Between this and the Samsung Fold it feels like we have entered into the netbook (form factor) era* void. We're past peak smartphone development and are in this space where manufacturers are stumbling around for the next "it" device but creating nothing that is truly revolutionary. Yes, there are "some" use cases where a larger screen on my mobile device would be useful…. But by-and-large I still want it to fit in my pocket and be comfortable navigating single handedly . Adding dual screen & doubling the device thickness is not the solution I am looking for.
*Netbooks were low-powered mobile devices (basically mini laptops) that launched in 2007 and basically disappeared (as a viable market category) after the iPad and its kind were launched in 2010.
Except the netbook form-factor has seen an unexpected revival in the past two years, with machines from GPD and One Netbook (and other Chinese manufacturers) showing up (although they're metal unibody machines, some of them ultrabook spec rather than netbook, and vastly more powerful and useful than their 2007-11 predecessors). E.g. One Netbook just announced the One Mix 3 Pro, with a quad-core Comet Lake i5, 16Gb RAM/512Gb SSD:
These aren't cheap (like the original netbooks), but they're pitched against the low end of the ultrabook market, for folks who need a better keyboard/typing experience than a Surface Go.
(Disclaimer: I own a One Mix 3S, predecessor to this new version and I rate it quite highly, except for support from the manufacturer which is patchy at best.)
> Netbooks were low-powered mobile devices (basically mini laptops) that launched in 2007 and basically disappeared (as a viable market category) after the iPad and its kind were launched in 2010.
Facebook is working on building out the tech via VR, but with an eye to AR and generally out in the open.
Apple is building out the underlying software support while working on some AR hardware in secret.
Microsoft has their enterprise hardware, but not sure what they're thinking about otherwise.
Using the phone as a computing device that powers a visual digital AR layer for the real world where you can interact with AR overlays either with thoughts (Neuralink?) or more likely basic gestures (like Oculus' camera tracking, or armbands) would be another revolutionary shift in platform UX and be the big shift away from phone screens.
I'm not sure how possible this hardware currently is or how soon this transition could happen, but people seem to be laying the ground work. Michael Abrash wrote an old blog posts about a couple of reasons why this is hard (primarily drawing black in AR), but he's been at Oculus a while now and I'd be curious how his thoughts have changed.
These foldable phones strike me as a dead end nobody wants.
This device’s whole point would be outside of the “we” point of view.
In general “we” don’t need a revolution of the current form factor. A sizeable portion of users have stopped upgrading and wait for their current phone to be dead, some are already clamoring for less, going back to iPhoneSE like phones.
I think the duo is not targeting the “we”, but way more specific user niches who have non generic goals and are not happy with even the bigger phones we have now. These people could be enough to float a product line, even if it doesn’t fish the other 90% of the users and their dogs.
I’d compare it to the Surface Studio, which was never expected to be a general public device as well.
I think the future is less/no screen. Typing on these folding phones seems like a worse experience. Typing at all isn't really natural, and neither is staring at planar, glowing glass.
I think the future is conversational computing. I don't own an Alexa/HomePod/etc (yet... maybe some open source on prem thing at some point), but I think that's where the puck is moving. It's just that today their capabilities are somewhere around a rotary phone vs. an iPhone. Better than a telegraph (which I guess in this analogy is _typing_ your words into a document) but still very rudimentary. All it needs is time and effort.
Similar to HomePods, we have AirPods and their equivalents. The phone is just a conduit through which can pass the data necessary for the OS to talk with you, to do what you need.
> Yes, there are "some" use cases where a larger screen on my mobile device would be useful…. But by-and-large I still want it to fit in my pocket and be comfortable navigating single handedly . Adding dual screen & doubling the device thickness is not the solution I am looking for.
I'm still waiting for a phone on which I can comfortably edit, build, and deploy code.
In developing countries, phone is the only computing device most people have and is the primary consumption device taking over TV. So a bigger screen will definitely be valued.
IMHO, the hinged - but separate - displays are a much better idea than the Samsung foldable display. At least for now.
I don't think the reliability of a truly foldable display (e.g. Samsung's Galaxy Fold) will be very good until another couple versions of generational improvements.
+1. IMO the move is to focus on this type of devices and then move to foldable screens if/when both the technology matures, and there is solid demand for this form factor.
The foldable display seems cool, but also seems to be, IMO, an expensive solution looking for something we don't know to be a problem yet. The problem is having no screen at the hinge. How big is this problem though? In theory it's nice but people don't even have foldable devices in these form factors yet. For all we know, most people might not mind the dual-screen approach, just like a lot of people have not minded the notch or other shortcomings of previous and current devices.
Maybe they should go with two glass panels and the foldable display over the hinge. If you have a setting to disable the delicate hinge display when it inevitably breaks it gracefully downgrades to this Duo experience.
Personally I don't see the attractive in dual screen devices unless we reach Westworld-like devices that are super thin and can go from phone to large tablet that can potentially replace a laptop.
Otherwise it's just a thick phone that converts to 2 phones...
I find the ability to completely "close" my phone really appealing. It feels easier to ignore it, and the screens feel more protected to me.
I can also only describe the second benefit as "its like two monitors". I can watch TV on one and respond to messages/browse on another. I use a Note8+ already, so big screens for watching crap are already my preference though.
Agree. I love the design behind the Westworld folding tablets. I don't see myself jumping aboard the train until we get at least a little bit closer to that form factor.
I'm going to pick one up regardless, but if they can bring Windows 10 X to this device, and provide a docking experience that expands to approximate a full PC, the result would be fantastic.
I like how on the Duo and larger Neo Microsoft just embraced the fact that foldable OLED isn't ready for prime time yet and instead tried to engineer the seam with as much aesthetic and engineering quality possible.
It took almost 30 years since the kernel was released, but Microsoft is officially releasing something with a Linux based operating system. Pretty wild to think about.
They've had Linux Azure offerings for quite a few years, and famously contributed a fair bit of code to the Linux kernel to make some of that possible.
They also released those Nokia branded Android devices.
It is not like MS has been doing consumer hardware releases for that long or anything!
It'll be interesting to see the support, IMHO one thing that keeps people (software devs and consumers) from buying into a new Android OEM that is selling an "Ecosystem" (e.g. Samsung Note) is the fear of a product line being dropped.
It almost feels like Microsoft is conceding the server market, recognising that the ride of cloud computing has been a real boon for Linux - they're putting all the tools in their desktop product to make sure engineers can work easily with Linux, without actually needing Linux to do it.
it's interesting how in the last few years the Microsoft and Linux/Android ecosystems seem to developer side-by-side.
Personally I've replaced my last macbook with the surface and my iphone with an android phone, use mostly linux or windows with WSL these days and I see less and less apple products in particular among developers where the windows/linux combo seems to become more prevalent, at least anecdotally.
I mean, Microsoft has always had a vested interest in Android's success, given that they are paid for every Android device sold because of software patents.
Given how badly they flubbed their entries into smartphones, I'm kind of glad they are trying again in this new form-factor. Given that it's relying on Android, it should have more staying power than before (and an app store that isn't awful).
Given it's relying on Android now and doesn't seem to have (based on this announcement) any compelling reason to exist long term in the ugly, over-crowded OEM market of Android marketing, it's a gimmick and shouldn't have any staying power at all.
It's odd that they would announce it's powered by a Snapdragon 855--a chip which is already a year old, and will be two years old by the time this device actually launches. Hopefully they'll upgrade that before launch.
A high-end SoC from 1 year or 2 years ago is hardly the constraint on modern devices.
I doubt the average person can even tell the difference from a 660, to a 835, or an 855, given all the rest of the components (mainly storage) are the same.
2. Does anyone remember the name of a similar Microsoft notebook that was teased 5-10 years ago? It was a foldable notebook and notetaking device kind of like Remarkable. I wonder if this is the spiritual child of that.
I like the idea of dual screen on the phone, its quite natural to browse two related pages at the same time and will improve that kind of experience. Will it have pen support?
However i'm very dubious of what the dual screen experience will be like bolted on top of Windows (NEO) and Android (DUO).
Somehow in my humble opinion Apple have been able to run rings around Google and Microsoft when it come's to pure UX in mobile tech and given the past history i fully expect that true in the future.
This is where i expect DUO will stumble, in the same way that Samsung fails with its extensions and bolt on's.
All this time my old Nintendo DS Lite had been gathering dust in the drawer because I thought it was strictly for games; now I realize its true calling is to be a phone!
I really hope that we see a single-screen Surface phone in the future.
IMO, Microsoft have done a fantastic job with the Surface Book. If they could replicate that high-end build quality while providing a solid feature set and a clean Android build, I can't see it not selling well. Throw a headphone jack in, and I'd wait in line for it!
The dual screen is interesting, but I don't see its use just yet.
I see a lot of value with this phone prototype over the laptop version.
It gives a better typing experience than a phone currently does & offers unique controls for apps on the 2nd screen.
Whereas with the laptop version I assume people will be missing their keyboard typing experience or complaining about having to carry around a bluetooth keyboard. I still hope they improve their concept of docking an Android phone & using it as a laptop replacement with a keyboard, mouse & monitor.
Hopefully it makes people watch videos in landscape again & quit recording in portrait mode. That alone would be a win!
- Edit - I just read a better article explaining their keyboard concept for the laptop version. That seems like a slightly better experience than I was imagining. Hopefully it's harder to lose than their pen.
Speaking of the Surface Book, my aging MacBook needs replacing, and I was interested in seeing a Surface Book 3 release as an alternative. Sad it didn't materialise.
Why would they make a single-screen phone for Android when the market is already saturated with them? (It's silly enough for them to make a dual screen phone for Android when all the existing OEMs are already trying to hype future foldables or multi-screen beasts.)
These are all just wrappers around the latest qualcomm snapdragon with whatever twist the hardware manufacture wants to add. Basic functionality in all of them will be badly broken and there's more or less nothing you can do to fix it.
At least the iphone ships with an ssh client and scripting environment now. (not that I'm an iphone fan, it has it's own problems.)
For some benchmarks, the top phones are 50% faster! Storage benchmarks (not shown in that particular review) can be even more dramatic. Battery life differences can be huge (multiple hours) at the same capacity.
Each manufacturer customizes the heck out of the kernel, and also attached firmware. LTE speeds can vary dramatically with "the same antennas". Same for WiFi speeds.
The current Android phone I am using works great. It is surprisingly fluid and rather nice to use, though I'd argue Windows Phone 7 was still nicer (or at least more fun) to use, that ship has long since sailed.
[+] [-] mwsfc|6 years ago|reply
*Netbooks were low-powered mobile devices (basically mini laptops) that launched in 2007 and basically disappeared (as a viable market category) after the iPad and its kind were launched in 2010.
EDIT added "form factor" for clarification
[+] [-] cstross|6 years ago|reply
https://liliputing.com/2019/09/one-mix-3-pro-is-the-first-mi...
These aren't cheap (like the original netbooks), but they're pitched against the low end of the ultrabook market, for folks who need a better keyboard/typing experience than a Surface Go.
(Disclaimer: I own a One Mix 3S, predecessor to this new version and I rate it quite highly, except for support from the manufacturer which is patchy at best.)
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|6 years ago|reply
Chromebooks are very much alive and well.
[+] [-] gonehome|6 years ago|reply
Facebook is working on building out the tech via VR, but with an eye to AR and generally out in the open.
Apple is building out the underlying software support while working on some AR hardware in secret.
Microsoft has their enterprise hardware, but not sure what they're thinking about otherwise.
Using the phone as a computing device that powers a visual digital AR layer for the real world where you can interact with AR overlays either with thoughts (Neuralink?) or more likely basic gestures (like Oculus' camera tracking, or armbands) would be another revolutionary shift in platform UX and be the big shift away from phone screens.
I'm not sure how possible this hardware currently is or how soon this transition could happen, but people seem to be laying the ground work. Michael Abrash wrote an old blog posts about a couple of reasons why this is hard (primarily drawing black in AR), but he's been at Oculus a while now and I'd be curious how his thoughts have changed.
These foldable phones strike me as a dead end nobody wants.
[+] [-] hrktb|6 years ago|reply
In general “we” don’t need a revolution of the current form factor. A sizeable portion of users have stopped upgrading and wait for their current phone to be dead, some are already clamoring for less, going back to iPhoneSE like phones.
I think the duo is not targeting the “we”, but way more specific user niches who have non generic goals and are not happy with even the bigger phones we have now. These people could be enough to float a product line, even if it doesn’t fish the other 90% of the users and their dogs.
I’d compare it to the Surface Studio, which was never expected to be a general public device as well.
[+] [-] awill|6 years ago|reply
Except these will be >$1000 netbooks.....
[+] [-] sixstringtheory|6 years ago|reply
I think the future is conversational computing. I don't own an Alexa/HomePod/etc (yet... maybe some open source on prem thing at some point), but I think that's where the puck is moving. It's just that today their capabilities are somewhere around a rotary phone vs. an iPhone. Better than a telegraph (which I guess in this analogy is _typing_ your words into a document) but still very rudimentary. All it needs is time and effort.
Similar to HomePods, we have AirPods and their equivalents. The phone is just a conduit through which can pass the data necessary for the OS to talk with you, to do what you need.
[+] [-] megaremote|6 years ago|reply
I hate people who talk like this, as if there is something magical that people should be working on.
[+] [-] sp332|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxwell|6 years ago|reply
I'm still waiting for a phone on which I can comfortably edit, build, and deploy code.
[+] [-] blackoil|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canada_dry|6 years ago|reply
I don't think the reliability of a truly foldable display (e.g. Samsung's Galaxy Fold) will be very good until another couple versions of generational improvements.
[+] [-] aylmao|6 years ago|reply
The foldable display seems cool, but also seems to be, IMO, an expensive solution looking for something we don't know to be a problem yet. The problem is having no screen at the hinge. How big is this problem though? In theory it's nice but people don't even have foldable devices in these form factors yet. For all we know, most people might not mind the dual-screen approach, just like a lot of people have not minded the notch or other shortcomings of previous and current devices.
[+] [-] jayd16|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pier25|6 years ago|reply
Otherwise it's just a thick phone that converts to 2 phones...
In case anyone hasn't seen Westworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3dD7jOLaes
[+] [-] BOBOTWINSTON|6 years ago|reply
I find the ability to completely "close" my phone really appealing. It feels easier to ignore it, and the screens feel more protected to me.
I can also only describe the second benefit as "its like two monitors". I can watch TV on one and respond to messages/browse on another. I use a Note8+ already, so big screens for watching crap are already my preference though.
[+] [-] eduren|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhauer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielovichdk|6 years ago|reply
The best designed UI imo, and a great alternative to Ios and android.
[+] [-] jbigelow76|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atjamielittle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] com2kid|6 years ago|reply
They also released those Nokia branded Android devices.
It is not like MS has been doing consumer hardware releases for that long or anything!
It'll be interesting to see the support, IMHO one thing that keeps people (software devs and consumers) from buying into a new Android OEM that is selling an "Ecosystem" (e.g. Samsung Note) is the fear of a product line being dropped.
[+] [-] GordonS|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrin92|6 years ago|reply
Personally I've replaced my last macbook with the surface and my iphone with an android phone, use mostly linux or windows with WSL these days and I see less and less apple products in particular among developers where the windows/linux combo seems to become more prevalent, at least anecdotally.
[+] [-] pjmlp|6 years ago|reply
From UNIX point of view, not so much, given that they were one of the first licensees for PC hardware with Xenix.
[+] [-] WorldMaker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yRetsyM|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanCarvajal|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aminecodes|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dirlewanger|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knolan|6 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier
[+] [-] ropiwqefjnpoa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belltaco|6 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/dmaioTs0NH8?t=5111
The bigger dual screen device is the Surface Neo.
[+] [-] bhauer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SketchySeaBeast|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WorldMaker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrpippy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] h4waii|6 years ago|reply
I doubt the average person can even tell the difference from a 660, to a 835, or an 855, given all the rest of the components (mainly storage) are the same.
[+] [-] nemothekid|6 years ago|reply
2. Does anyone remember the name of a similar Microsoft notebook that was teased 5-10 years ago? It was a foldable notebook and notetaking device kind of like Remarkable. I wonder if this is the spiritual child of that.
[+] [-] dagaci|6 years ago|reply
However i'm very dubious of what the dual screen experience will be like bolted on top of Windows (NEO) and Android (DUO).
Somehow in my humble opinion Apple have been able to run rings around Google and Microsoft when it come's to pure UX in mobile tech and given the past history i fully expect that true in the future.
This is where i expect DUO will stumble, in the same way that Samsung fails with its extensions and bolt on's.
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whalesalad|6 years ago|reply
The catastrophe that is the Samsung folding phone didn’t send a strong enough message to the industry I guess.
[+] [-] EnderMB|6 years ago|reply
IMO, Microsoft have done a fantastic job with the Surface Book. If they could replicate that high-end build quality while providing a solid feature set and a clean Android build, I can't see it not selling well. Throw a headphone jack in, and I'd wait in line for it!
The dual screen is interesting, but I don't see its use just yet.
[+] [-] mattferderer|6 years ago|reply
It gives a better typing experience than a phone currently does & offers unique controls for apps on the 2nd screen.
Whereas with the laptop version I assume people will be missing their keyboard typing experience or complaining about having to carry around a bluetooth keyboard. I still hope they improve their concept of docking an Android phone & using it as a laptop replacement with a keyboard, mouse & monitor.
Hopefully it makes people watch videos in landscape again & quit recording in portrait mode. That alone would be a win!
- Edit - I just read a better article explaining their keyboard concept for the laptop version. That seems like a slightly better experience than I was imagining. Hopefully it's harder to lose than their pen.
[+] [-] pdpi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WorldMaker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swiley|6 years ago|reply
These are all just wrappers around the latest qualcomm snapdragon with whatever twist the hardware manufacture wants to add. Basic functionality in all of them will be badly broken and there's more or less nothing you can do to fix it.
At least the iphone ships with an ssh client and scripting environment now. (not that I'm an iphone fan, it has it's own problems.)
[+] [-] com2kid|6 years ago|reply
I disagree.
The performance and battery life differences between different phones running the same chipset is insane.
Read through https://www.anandtech.com/show/14716/the-black-shark-2-revie...
For some benchmarks, the top phones are 50% faster! Storage benchmarks (not shown in that particular review) can be even more dramatic. Battery life differences can be huge (multiple hours) at the same capacity.
Each manufacturer customizes the heck out of the kernel, and also attached firmware. LTE speeds can vary dramatically with "the same antennas". Same for WiFi speeds.
The current Android phone I am using works great. It is surprisingly fluid and rather nice to use, though I'd argue Windows Phone 7 was still nicer (or at least more fun) to use, that ship has long since sailed.
[+] [-] H1Supreme|6 years ago|reply
I use the Termux app to SSH on my Android phone all the time.