RIP Surface Duo—Microsoft reportedly gives up on the weird form factor - Ars Technica

Enlarge / The Surface Duo 2 moving Android 12L.

Microsoft

Windows Central's Zac Bowden is the go-to newsman for immoderate Microsoft Surface rumors, and his latest report is that Surface Duo 3 is dead, oregon astatine least, a instrumentality successful the aforesaid mold arsenic the Surface Duo 1 and 2 has been canceled. There mightiness someday beryllium a Microsoft instrumentality branded "Surface Duo 3," but the Surface Duo signifier factor—a dual-screen instrumentality with a 360-degree hinge—is dead. The study says Microsoft is present moving connected a "more accepted foldable design, with a 180-degree hinge, interior foldable surface and outer screen display"—so successful the aforesaid vein arsenic a Galaxy Fold.

The Surface Duo enactment made for 2 of the astir awkward Android devices connected the market. Instead of the tall, skinny displays that Android phones typically use, some Surface Duos utilized short, abdominous displays, making the Duo enactment the widest smartphones connected the market. The archetypal Surface Duo was planned to tally the canceled "Windows 10x" OS, which would person taken vantage of the unsocial surface facet ratio. When that OS was canceled, the task was salvaged arsenic an Android phone, but those short, abdominous displays led to a batch of atrocious Android app layouts, with the constricted vertical surface abstraction further reduced by Android's large headers and tab bars. It seems similar Microsoft wanted to onshore connected the aforesaid basal outline arsenic a Moleskine notebook, but Android apps conscionable aren't designed for that facet ratio. Plus, adjacent erstwhile folded up, being dramatically wider than immoderate different smartphone connected the marketplace besides made it a literal symptom to effort to clasp with 1 hand.

After 2 near-identical versions, Microsoft seemed to person been coming astir to the "way excessively wide" enactment of thinking. The study says the canceled Surface Duo 3 would person had "narrower and taller edge-to-edge displays," which would person enactment the telephone successful a much tenable signifier factor.

Enlarge / The adjacent Microsoft telephone volition beryllium much similar the Galaxy Fold, with 1 large foldable display. This 1 adjacent runs Excel!

Samsung

With those plans dead, what is "considered a third-generation Duo internally" volition beryllium a much mean foldable smartphone, and it's not wide if it volition beryllium branded "Surface Duo 3" oregon not. As we've argued successful our review of the archetypal device, outfitting the instrumentality with a continuous interior surface would beryllium a large betterment implicit the dual-screen design. With 1 large foldable display, you could inactive get each of the dual-screen functionality via Android's bundle split-screen mode but with the added payment of besides having 1 large surface for tablet apps, movies, games, and websites.

Besides the Android-incompatible signifier factor, Microsoft's Android phones person had a big of different problems that the institution volition request to fix. The Surface Duos ever felt similar beta foldable devices, and that compromise mightiness person worked if they weren't the afloat terms of a existent foldable phone. The $1,400-$1,500 terms tags were not competitory for what were fundamentally 2 smartphones glued together, truthful you've got to wonderment what is up with Microsoft's proviso chain. Microsoft's Android bundle part has besides been a blistery mess, with the institution outsourcing the Surface Duo 1 OS until 2 months earlier merchandise and shipping a disastrously buggy physique of Android arsenic a result. Microsoft has since bought the squad it was outsourcing its Android builds to, but truthful far, Surface Duo customers person seen a worst-in-class Android update record.

The study describes Microsoft arsenic wanting to marque its Android telephone enactment amended with Windows via an interior programme called “Perfect Together” that is gathering Apple-style integrations betwixt telephone and laptops/desktops. Despite the nonaccomplishment of the Surface Duo, Bowden says that Microsoft is "all-in" with Android and "eager to grow its enactment of Android smartphone offerings" beyond the caller foldable device. The study says Microsoft has prototyped respective ideas for a "mainstream" slab-style Surface telephone that mightiness someday ship.

It sounds similar we'll beryllium waiting a portion for Microsoft's adjacent Android phone, with Bowden saying the foldable has "no factual shipping model for the instrumentality successful spot yet either, meaning it's improbable to beryllium acceptable successful clip for this fall."