The Vergecast - Microsoft Surface Duo with Engadget's Cherlynn Low

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Every Tuesday this month, Vergecast co-host Dieter Bohn hosts a series of discussions diving deep into tech review season, each focusing on a specific product. This week, Dieter and Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert talks with Engadget's Cherlynn Low about Microsoft's Surface Duo. The trio discuss how the process of reviewing this device differs from others in the past, where it stands in the phone and tablet market, and other notable points from Dieter and Cherlynn's time with the Duo that didn't make it into the review. We are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here: voxmedia.com/podsurvey.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We are doing something a little bit different for the Tuesday episodes for the next little while. As you may have heard, Neli has a new show that he is starting called Decoder, and so he's working on that. In the meantime, because it's hardware silly season and there's so much stuff coming out, we wanted to spend a few episodes doing a deep dive on some of the reviews of the devices that are coming out right now. And in order to do that, I didn't want to just tell you more stuff about my review or Dan's review or somebody else who's view.

Verge, we wanted to speak to other reviewers that are looking at these devices and give you sort of like a director's commentary to the different reviews. I think enriches your understanding of the reviews and it enriches our understanding of the devices themselves. So very, very excited for the first episode. We have Sherlin Lowe from Engadgett. She reviewed the Surface Duo, just like I did, and we're going to have a big, long conversation about it. We were also joined by Dan Seafert, who's a deputy editor at The Verge because he edits our reviews, and he has a lot to say from that perspective as well. So this was a really fun conversation, really understood a lot more about how to think about this new category of folding devices. And I think you're going to enjoy it.

Shereldlow, you are the reviews editor at Engadget. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. What an honor. An honor. It's just a Verge cast. What are you talking about? We also have Dan Seaford here. He's a deputy editor at The Verge. Hello. I'm also honored. Like I said, we wanted to dig deeper into some of the reviews that we've been doing because it's hardware season and everything is nuts. Charlotte, you have reviewed the Surface Duo, the Microsoft Surface Duo. And before we really get into it, like this hardware season in particular, I feel like we've gone from like, oh, we've got weird experimental form factors to we've got form factors

that people are trying to make real. Like, what do you think of this idea that we're finally moving away from just flat glass slabs? I think it's an interesting dichotomy because, yeah, on the one hand, we've got Samsung and Microsoft trying like dual screen and folding screens and LG with the wing. Holy crap. It's getting weird and I love the weird. I welcome it. But on the other hand, we've also got the candy bar, you know, that traditional smartphone look is really just gone to a point where it's so almost boring, but it's good.

And it's so, the formula is so refined that like Google was able to do the Pixel 4A. And actually that's what I liked more. but the place for like a surface duo, something like that, right? It's not like people haven't tried to make dual screens happen. It's just like the excitement now is palpable. It's people want something like this now where they might not have as much before. Yeah, I think that's like what people want and whether or not there's a market for it is a big question. So the thing that I struggle with is are they doing this because they can, you know, the Jurassic Park quote, like your scientist, blah, blah, blah, blah.

or are they doing it because they have a genuine vision? Or are they just doing it to have something that feels new because the market is stagnating a little bit and there's like a, you know, just everything is a candy bar now. Actually, we have a clip. We had Panos Panay who made the service do up on the Vergecast a while ago when they were first like trotting it around

and showing everybody. Andrew, can you play that clip from Panos where he talks about the category of this thing? I feel like phone is such a limiting word. You know, and then you say, well, smartphone, I don't even know what that means. And then fablet, I'm not sure what that is. But everything has an identifying factor to it.

Even when we started Surface, people are like, so it's a tablet. I'm like, it's not a tablet. It's just not a tablet. It's a surface. I don't know what to say. And you want to categorize it and put it there. I think if you're going to create a new category, you're going to try and change things, push things forward. The minute you put it in a box, I think you're lost.

So I've been pretty resistant to that just to not end up there. First off, I'm pretty sure Panos knows what a fablet is. Yeah. Like, I don't think he's too lost when. someone says it's a fablet. No, I, in my review, too, like, I immediately was like, what is the Surface Duo? It's not a phone. It's just not good as a phone. It's not a phone. It's also not really a tablet. In fact, as a tablet, I think it kind of sucks. It's just something trying to be a lot of things. And hearing that Panos description of it now makes a lot

of sense. This duo seems to be something that doesn't really know what it is and doesn't know what it wants to be, but it's still trying to go and be a lot of things anyway. Well, the fascinating thing is it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. I think you said this is basically two phones. That's the best way to think about it. I kind of agree that that's basically how to think about it. But the fact that Microsoft is refusing to say, are they just doing this to have something different? Or do you genuinely think, I don't, Dan, maybe you can answer it.

Do you genuinely think they have a real vision for the future? Because there's also the Neo apparently still hanging out there somewhere. You know, I was going to allude to that statement that you made earlier about, like, what are these companies thinking? And I don't want to give Microsoft too much credit because we all know how the Surface Duo has turned out and we'll talk more about that. But I think when you talk about what Samsung is,

Samsung's approach versus Microsoft's approach to this dual screen thing. And it seems like Samsung is very much like, we've done the stale design for 10 years. We're trying something new. We can do it. We have the technology. That's why we're doing this.

Whereas Microsoft doesn't have that, I mean, it has a failed legacy of many years of making funds, but it doesn't have like a successful zone. phone business that it needs to like take to the next level. It is introducing a new form factor that maybe, maybe Microsoft doesn't really know how it is or what it's supposed to be. Maybe we don't know what it's supposed to be yet, like, but they have access to technology that allows them to produce this form factor. And I think to your point, Sherlin, earlier, where you were saying people are excited and palpable that now, it really feels like the hardware

form factor. The design is really driving a lot of that. And you could do it now. You can have this really wildly thin device and, and have these. two screens attach and how are we going to use them? We'll figure that out. The intention is definitely like curious. Yeah, I don't know if they're doing it just to do it or if they definitely think this is a form factor they can they can see taking off in the future. I will say it's like not like no company history. Like Dell has had their prototype. We've seen it CES a while ago and then LG. Yeah, LG. Oh my gosh. LG is almost a bad word with the dual screen space. I feel like. But like so like here's the difference I think that I see between the surface.

Duo, at least from the interest in the Surface Duo versus, say, the interest in an LG dual screen device, the LG hardware was always clunky looking, and it was always thick, and it was always, like, literally two phones slapped together. One and a half phones. Yeah, one and a half phones slapped together. We took the camera off, so it's no longer a phone. And then so, like, you know, there's this real small niche of people who are like, oh, I can be really productive with that.

And this is exactly what I want, but, like, most people are going to be like, why is my phone twice as thick now? Yes, exactly. And then you look at the duo, and the duo closed, is the same thickness as an iPhone. So, like, it totally removes that kind of hesitation that we've seen before. So, like, I think that's why I really think that, like, the hardware interest, like, just the, this looks so sci-fi and futuristic. Like, I want to see how this works. It's so much different with the duo than it was with prior dual-screen attempts.

I fully agree that thinness is amazing. It does bring about its own troubles. and we can talk about that, obviously, but I love how thin it is. One more thing before, I want to get talking about the device itself. I can't believe I'm just like keep putting that off. But thinking about this,

is it a category or multiple categories? Who knows? Like maybe folding phones and dual phones, like are one category, maybe they're two. Maybe nobody actually knows. That's probably the real answer. The one thing that all these devices have in common

is they're super expensive. Oh, my gosh. Maybe not the LG stuff, but the price on the fold and the price on the surface duo are super high. As you are trying to think about this category and think about reviewing this device specifically, how do you think about this price? Because it's super hard to wrap my head around and give people advice when it comes to these prices.

I have to think about it in the way that a person walking into a store would, like, are they going to pay the upfront fee or are they more likely to choose the installment plan? And I think for a device like this, they're more likely to go with the monthly fee. And the people who are very excited by the form factor are going to want it. and they're going to opt for the monthly fee. Just because, like, I mean, I've been there. I've been there where I really want something and I can't afford to pay for it up front. And I'm just like, oh, there's a monthly installment

that's kind of cheap. I'll do it. So as much as price is a big issue with these devices, I feel like when you break it down in 24 payments, a lot of people who are big fans of new novel, things like this don't really mind, which is sad. But it at least gives them the opportunity to try something like that out.

Yeah, my hobby horse with any subscription plan is you should always list the monthly price and the yearly price because people understand the yearly price better in their heads when they're trying to weigh what it's worth. I also think not a lot of people are as good at finances as we think. I mean, I'm terrible. A lot of bad decisions being made sometimes. I definitely just bought a PS5 because the page worked for me. I didn't really know if I wanted one, but like the page actually worked for a second.

I was like, oh, done. It's like, why did I do that? I don't know. Yeah. Good for you. Okay. So we should talk about the thing itself. We should actually talk about the duo.

In your review, what did you think was the most important thing to impart on your readers? And your viewers in the YouTube video. What was the thing you definitely wanted people to know when you got done with this and wanted to tell people about it? I really wanted them to know that as much as I was excited for this thing, that it still is very difficult to use in the real world. And also kind of like, what are you getting for the money? And I'm sure you guys have the same issue, right? It's like, in my head I have this internal debate. Like, whenever I write a video, I'm like, okay, what are the haters and the fans going to say?

Because you kind of have to couch against that. And I know the Microsoft hardcore fans are going to love this regardless. And I need to tell these people, like, it's fine to be in this almost like idol-worshipping relationship. As long as you go in clear eye knowing that there are problems you're going to have to face and go through. And if you're okay with that, good for you, live your life. But not everyone's going to be. that I think that's what I wanted to point out, which is, I guess, kind of philosophical. Well, no, it's totally philosophical.

I mean, for me, on this one in particular, my very first plan was to say, like, the thing you absolutely need to know about this thing is it's got bugs. It's got beautiful hardware. It's got, like, a terrible camera, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, like, the first thing was bugs. And when they put an update out and they, like, tamp the bugs down a little, that I had this balance of, do I talk to the Microsoft fans who want, like, a Microsoft ecosystem thing, like you're saying?

Or do I try and explain the concept and the vision? or do I just like say this thing has bugs here's how you use it and like balancing like practical versus like what it could be versus like talking to the actual target market for this thing

was way harder than your average phone in my opinion. Oh my gosh our jobs are already pretty hard not to like poor us try to balance all of this into one article which by the way sometimes so my editor Terence O'Brien does not like when

I submit anything upward of 3,000 words. So trying to cram everything. I can relate. Oh, so you're a word cutter. I see. Yeah. So we try to keep things concise. And it's hard to squeeze all of that that you just said Dieter into one 2,500 word story. It's a lot. The duo is something that I've not reviewed, like something like this I haven't reviewed in a while. And I had to leave so many examples out. I had to like cut out a lot of things. So one of the things that I found myself cutting before I gave my 3,000 word draft to Dan. Hi, Dan, was having too many comparisons to the Galaxy Z-Fold 2. But I saw you definitely held the both in your hand. You definitely had them on a table.

How do you think about those two devices in comparison to each other? I think this is finally the time for us to have that debate between photo walls and dual screens, because you finally have a dual-screen device that really can be a good candidate. The Z-Fault 2 also is finally kind of like good enough. Yeah. And comparing the two, people keep asking me, and we did a lot of live streams with the Surface Duo Winf first got in stuff, and we were getting a lot of direct feedback from people who are actually interested in these things.

And that really helps me understand what people are curious to find out. Right. And one of the things they keep asking, what's the difference between the two? I'm like, there's a hinge that you can see in one of them, and you can't see the hinge in the other on the screen. And there's an outside screen on the Z-Fault, too. And can I just spell out these differences and how? how, you know, it affects your use of the device.

I think the Z-Fault 2's outside screen really is much better than how you would use a duo otherwise as a phone, which is you flip the screen all the way around, which took me a while to realize, too, like, oh, right, I can unfold this all the way around. But essentially, the main difference comes down to trying to use them as a big screen tablet, where that hinge really eats stuff up on the duo, and on the Z-Fault 2, it's not that much of a problem. The crease is so minimal. Yeah. Yeah, well, the, the fact that the hinge on the duo, when you said it eats content, like people don't realize that they don't, the screens don't kind of split out. And so it's just like there's a big gap there. It literally acts like it's one

big screen even though it's not. So that hinge gap destroys content. Like, you will lose words or you'll lose part of the picture in that gap. That is totally okay if you're reading an article and you can guess what the words are. But if you're like playing a game or you're like, there's buttons in there that you have to press and they happen to be on the hinge, good luck buying your PS5 on the mobile browser. You know what I mean? So, Dan, writing these things during the pandemic and shooting these videos during the pandemic is hard on one hand, but it's also hard for you editing because you didn't actually

get to hold the thing. And like, I just, I had to submit this draft to you. So, like, when you are trying as a reviews editor to actually, like, take this thing and, like, point out the stuff that is obvious to me that's not obvious to you, like, how does that work for you? You know, the first thing I think I start asking you questions about, and this is even before you hand in a draft, but I just know you have the thing in your hand is like, does this work on it? Can I do this on it? Because just like a reader or just like a fan or anyone else who's like seeing this product and wants to talk to somebody who's use it, you have a bunch of ideas in your head of like, how would I use this thing? What can I do with this? And so my first questions are like, what apps work across both screens? What like, what does Kindle do when you open it? Like, do you have to tell it?

that you need to have two panes there? Or does it just try to stretch that one page across? Or like, what does Google Maps look like? Or like, you know, all these kind of like practical things that I would just like, if I had the thing in my hand and once I got past that first like five minutes of playing with the hinge, I would start opening apps and start like installing things and start being like, okay, can I do this? Can I do that?

And so like that's where my thought process starts. And like I said that I'm as an editor working with you much before you submit a draft so that we can like hone an angle and figure. out what we want to say and what is the right thing to say and what is the right thing to cut and so on and so forth. So like those are the questions I start. And then the feedback I get from you is like, well, it's really buggy. And then I'm like, well, okay, now my dreams are a little dash. My hopes are a little more subdued. Where is it buggy? What does it prevent you from doing? How often is it frustrating you? And I think we do with that a lot in a lot of products.

It's like you can brush aside a bug or two, especially if it's infrequent, not something that you're going to see all the time. But when you start piling up bug after bug after bug after bug after bug, and it's like, to use a cliched phrase, death by a thousand cuts, then the experience really starts to get worse and really starts to frustrate you. And if you can't spend a half an hour using a product without something crashing or a bug happening or your keyboard flipping. to the other screen when you need to type or whatever other books you've seen with this. Like that's like a non-starter. And like at that point, it's just like, okay, this is a great concept, a great idea that clearly is not finished. And that's where we really need to get to that point into the article itself or into the review itself. So this maybe brings us to the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is when we're reviewing these things,

I think a lot of people don't realize just everything, like the weird stuff that happens while we're reviewing a device, any notable incidents for you, Sherelyn, whilst you were in the process of reviewing this device, anything happened? Yeah, before they issued that software update on September 5th, I was ready to throw this thing somewhere, except for I couldn't pay for it. So it was so impossible. I don't know if you had the same experience, Deere, but before the fix, it was impossible for me to span an app across two screens. And then switching them from one screen to the other also was just nearly impossible. And I hate, and I think a lot of reviewers feel this way to, I hate when a company tells me you're doing it wrong. Because if I'm doing it wrong, the user's not, I'm like, I'm more savvy than the average shopper at Walmart or something.

And if I can't figure out how to do this right, they're not going to. And that's terrible. But after they fixed it and after I had like my office hours with them, which they did with all of us, which they needed to, to be honest, a lot of things started to become easier to use. But, yeah, I still hate it. Like, when Dan, when you mentioned the keyboard, I had such a PDSD flash moment where, like, just it's impossible to type to people on that thing sometimes, especially in the laptop mode. Yeah. I mean, just stuff would just fly around in unexpected ways. And it was, and having to do the gestures was really difficult.

The other thing, I mean, just a software update coming in the middle of a review process that makes it really difficult to talk about is sometimes the software update doesn't come. in the review process. Samsung is famous for this. You get a thing. There's a ton of bugs on it and you're like, hey, there's some bugs. And they're like, yeah, but there's going to be a software update on day one. And you're like, okay. So we're not reviewing it now then. What do we do with that?

Yeah, day one typically being the day that the thing goes on sale two days after a review embargo has lifted or whatever. So like well after we're able to test it. Yeah. Exactly. Do you have an approach for when that happens? Do you just wait? Do you just review what they gave you? What do you

think you should do in those cases. Yeah, this is such an internal philosophical struggle, too, because I would much rather we not care about embargoes and not care about when the company dictates you published their review. But then we have to think about, I mean, Verge is one of our competitors, right? And I have to think about, like, Dieter's probably going to get his article right up in the minute that the embargo breaks. So I have to have something up. So the approach then is to be, like, as transparent as possible with my reader saying that Samsung says it's going to issue this fix, but because I wasn't able to test the fix, I can't tell you if the fix will be, you know, effective.

But right now, there's a chance this might still not work when you get it. Yeah. I had a lot of angst about this, too. Same and gadgets, one of our competitors. One of the things that helped me is Michael Fisher, Mr. Mobile on YouTube, put up a big, long thing where he's like, look, this is the device that they gave to reviewers saying, judge this to tell everybody if you should buy it or not.

And if that is what they hand us to say, judge this. and then that's what we're going to judge. And if there ends up being a software update and it's like significant, then we will tell you. But I just got to say, 85 times out of 100, the software update doesn't fix it. It just does not. And the fact that Microsoft's software update did and that they got it to us before day one was actually shocking. Yes. I was like, so I don't know about you.

And maybe this is not, this might be too behind the scenes right now. But I'm part of like a group chat with some of the other reviewers. in the space, Michael Fisher is in the group chat too. So it was really fun to have all of us start, some of us start receiving the software update. And we're like, oh, this works so much better. And other people are like, where's my software update? Why isn't it coming yet? And you know, this thing still is broken for me. So you're right. It's really nice to see that the software update actually did improve things. Yeah. Well, I see what's happened here. I'm not invited to the group chat is the lesson I've taken away from this podcast.

This is a very useful podcast for me. I hope it's useful few things. the listeners. That's the end. I'm going to go sit in the corner by myself and cry. Listen, I was just going about to say, like, this is the first time we're even talking, like having a real conversation theater because whenever we do see each other at events, we're two trying to beat each other to the punch to get our articles up, so we can't even talk to each other. Oh, it's not even beating. That's, okay. It's not being the punch. It's that I'm literally filled with fear and panic and terror, not stop. Same. Same. I think we're all so stressed out. But you, I remember you were very nice ones and

you like freed up a power outlet and was like here you can have this power outlet for your laptop. And no, but now that we're, you know, chatting, obviously you're invited to the group chat. Oh, that's very kind of you. Thank you. You too, Dan. Yay. True story. True tech totalist story. When I first started going to events, I purposely carried around a little monster like three outlet power strip that was like a travel power strip. so that when we were busy, like, in the press room or something, I could be a good guy and help somebody else plug their thing in when the power let's roll full so that I could, like, meet people and make friends.

I didn't know you wanted to do that. I was, I'm always afraid to approach people, so I never say hi. And I didn't know that you would like people to say hi to you. I just, just always assume I'm afraid. Even if you're not a tech journalist, this tip is super useful at coffee shops. If you bring a little power strip, you're the person with three power. outlets. You're the helpful person.

There you. Friends. Great way to meet people. If we ever go to coffee shops again. Yeah, exactly. That caveat. One last sort of meta review thing that I would really like to get into here.

And this is probably going to be a theme through all of these shows where we're talking about the meta issues of reviewing devices is the camera. How important is the camera? Because to me, with so many Android phones specifically, the differentiation between a MotoG whatever. and a, I don't know, a T, C, L, 10, whatever. Like, they've got the same processor. They've got the same RAM.

Their screens are basically equivalent. Like, you run down the spec list and, like, how do you help somebody make a purchasing decision between these phones? And the answer comes down often to the camera. So I feel like, as a reviewer, I often over-index on camera quality because it's, like, the one thing that can help you make a purchasing decision. But with the Surface Duo, specifically, how did you think about the camera and how to talk about it and how heavily to weigh it.

I didn't weigh it all that heavily because I knew that the person buying this device wouldn't care that much about camera quality anyway in terms of quality. But what frustrated me about the Surface Duo and it's evident in my review is that like, it is so hard to effing use. Before they issued the software update, it was near impossible to get the correct screen to face me. I don't know if we need to explain that, you know, like because there's only one camera two screens that, you know, when you're pointing the camera that's facing you, it should be a selfie. And then when you're pointing the camera side out, the other screen should come on, right?

And like 90% of the time it just wouldn't work before the software update after it improved to like 50%, but it still wasn't working really well. And I think for it, it's hard to justify that experience for anyone. Even the most hardcore Microsoft fan shouldn't live with something like that. But that's what I weighed, not the quality of the images which were just men. but more like it's almost impossible to use this camera. I think meh is very, very kind to the quality of these images. They were just, like, the thing that I felt is they should have just called it a webcam because that's the quality.

Like, I'm looking at you on a MacBook Pro's terrible webcam right now, just the worst quality. This is what I would expect to come out of the duo. Like, it's pretty awful. It's really bad in low light. I was getting okay quality in, like, daylight. Okay. Yeah. I was like half and half.

The update actually affected the camera a little bit. Before the update, I was finding that photos were really, really desaturated and just completely lifeless. And they added a little bit more punch when they put that software update out there, a little bit more saturation. Dad, you always harped me that not everybody cares about. How do you think about the camera on smartphone reviews? I hate to take it from my very personal biased opinion. But like when I rank the five things I care about in a phone for, my daily experience, the camera's not even in that list.

Like, I mean, like, as a person that uses the phone all the time, I care a lot about performance. I care a lot about battery life. I care a ton about that screen quality because that's the thing that I'm interacting with all the time. And I really care about how it works in my hand. Like, it's easy to hold. Can I hold a kid in one hand and scroll Twitter on the other because that's the important

thing to do in life? And like, like, if I, if I, those things are ruined, like, it could have the best camera in the world. And I don't care because I open the camera app on a phone. two to three times a week. And most of the time, it's like to take dumb pictures of something on my desk or like to scan a receipt or something. So for me, my personal use case, the camera index is really lowly.

And so when I'm asking questions about things, usually, I mean, Dieter, you can back this up. I'm usually not asking about the camera all that much, even though like I find, I classify myself as a huge photography nerd. I love actual cameras, not phone cameras, and I love taking pictures and debating them and all that fun stuff, that just the phone camera to me feels like a diminishing return. It can get better and better and better, but it's only going to hit a certain point. And then, like, it's just, it's going to be a phone camera. That said, $1,400 for the camera that comes on the duo is, like, really hard to wrap my head around. And I think, I think the way that you approached it,

Shilin, is really appropriate for this device. It's like, it's not going to be the great quality camera. We can point out all the image quality things, but, like, obviously, this device is not there to like capture memories. It's for a different purpose. But like if you can't even use it to take a picture of the dumb thing on your desk or like scan the receipt or, you know, do the Skype video call or whatever that you would be doing on this, then that is like fundamentally broken.

And that's super important. And then like, you know, to take it off of me, like obviously the camera matters a lot to a lot of people. And so it is an important thing, especially if you're saying, well, I'm going to spend $500 more for this phone because the camera's so good. Like, obviously, the camera matters to those people. So you got to balance it. But me.

I live on Instagram, so it's hard. I, like, maybe in a different world than Dan is. And so maybe that's why the camera is a bit more important to me. I'd like to capture what my eyes sees and share it with people that I love and know. And also, I mean, I think this is no secret that I take a lot of selfies. So, like, the selfie camera experience is a whole thing, too. But I see your point. The things that you pointed out, Dan, is the things that you find important.

I think I've just internalized as like basic fundamental things of phone has to do. And so I don't, you know, think about it so much. In fact, like some of my reviews don't even talk about like ease of one hand at use sometimes unless it's something like the duo, which is a bit wider than usual. So the camera is just kind of almost a bonus sometimes. I think this is a great spot to take a break. We're going to come back and talk about some other basic things that you expect a smartphone to do. And also some weird new things that you expect to watch a smartphone to do.

So we'll be right back. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard. It can be really scary, too. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure will even work. But here's a better thought. What if it did all work? What if your instincts were actually right all along?

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Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, so we're back. And we're talking about things you can or can't take for granted on a smartphone. And one of the things we often take for granted on a smartphone is just like the fundamentals of how the software works on like Android or iOS. But the fundamentals of how software works and the way that you get around on it, you cannot take for granted on the duo. There's also just a lot of weird quirks to it. In your YouTube video, you actually talked about, actually, let's just listen to it.

A lot of the duo software is buggy. But Microsoft said it plans to roll out updates for the duo every month. So hopefully the most glaring issues would get fixed soon enough. But there are some things that might not change. For example, the notification shade here is the same size as on a regular smartphone, so on a screen that's as wide as a duos, it feels very narrow. A Microsoft spokesperson told me that they were aware of this, but kept the width so as not to fork Android. And it doesn't sound like that'll be changing anytime soon. It is legit wild to me that Microsoft walked all the way up to the edge of should we fork Android or not on this device.

Could you talk about what led you to that experience of what was broken? and how you, like, we got to the door of, like, forking Android. It was just I was finding things that were just unintuitive throughout, like the notifications panel that I mentioned was too narrow for the duo screen, and then it was blocking certain elements on the other screen where it shouldn't be even blocked, and I was like, what is going on here? It doesn't feel natural. And so I asked Microsoft, when I had a chance to talk to them, I was like, hey, you know,

what's the reason for this, or is there a fix coming? And they were like, um, we, we know. They were like, yeah, we know. But we don't think we're going to change outside. Oh, if you're not going to change it, this is an issue. And that's when I think they were telling me, yeah, they were not interested in forking Android or they just didn't want to. I think they wanted to make, they worked with Hiroshi Lockheimer and his Android team at Google on this. And I think the idea was to build something that didn't require too much tweaking of the native Android interface.

things like the width of the notification shade, for example. Because apparently I'm thinking that if they did, then developers would have to, I don't know, do a lot of recoding, which doesn't really seem to make sense? Because shouldn't it just be like as easy as a system-wide change of the width of node? I don't really know how Android is written, so maybe that's why. Yeah, it totally should be, but it's possible if there's like a max width and that layout elements just start just falling apart when they get beyond it.

And to fix that, they would have to fork Android, I guess. Right. Yeah, it baffles my mind. think if Microsoft tried to do more, I think it's afraid that developers might have to do more work or that it won't be able to keep it as open to other people who want to make dual screen devices in future. On a larger level here, maybe beyond just the duo, we could also maybe talk with the full two and actually hell, any Android phone.

I feel like that we've evolved in the way we talk about Android. We used to talk about skins. And it was like fair to call things a skin. There was touchwiz. Dan, what was the one on HTC? Sense. Sense. HTC Sense. Yes. God. Which launched, by the way, on Windows Mobile.

Thank you very much. But now it doesn't make sense to talk about these things as skins, right? They're like versions of Android. And the difference between, I don't know, Samsung's version of Android and Amazon's forked version of Android, which becomes FireOS. Is that a difference in kind? Or is it just like there's like a fuzzy gray line and eventually you like look around and all of a sudden you're not an Android land anymore. I mean, for me, Samsung's version is still pretty true to, like, original Android.

I haven't spent a lot of time with FireOS, but I almost start to think of it as a backbone for people who want to create their own OSs. And they just dress it up however they like. But basic navigation features or, like, how apps look or whatever, they all generally look the same. And that's nice because the user doesn't have to do a lot of relearning. And I like actually some of the things Samsung's done with OneUI. I mean, I don't really like the overall look and where some things are placed, but their video editor in the gallery is actually much more powerful than photos, which is, oh, photos is a garbage gallery app.

But it's all about the cloud, so there we go. But no, I'm with you. I don't think of them as skins anymore. I think they're basically, Android is coming to a point where it's all very similar. We don't need to worry so much about all these minor differences between the different versions. How do you think about different versions of Android? across different phones. You've used them all. Yeah, I've used far too many. I think, I think, I think, you know, the point that you made that apps look the same to matter what

version of Android you're using or what flavor of Android you're using is really the important point. So, like, I have a fire tablet that I use as my, like, nightside reading tablet. And when I open pocket on that, it looks like pocket on my phone. And, like, when I open Kindle on that, it looks like Kindle on my phone. There's no relearning I have to do. Like, the homes screen's a little different, the launcher's a little different, that's really about it. And so, like, there's that, like, known quantity that Android's been around for 10 plus years. People know how to use it. They want, they know how their apps expect to look.

And, like, you know where the notifications are going to be. You know, where multitasking is going to be. And you know where, like, your media player controls are going to be. And, like, that's what matters. And that's what you interact with on a daily basis. And then the rest of the time, you're in apps. And so to me, I know, I know, like, a lot of, like, a lot of. A lot of people really love the way the pixel software works.

To me, like, it's great. It's fine. So is Samsung's. Like, if there's something I like better on a Samsung phone, then on Google's pixel phone, I'm going to just use the Samsung phone because, like, basically, I'm in apps all the time. So, like, the app experience is visually the same. So it's a much less of a determining factor. I mean, that said, there can be really bad interfaces.

Like, LG does weird things all the time with Android and, like, moves. things around. It doesn't tell you why or where it is. And if you are used to using other devices, moving to something like an LG phone might be a little jarring or, you know, different markets. A lot of the Chinese phones have very different ideas of how app launcher should look and how, you know, you should navigate the interface. And so that can be a very different experience. But I think for most people who are staying in the same market in the same location or whatever and they're looking at new phones, like one Android phone is very similar to another to them. So the other thing, that's different, I don't know, different versions of Android, or it's sort of related and it's

hard to separate is ecosystem. So there's people that live fully in like Google suite ecosystem. There's people that live in all of Microsoft's apps and the duo is actually a very interesting device in that regard. There's people that live only in like ICloud Apple Land. There's people that are just in a weird mix of, you know, a whole bunch of different stuff. Like where do you live? Do you, can you, is it too much information to ask where your shit is? I'm a full-on Google baby. Okay. Our company uses G Suite.

And, yeah, I, you know, having quit Microsoft was, you know, actually pretty good because Google just does mobile apps better than Microsoft did. I feel bad for the ICloud people. Because I'm sorry, but that base storage for free of five gigs is nothing. It's so bad. It's pittance. Yeah. And Google at least, like, comes with 100 gig.

Well, it used to come with 100 gigs free, like, unlimited. photo storage and stuff like that, which is very helpful. And even when I have to pay for extra storage, it's very cheap on Google. I start at $2 a month, and that gives me 100 gigs more or something. And then for the Microsoft people, I'm not very sure. Like, you don't have a mobile system to really work with other than Android and iOS apps are good, but it's not as baked in, not as well. Right. Yeah. So that's why the duo is so interesting to me, because when you look at Samsung or LG or, I don't know, Huawei when they were allowed to make Android phones, TCL. They don't have an entire ecosystem of stuff.

Like, Samsung's got health, and they, like, they once upon a time had milk music, and they were, like, trying to build the thing. They got an note app now, though, Deeter. The notes app is great, yeah. They got a great note ecosystem. Yeah, that's true. But Microsoft has that ecosystem. And, you know, you say their mobile apps aren't as well integrated as Google's.

That's true. But their mobile apps, like, Outlook especially, but I think in general, like, Word has always been like one of the better doc editors on mobile, especially compared to Google Docs app. Their apps are really, really good. And they have a whole ecosystem. And so looking at the duo as like a flagship device that is Microsoft, like in the full stack, is a really fascinating proposition for me. One of the comments that I kept seeing people make as almost an excuse for the duo when the reviews came out was that some people or the fans were like, all these reviewers don't understand that this is supposed to be a business. phone. And I was like, if it was a business phone, I don't think Microsoft would have went with

Android. I think it went with Android because it wanted to make a mainstream or a more mainstream device. And it knows its flaws as a mobile OS maker. And yes, I agree that like, again, Microsoft's mobile apps have gotten way better. And they're actually better for people want to be productive on the go. So the duo actually is a very interesting marriage of the two companies. I still feel like, and not to circle back to the duo too quickly, but the proposition of the duo as a business-first device strikes me as just it's not accurate. It's a very weird thought. Yeah, I was, well, one of the things that I've seen a lot of discussion about is that people are saying that, oh, well, Microsoft expects you to carry the duo

and another phone. And like, the duo is not your phone. They're not calling it a phone. It's not your phone. They expect you to carry a phone to do the functional phone things. And like, yeah, that's what people did 10 years ago. They carried a Blackberry and an iPhone because the Blackberry was where all their email was, and the iPhone was where all their life was. We've moved past that. There's a reason BlackBerry doesn't exist anymore, and it's because it couldn't handle the fact that the rest of the market moved past it. And your iPhone or your Samsung phone or whatever smartphone that you pay for and buy

is the center of your work life. It's a center of your work life. It's a center of your personal life. It's a center of your entertainment. It's a center of your communication. It is all of that. And so to think of something as like, oh, it's only for business. It's like, well, that doesn't really reflect.

how people use devices now and how people live with devices. There's, there's no line. Like there's, you, you move from personal use to work use and back again all the time on the same device. And so like the, the, the, what we were speaking about earlier of like, is this a phone or is this not a phone? It's like, well, yes, it's a phone. It's also a tablet.

It's also your email place. It's also where you're going to watch YouTube. It's also where you're going to, uh, you know, communicate through messages. It's also where you're going to catch up with your Instagram feed. It's where you're going to post to Instagram. It's like, it's all of that. And so, like, a device, really that is this personal does have to kind of do all those things and do all of them to a certain level that is not going to bring it down from the rest, bring down the rest of the experiences is what I should say. So that's been kind of that interesting poll between the two devices, the two perspectives.

But like, I really think that most people are like, I'm going to buy this. This isn't going to be my device, my main device. I'm not going to buy an iPhone to keep in my other pocket. Like, that's just not going to happen. So think of it as a business device. My initial thought was if you want a phone as a business phone and you know, you need to get an Android phone and you have $1,400 to throw around on it, you could get a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and you get, you know, a big screen that you could split screen if you want. And you get all the cameras and you get a stylus and you have to pay separately for a surface pen. And it just seems like it's a way better deal.

But the case for the Surface Duo being a business phone, I think fundamentally comes down to, you know, whether or not you buy into the two-phone concept and like getting into the flow and like feeling pretty natural having two windows because it's way easier to open up two windows on two different screens than it is to deal with Samsung's weird drawer and drag an app and then drag the other app blah blah blah blah you just like you open up on the screen you want to put an app on you open up the home screen you tap that app and you're done um did you ever have like the moment that panos pinos benay talks about where you're in the flow not really only because my review process doesn't involve as intense a work-related flow, right? I used it more for entertainment and

relaxing stuff, like, oh, God, the hours of solitaire that I played. I played so many hours of solitaire. That was my, that was my moment when I turned it into basically a mini casino machine where I just set it up on my desk with like reverse tent mode and had one screen facing me outwards. And I was just like, Solitaire for hours. No, but like reading, you know, watching, Watching YouTube on one screen while you're replying to text on another or keeping an iron Twitter feed while you're crafting up a very thoughtful medium pose, I guess, are some of the ways that I would have, I used it. And it's great.

It's very actually, what's the word for it when you're very engrossed in something or I think that's it. Yeah. You're just like, it's very, it sucks you in when you're using it in that book format. You are kind of closed off to the rest of the world when you're looking at the world when you're looking at the duo like that. But in this world that we live in, we're very rarely that way anymore because those are situations when you're sitting back commuting and you want to get emails sort of while you're editing an article on the other screen. But we are at home all the time now.

So I'm always doing that on my laptop, which is a far better machine for it. Or I'm sitting back on my couch watching TV. I don't want to be watching, not watching the TV and looking at the duo instead. So maybe it's just the timing of it where like if I were commuting more, I would find a duo a lot more useful or if I were taking planes more, traveling more? Dan, do you ever split screen? You use a ton of big phones all the time. Have you ever split screen now? The one or two instances where I split screen is I was watching a YouTube video and I had to tweet about it. And so like I drew the little line or whatever so I could keep the video box up and I can pull up the keyboard and tweet about it. I find Android's split screen UI very cumbersome to use. Well, wait a minute, wait a bit,

Oh, which Android? Well, like, I mean, so, so not the duo. So like single screen devices, even if they've got big screens, I just wrapped up a review of the tab S7. Big screen devices, obviously, Android has like that, if you're in the Android mode, you can, like, do the same thing you can do on the fold. I never used it in the Android mode. Like, I never did that split screening because it's very cumbersome to use. And on a phone, I think that, like, you are really, even if you're really, even if you've, got a big phone, even if you got a note 20, you're still cutting the screen in half or maybe in

one third and two thirds. And there's not so much you can do there. I think the duo is super interesting in that you do have two real-sized screens that you don't have to do, jump through a bunch of hoops to get two things open on. And so like if I wanted to keep a YouTube video on one side and tweet on the other, like that is the thing that could easily be done without having to like really think about it and like sit down. And I had this problem with the iPad too, whenever I need to multitask. I have to think about it. And like, how do I get these two apps to show side by side before I edit this document? And I got to, like, do the gestures and move things around and stuff like that. Whereas Microsoft is very easy to pick up and understand and straightforward,

at least from a concept level. So it seems like Microsoft is going to keep making these. They seem committed. The knock on the surface line in general is always the first one's bad. The second one, you can see that they know what to do, but they haven't done it yet. The third one, they get it right. So, okay, what do you want them to do on the next one? Well, we'll talk about the ideal third one later. Like, when they fix everything, that'll be the third one. But the second one, where we know they're not going to get everything right, but they, like, hit the important stuff. What do you want them to fix next or do next? Fix that goddamn camera. The camera is important, I think, just to make it work well and the way it should in the way that people expect.

Ideally, and I think we sort of alluded to this earlier on, but because it's so thin, there are certain things that they couldn't really make happen. So NFC isn't in there. I don't think that NFC is super important, but it is to some people who make a lot of contactless payments. Also, I don't know if you noticed this during your review, but when you watch a video in tablet mode, or even if just as book mode, the speaker's only on the left side. Yeah. So it's a little bit off.

And that would really improve the tablet experience when you're watching videos if they were able to add a second speaker to the right. but I understand they have limited space to work with. I mean, this thing is weighted so well. Like, it feels so good to hold that maybe I feel like this is a minor complaint. But if they could figure out some magic for the second edition, that would be good. Shirlin, you mentioned earlier that it kind of sucks as a phone. Yeah. What could they do to make it better as a phone?

If this really is a single device that you have and it works as your phone and other things, what do you think they could do to improve that? I think the width of it, I don't know, it's hard. I like the size, but the width of it is really getting in the way of it being like a single screen device as a phone. The camera I mentioned is another thing. I know, Dan, maybe you don't think of it this way, but I think of my smartphone as my camera. I do, I take a lot of photos. So that's one thing they really need to improve to.

Otherwise, I mean, that thinness is great. So if they just made it a bit more narrow, the software is fine for a phone because it is. just Android at this point. So I almost, yeah, and there's a lot of things I don't think Microsoft itself can do alone. I think that there's a lot of things you need to work on with Android and developers. Like, Gboard needs to work better because I don't, I'm not a big fan of Swift Key, and Swift Key is the only keyboard that will understand this device right now. So those are some things that are on my wish list. I'm not sure that we'll get them, though. Well, so my wish list is relatively similar. What's interesting is, you know, this thing has got a Snapchat at 855, which I think is fine.

I think they should have put more RAM in it. But when we talk about speeds and feeds and just like all the components, you want stereo speakers, you want a better camera. Like, that's all stuff that they could just do. But then will they be able to do it and maintain that thin form factor is just a big open question? Same thing with 5G. Like, I don't care about 5G now. I might care in like two years.

And presumably if you're going to spend this much money on this thing, or I want to keep it for two years. So like that's like a tough one for me at this moment. I think in terms of its width, I would be fine with it being a little bit narrower. a little bit taller, but not too much, because I think the fold goes the opposite way and it's way too tall. What they should do is they should have like a pop-out handle that you can actually hold with one hand. So the thing would look like a like a ping pong paddle, right? And then you've got one-handed use because you could just, you know.

It's more stable. Yeah, that's what I want in the surface duo too. Panos should pay you for that idea, Deere. I deserve it. I deserve all sorts of money for that. By the way, how insufferable is the duo two going to be? because it's duo and then two. It's 2.2.2.

I don't know. Two screens the second time. The re-duo. The do-over. Oh, man. There's your headlines. Well, it's already out in the world. I can't use it now.

Well, we're going to come up with something. I love how Dieter, you and Michael Fisher had the same headline for your Galaxy Z-Fault two reviews. Double troubles. Yeah, yeah. Although I put an S on me. mind because I was saying it's double. There's troubles anyway. Okay, well, I think that is probably enough for now on the duo. We're obviously going to have another version to look at. There's going to be complaining about Android fragmentation. There's all sorts of stuff coming.

But, you know, we've also just like, this season is just getting started. Like, there's so much more stuff coming. I'm a zombie talking to you guys right now. I'm dead and reanimated for this verge cast. But it is, it is a relentless product cycle. It's a relentless product cycle, and it's made a little bit harder because a lot of us are working from home. And so it's hard to not be able to go to the event and like talk to people and like hold the thing and whatever. So it's just, it's a lot. And so we're going to keep doing some of these podcasts where we are going to go behind the scenes and the reviews. We're also going to keep living this very difficult life of reviewing new gadgets all the time. Sheldon, thanks so much

for joining us. Where can people find you? I'm at Shirlin Low on Twitter. And shout out. We also do a podcast on Engadgett called The Engadgett podcast that I co-host. Check it out. Go subscribe to that. Dan, where can people find you? I am DC Sefert on Twitter, and sometimes I show up on The Vergecast. There it is. Thanks much for listening, everybody. I am Backlon. We will catch you next Tuesday.