Despite the fact that the Snapdragon 865 will have been available for over six months by the time the Duo ships, Microsoft went with the older 855 because the 865 requires hardware makers to also buy a 5G chipset, which is both unnecessary and more expensive.

Zac’s right about the Snapdragon 855: It’s still an excellent chipset, and it will be viable for years to come. And the other specs he leaked seem fine to me: the RAM, the storage, everything seems to line up nicely for this crazy niche device. We can leave the high-end specs, and the resulting higher prices, to devices with newsworthier but unreliable folding displays.

Despite this, I’ve seen multiple negative takes on this leak. For example, Mashable says that Surface Duo “might not be that exciting,” with its “mediocre” battery. And Tom’s Guide and others parrot this, nothing that the specs leak is “bad news.”

Here’s the thing. As Surface fans, you and I have been living with compromises and bizarre design decisions since the brand launched 8 years ago. And the choices I see here are simply consistent with what we’ve seen all along from Panos Panay and his team. I’ll remind you that Surface is the only PC maker on earth that still doesn’t support Thunderbolt 3/USB-C on even a single model; we’ve been talking about this transition, which only Microsoft hasn’t made, for four years.

We can debate and disagree about any individual Surface design decision. But here’s what I do know: They come from the right place, with Microsoft trying to do right by its actual customers and not make disruptive changes. I wrote about this two years ago, and I noted at that time that Microsoft could extend its proprietary Surface Connect port to support Thunderbolt 3-type capabilities; that apparently happened quietly since I wrote that, and the new Surface Dock 2 will support such things as driving two 4K displays at 60 fps, something that is impossible over just USB-C.

But that’s a computer issue. What is it about the Surface Duo, configured as Zac describes, that should cause any concerns?

It’s not the performance: The processor and RAM are fine. The battery is absolutely a question, but Duo will support quick charging, and I’ve often argued that that capability is just as important as battery life. The single camera, which does dual duty between front- and back-facing functionality is … well, odd. And this camera probably won’t be very good. That could be a sticking point for some, to be sure.

But Surface Duo is Microsoft’s first stab at a new form factor, and I think that most of its attention was spent on the marquee feature here, those dual displays. And you either love that—need that—or you don’t. If you do, the other issues just sort of fade into the background.

I’m curious about Surface Duo for many reasons. But I don’t believe that it will be ready to replace my daily-use smartphone here in 2020, just the original Surface RT and Pro were not ready to replace my laptop in 2012-2013. But Microsoft will do what it always does: It will evaluate the feedback, see how people are really using the device, and will evolve the platform—or kill it—as needed.

Is anyone really going to worry about some compromises in a first-generation product aimed solely at enthusiasts? I’m not.