14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is officially an Android device manufacturer, as the Surface Duo, which was announced in the fall of 2019, is now up for pre-order with sales scheduled to go live in September.
Microsoft, however, doesn’t describe the Surface Duo as a smartphone, but as a dual-screen device focused on mobile productivity.
“As we look ahead to the next wave of mobile productivity and creativity, we see that same opportunity to create something new with Surface Duo – not to reinvent the phone, but to inspire people to rethink how they want to use the device in their pocket,” Panos Panay, the man who turned Surface into the powerful brand that it is today, explained earlier this month.
“Surface Duo brings together the power of Microsoft 365 experiences and the full ecosystem of Android mobile apps into one device, with two screens that you can take anywhere.”
In the last couple of weeks, the Surface Duo has been under fire for its technical specs, especially as the device comes with hardware that doesn’t necessarily align with Microsoft’s Surface strategy that typically comes down to premium build quality and latest-generation hardware.
For example, the Snapdragon 855 processor, which was installed on 2019 devices, is a chip that made many consider the Surface Duo an outdated product, while the lack of NFC, which obviously blocks you from making wireless payments, is something that you wouldn’t really expect on a device that costs more than $1,000.
In the last few days, however, I’ve seen more and more people blasting Microsoft for the camera specs of the Surface Duo, even though right now, nobody can tell if the device takes good pictures or not. Of course, we’ll find out everything in just a few weeks when the Duo becomes available for customers, but until this happens, a look at the specs allow us to speculate on the whole thing.
Certainly, the camera specs don’t place the Surface Duo among the best Android devices with top-notch camera performance. These are the camera specs, according to Microsoft:
- Adaptive camera 11MP, f/2.0, 1.0 µm, PDAF and 84.0° diagonal FOV optimized with AI for front and rear
- Photos:
- Auto mode with low-light & HDR multi-frame photo capture and dynamic range scene detection
- Super resolution zoom, and super zoom up to 7x
- Portrait mode with adjustable depth control
- Panorama mode
- Burst mode
- Video recording:
- 4K video recording at 30 fps and 60 fps
- 1080p video recording at 30 fps and 60 fps
- HEVC and H.264 video recording formats
- Gyro-based digital video stabilization
At first glance, the Surface Duo indeed doesn’t match the camera performance of the latest-generation iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones. But is the camera performance really that important?
I mean, since Microsoft doesn’t necessarily see the Surface Duo as a smartphone but more of a device that’s focused on productivity, do we have to care so much about the camera?
If Surface Duo is all about productivity, the camera is more important for things like video calls rather than taking photos that could eventually be used at an art gallery. The purpose of the Duo certainly isn’t to replace your DSLR camera, and to be honest, you could even end up looking pretty unusual trying to create an Instagram story or a TikTok video using a dual-screen device.
Let’s be clear about something: Duo can do pretty much everything the typical Android device can do, but on the other hand, the camera will probably not allow you to take iPhone-quality photos in the first place.
Is this a huge drawback? I don’t think so, but buyers will be the ones to decide it, so it remains to be seen how this impacts the long-time sales of the first-generation Duo.