Microsoft's Surface Duo is a big-picture product

 

I'm gonna go ahead and call it: The reviews for the Surface Duo, Microsoft's long-under-development and finally-ready-for-release first Android phone, aren't gonna be glowing.

The Duo, launching Sept. 10 for a cool $1,400, isn't exactly an ordinary device. It may or may not be a product worth buying for most people — that's yet to be seen. What we can say, though, is that the Duo is a first-generation stab at a very different class of gadget. It's intended for a very specific type of tech user. And approaching it with the standard review technique of comparing components and obsessing over specs is going to miss the bigger picture of what it's all about.

To wit (brace yourselves, phone nerds): The Duo uses an older-generation processor instead of the latest and greatest high-end chip (gasp!). It lacks near-field communication (gulp!), which means it won't work with most in-person mobile payment systems. And it has but a single camera on the inside of its portfolio-like folding body (grunt!) — one that, unlike with the typical top-dollar phone of today, doesn't appear to be a focal point of the product.

Like I said, it's almost certainly not gonna be right for everyone — and it may or may not be advisable for anyone in its current form. But what matters more than the exact implementation of this one initial product is the broader vision it represents and the mobile-tech future it could portend — if Microsoft remains committed and pushes it forward properly.

This isn't a standard phone launch, in other words. And if you want to appreciate the Duo's potential significance, you have to break yourself out of that standard phone mindset.

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The Surface Duo distinction

We've talked a lot so far about what the Duo doesn't have and the reasons why it might fail to hit the mark in this first incarnation. Let's back up now and talk about what the device does possess and the intriguing new possibilities that come with that.

At its core, the Duo is a dual-screened phone, with two 5.6" panels connected by a 360-degree-pivoting hinge. The screens aren't flexible or foldable or rollable or anything like that; they're regular displays, which means the durability and longevity downsides that plague the more sensational but less practical foldable phones of the moment aren't at all present.