It will be back! (see also: Microsoft Courier)

edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI from 2009!

I didn't like foldable devices the first time they presented them decades ago, and I won't like them now.

It's a cool nifty concept but in practical use is beyond annoying.

So happy I waited. I was a sucker for several products that got dropped

And no one cares.

Typical for Microsoft to develop something, and then completely abandon it

I like the Microsoft Duo. Just lacked some specs and things weren't optimized for it unfortunately.

Have a Galaxy Fold-4. Best phone I've ever owned by a country mile. Without the folding continuous screen, the MS phones are simply not in the same league.

I remember debating this with u/Daniel_Rubino back a few months after the trainwreck launch of the OG Duo on the Duo subreddit. I claimed it was immedietely apparent before Microsoft had even launched the device that they had effectively abandoned it. It started development at a different time in the gadget space, and never even intended to have Android. We got a Duo 1 and Duo 2 but that was because the hardware was already effectively developed - thus the small batches of them produced, for truly ridiculous asking prices, and saddled with Android instead of a version of ARM Windows as originally planned.

He insisted he knew for absolute sure that Microsoft was commited to the line for at least three hardware generations, and that it was a bulletproof internal plan. He claimed they were roadmapping the form factor deep into the future and that they had significant resources working on software development, and that the Duo line would continue to get monthly software updates adding significant fixes and new features monthly for a long time.

The result? Two half baked devices. Scant software updates. And a quick abandonment by Microsoft. Microsoft literally washed their hands of it entirely and left it to Google with Android 12L to try and make a usable OS with the Duo. Oh, and one cancelled Neo device, too. And of course you can't forget the product designers tweeting about how awesome of a daily driver phone it was - from their iPhones.

My point? Hype is hype, and hype is not reality. Folks like Rubino, and nothing against him personally I'm sure he's just a nice guy doing his job, are paid corporate hype beasts and not objective tech journalists. When the Duo was imminent he was all over the Duo subreddit on a daily basis talking up big plans and a million and one reasons to invest your hard earned money into the Duo. He probably wasn't lying, Microsoft was feeding him this stuff, but he was being lied to.

Microsoft is second only to Google in squandering time, money, and engineers over projects that launch as zombies, while swearing up and down they are committed forever to whatever it is - while behind closed doors they are debating how to sunset it before it's even in people's hands. I don't know what sort of internal, mega fucked up corporate inefficiencies lead to this crap but it is becoming a major problem in the tech world. I think part of it is that companies are addicted to the press cycle and potential stock bump of exciting new products, but care little to none about building the infrastructure necessary to carry them on as staple offerings.

A small number of people got some good out of their Duos. Before I got my Fold 3 I really enjoyed mine (which I pre-ordered and got on launch day) for Manga and just general web browsing on the couch and in bed. I tried to use it as a daily carry phone for about a week before ending that experiment, because it might be the worst expensive Android "Phone" ever. However at the end of the day you can't deny it is an absolute failure that Microsoft shoved out into the market to shake down the pockets of their most ardent fans, and not much more than that beyond a neat novelty.

That’s google’s signature style: https://killedbygoogle.com

Great... We went from becoming repairable to some trashbin tier tech...

Hard pass.

The only league they are in is the you have a gimmick crowd..

0 repairability...

0 water resistance

0 practically or long term use.

As an owner, I like what I have. I've been using mobile phones for 30 years. Best I've ever had. You're not an owner.

FYI my phone is water resistant to 30m.

You like planned trash. Just make sure you recycle.

To 30m sure it is.

lol. You clearly don't know how deep 30m is. You have likely never been deeper than 10m.

You know what the max depth is for diving right....

So 30m... Good luck with that claim

Where do you gimps crawl from? I have a deep water diving licence gimp, and it took me many many hours to train to be permitted to drive to that level using leased equipment. You sound like the kind of silly numpty that can't even swim. 30m = 100 feet. It's dark at that depth.

Edit: for the non-gimps, diving depths: https://oceantrust.org/scuba-diving-depth-for-beginners/

So your a fraud making hilarious fake claims...

Tell us more.

Max depth didn't chsnge...

[removed]

I don't mind them, but only when they make them thinner, and get rid of that damned crease in the middle.

I've had both the Duo 1 and 2, and both were incredible to use, just simple things that you could never do by going back to a standard single aspect phone.

You sound like someone who has never used one, as the entire point of a dual screen phone is that they are so much easier to use.

Once you use a device like this you realise how pathetically limited phones are.

Imagine you're on the go and someone sends you a picture of a number written down that you have to use elsewhere, like a webform or something... how tf are you gonna do that on a single aspect phone? Memorise the number? LOOOOL

Microsoft is still "all-in" with Android.

And there's the main reason why it failed.

Well if they didn't ax Windows phone after a few years. then ppl might trust them.

I'll never buy a phone from Microsoft again after what they did to windows phone. I still see Microsoft as the guy who murdered my wife. I loved that phone ecosystem till it's literal death untill MS pulled the plug on it after years of mismanagement the ecosystem.

Awesome. I’m sure we all look forward to the next $2500 device that barely functions.

I miss my Windows phone. I feel like they functioned better than Android for sure, and i dont want to give Apple my money.

Yep, heartbroken still about Windows Phone. It was so good, until it wasn't. Loved the look, the interface. Also had a band, a zune, etc. Why do they hurt me so.

Rip Surface. The whole line. Please Microsoft, move on.

I think that’s a joke. You spent too much time on the buildup though so I feel like you’re serious at the same time.

had lost all hope in microsoft when they dumped windows os... it was like the best os i have ever used

Honestly, it's actually less weird than a foldable when you think about it.

It's just two screens which is much more simple of a concept than having one foldable screen with a giant crease in the middle and then one front screen.

I just think because Samsung has such a higher market share it's sort of become the norm. But even the norm in the foldable market is less than 1% of Samsung's market share so either way these are weird niche products.

But it's a shame. Honestly I think LG did it the best with the v60 which had a dual screen case accessory that you could use or choose to leave at home.

But either way it's pretty tragic that no dual screen phones will be on the market.

Yeah I mean all the major consumer tech problems have done a fair share of this. Google is known for abandoning software not so much hardware. They do abandon hardware too but Microsoft has a much longer grave site list when it comes to abandon hardware then Google. Google basically just has the pixelbook and the pixel slate.

Microsoft has the duo, the zune, surface pro x, the neo, basically every arm-based mobile product I've ever made has been abandoned, The windows phone.... The surface book appears to be dead. Continuum..

Yeah I'm sure if he reads this post he will try to claim this foldable is technically still part of that plan or something.

But it doesn't really pass the credibility test.

Windows Central guys obviously depend on Microsoft for virtually 90% of their news and access so I always take anything they say with a grain of salt. Whether it's subconscious or fanboyism or just survival for there product, they're really never going to be super critical of Microsoft for an active product.

Zac it's already essentially accepting Microsoft's claims that face value that they're committed to Android which seems extremely dubious on its face.

I don't mean to be too critical, I enjoy their podcast occasionally. There's a niche, if you are interested in some of these unique devices there's not that much coverage since all the YouTubers basically just talk about Apple or Samsung all the time.

But they're not going to bite the hands that feeds them. Even if they try to be objective, survival and subconscious bias would probably get in the way

Yeah I don't think I would ever buy a full prize Microsoft product again. I mean at least not on a high end device.

The only way I would ever consider something like that is if I was finding a crazy deal on the resale market.

I wouldn't spend over $1,000 on a surface pro 9. I'd like the form factor but I just don't trust the company.

But if I could find a surface pro 6 for 250 bucks on Woot or something that's basically the only way I would patronize Microsoft flagship products anymore.

All of that said you can find the surface duo OG for 250 brand new come in '99 for a grade C used.

It's absolutely worth it just as a e-reader alone.

Yeah well actually the real reason had failed was because Windows on arm failed. That's why they canceled the neo and then the last minute they tried to shoehorn the duo onto Android.

And you're right it was a mess.

But it was really just a last-minute hail Mary. They actually designed these products to be used on a Windows mobile operating system on arm and that is what failed

Microsoft has just not been able to get arm-based mobile products right. Not only do they cancel the neo and the windows 10x operating system, but the surface pro x, Windows phone

My experiences with the Surface Pro 3 and the Lumia lost micosoft a customer for life. I'm sure they don't care. But I can't be alone.

Should they continue to invest money into something no one wants ?

I liked it but too pricey

Nah he’s just really invested in the joke, then realized it was shit and gave up.

The ONLY successful hardware MS has EVER produced has been their mice and keyboards. Everything else has been a dumpster fire. UltimateTV (Tivo Competitor), Kin, Windows Phone, Zune...EVERY last time they get into hardware, they fail. And yes, I am including Xbox here. (RRoD anyone?)

Of course, their software isn't so great these days either...companies like MS continue because of inertia, NOT because they are making the best stuff out there....and because when anyone comes close to making a product that is actually competitive, they just crush them into oblivion, or buy them out.

Google has had their fair share of hardware failures too...Stadia comes to mind.

I resisted the very notion of ever going to Apple for years...I finally got sick of Google spying on me (I would get targeted ads on chrome based on what my phone heard me say!), so I finally pulled the trigger and got an iPhone 13 Pro Max. Haven't regretted it at all. There was some adjustments to be made (like NOT having to close background apps all the time), but overall the experience on iPhone IS better than Android. It's far from perfect, but MILES better than even the best Android handsets out there, and I was using Android since Gingerbread and a hardcore supporter of the platform!

If he had the Duo 1 and 2, that means he "invested" over $3000 on bleeding edge tech that's already obsolete.

I love mine, damn.

Big surprise. This is what happens when you pair a niche product with 2-year-old specs and a premium $1,500 price tag. Thinking that this product was going to be anything more than a failure should be a fireable offense.

>Microsoft has the duo, the zune, surface pro x, the neo, basically every arm-based mobile product I've ever made has been abandoned, The windows phone.... The surface book appears to be dead. Continuum..

This is a dishonest way to put it for the bolded products, though.

• The Duo, as the article mentions, will simply not continue with two separate screens and instead will have one foldable screen. That's like saying they "abandoned" the Xbox because they released a successor product. They are iterating and changing the product, and we'll see if the name sticks or not.
• The Surface Pro X was just an ARM-based Surface Pro with an SQ 1 or SQ 2 chip, as it was refreshed in late 2020. It was not abandoned because the last ARM-based Surface Pro to come out came out two months ago, it's just in the same body as the x86 Surface Pro products now. You can get a Surface Pro 9 with the SQ3. The 9 simply merged the X and the regular x86 lines.
• The Neo never came out (and I'm guessing it won't).
• The Surface Book was superseded by the Surface Laptop Studio, which means that, similarly to the Pro X, the concept/product category changed/evolved with the successor, not that it was abandoned.

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That is all large companies. You throw money at something and see how it does. That is how they should function. Why keep a product that isnt making you money? Sure, they could continue iterating and maybe just maybe some day it makes money. Or they can jump to something more potentially lucrative in a shorter period of time. As companies in highly competitive markets. Markets change so fast. Any company that stagnates will get left behind. And apparently it is proven that scrapping something and using those resources elsewhere, is more profitable, than sticking with something long term, since so many large companies adopt that approach.

A smaller company may only have one product, hence they stick with it for as long as it is profitable.

Why do we want to fold our phones? Or tablets?

Surfaces have been pretty good overall. Red ring of death was 15 years ago dude, Xbox's since late 2008 have been solid.

He's serious just phrasing it poorly. It's like having two monitors, it makes multitasking easier.

Lots of quality issues with the Surface line too...although they have been getting better. Still overpriced for what they are, though.

And I don't care if it was 15 years from the RROD. They followed THAT up with forced Kinect integration, and were trying to foist heavy handed DRM on everyone to kill the 2nd hand software market...it was only through IMMENSE consumer backlash that they backed down on both...and only on Kinect after sales were affected.

The fact remains that MS is a miserable company when it comes to hardware.

wrong

copy the text out of the image

kin

right.

I mean, your phone is probably not listening to you all the time for ad keywords. Maybe some random app you have installed is. Most likely what happened is you said something and then you or someone on your wifi network searched for it.

On the second point, I use an iphone for work and android phone personally. I agree with you that overall the iphone is a better package.

If it was an app, it was probably Facebook. But no, no one searched for "Tektronix". It's not a company I use nor one I have EVER searched for. My co-worker told someone on the phone "It's a fluke..." and I piped up, "No, it's a Tektronix!" (geek humor, both Fluke and Tektronix make test equipment)

THE NEXT DAY I got ads for, you guessed it...Tektronix. That wasn't random, and that wasn't me searching for it. That was my phone listening to my conversations and picking up a keyword, then feeding me ads in chrome.