Microsoft Surface Duo didn’t get much love when it debuted last year in October. It was merely a prototype, but it lacked a camera, was rather fat and had a pretty thick hinge between screens. Well, we’re back in 2020 with an incident that involved a Microsoft live stream with developers and malfunctioning Surface Duo units.
We saw the device recently leaked in someone’s hand in Canada and it seemed to become slimmer and it also got a camera and flash. The live stream that happened a day or two ago was made for developers, who were shown the benefits of dual screen apps. The problem appeared when during the demo a bunch of Surface Duo models refused to move apps across screens and then crashed. According to The Verge one of the dual screens stopped responding to touch inputs.
The app drawer didn’t disappear as it was expected to and Google Maps wouldn’t show for the entire span of the two screens. Kevin Galleo, head of Windows Developer Platform had to swap the malfunctioning unit with another one from his pocket. Embarasingly enough that one had a problem moving an app from one screen to the other and then crashed. Microsoft had to perform a reshoot of the video and this time it was edit to function perfectly.
They did post a warning that some parts of the demonstrations were “updated post event”. Surface Duo was unveiled in October 2019 and it’s a dual display machine that runs Android and the spiritual successor to the oft rumored Surface Phone. It’s got two 5.6 inch screens that together form an 8.3 inch large screen. This is not exactly a foldable, but rather a two screen device with some space and a hinge between them. We hope all this gets fixed before launch and that’s where feedback and devs come in. We already have emulators and guidelines, so we’re all set.
I predict a large price so the expectations will also be rather large.
