Microsoft showed how her first smartphone works on Android

The reluctance of Microsoft to work with Android threw it away in its development, not allowing it to appear on the mobile market at least on an equal footing with Google, not to mention more popular brands. Instead, for almost 10 years, the company tried to first breathe life into the Windows Phone project, and then continued to artificially support it in it. But since there is no ban on the euthanasia of hopeless projects in the world, Microsoft took and closed it, making – oh, miracle – a bet on Android and announcing the launch of its first smartphone based on the OS from Google, which she showed live for the first time today.

Microsoft showed how her first smartphone works on Android

Surface Duo is a foldable smartphone made up of two separate smartphones. Who needs it?

This is, of course, the Surface Duo. Despite the fact that its presentation took place last year, I decided to show it in work Microsoft only now. Apparently, the folding form factor of the device, which has a pair of displays and in the unfolded state, forms either a pair of combined tablets, or a semblance of a touchscreen mini-laptop with two independent parts, had an effect. But if Google has already adapted Android for smartphones with flexible displays, then there is no optimization for devices with a pair of panels. Therefore, the developers Microsoft had to do everything from scratch and, of course, it was not without problems.

Why do you need Surface Duo

The video shows that Microsoft is actively trying to pass off a pair of split displays not as a disadvantage, but as an advantage. Therefore, the developers came up with a completely non-standard, but quite expected concept of their application. For example, users Microsoft Duo will be able to take turns using the displays if they want to, performing completely different and independent tasks on them. To do this, the developers even had to rethink the gesture control system, making it so that each screen perceives swipes independently of the other and responds to them accordingly.

Thanks to this, you can launch maps on one screen, and the second will allow you to interact with the desktop or menu, or other applications. On foldable smartphones from Samsung or Huawei, you can do the same, but due to the fact that their displays are solid, although they fold in half, gestures in any part will be perceived in two parts at once. On the other hand, if you try to open some kind of application on both Surface Duo screens, the dividing strip passing between them will greatly spoil the impression, not allowing you to perceive the whole picture.

Should you buy a Surface Duo

So if you are looking to buy a foldable smartphone for a seamless big screen app experience, then Microsoft is clearly not for you. Surface Duo is primarily focused on multitasking. Rather, it is suitable for the simultaneous work with multiple tasks that run independently of each other. Let's say on one side of the screen you can chat in a messenger, and use the other for web surfing, interacting with video, and so on. This is a completely different experience than the competitors' foldable smartphones provide, so it is completely inappropriate to talk about whether it is better or worse. He is simply different, and this otherness makes him at least interesting.

However, it is important to understand that even Microsoft cannot yet say when to wait for the Surface Duo release. Obviously, the company has to do a lot of adaptation and debugging Android to teach the operating system to work with two screens at once and separately, which no one has done until now. Therefore, it may well happen that the device will be released only by the end of this year, and until that time one of the competitors may decide to release something similar, and then Surface Duo will no longer be so attractive. Although even now its target audience remains rather vague.

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