That’s all too true. Only 2 of the four AT&T 5g bands, and none of the Mint Mobile as i can discern. Verizon is also skimpy…oh well, a fella can dream, right?
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Software polish also. Nothing comes close to Samsung. TBH, the Folds’ size suits me more.
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I must say that the Fold is 
for PDFs. In portrait it fits one page nicely, and in landscape it fits a doublespread nicely.
No room for app UI, but then again mobile and web apps rarely let you customise that much.
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I don’t see MS doing that but damn would that be nice. And they do need to come up with something if they are going to adopt the same single folding screen as others. I do not see MS being able to be out-compete other brands on something like value for money or camera system.
Worst of all, paraphrasing Matthew Quigley, “This ain’t Cupertino, and you ain’t Apple.”* By that I mean they have NEVER proven to be like Apple in the sense of sitting on the sidelines and issuing a v1 device that fills all the gaps in existing products - and as a newbie to folding screens, how can they hope to compete against Samsung or even Google or Oppo…
Quigley Down Under - a must see…
Microsloth has shown that, when it feels like it, it can design some remarkable equipment. The Surface Pro is iconic, reaching a status normally reserved for apple products.
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But that was with version 3 forward - technically this would be Duo 3 too, but a folding screen would be a massive difference, not just a refinement like the SP 3…
Worse still, all the tea leaves so far point to 2024…
It is a complete package. I was amazed at being able to extract zip files on the darn thing. Can’t do that on the Duo. Samsung’s software polish is second to none.
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Exactly, MS can be very good at form factor design if they want to but they seem to go for the same (or mostly the same) form factor this time as the competition. I think MS needs to add something extra here (or something smart to bring it closer to Windows) to be able to carve out a niche.
No Surface Duo Tres?
I can’t read Zac’s post as anything short of sayonara Surface Duo…
"But that means Microsoft needs to fully invest in the Android OS side of things to differentiate a foldable Surface Duo from the competition. Why buy a foldable Surface Duo 3 over a Pixel Fold or Galaxy Fold? That’s a question Microsoft is aware it needs to answer.
As it currently stands, it doesn’t look like Microsoft has the resources to fully invest in this vision. Recent layoffs haven’t helped, and I hear many orgs have been asked to focus on projects that are more likely to make a profit, which means devices like the Surface Duo 3 are being temporarily placed on the back burner."
What’s the chances of them measuring up to the Pixel Fold or Galaxy Fold 5, much less likes of OnePlus bringing the Oppo Find N3 stateside.
PS - the Pixel Fold previews seems a lot like the Oppo Find N2 but with Pixel-type cameras…
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Funny thing though. I suspect that I will own an OG Duo running Windows 11 (once it’s perfected) before I own any other brand of folding phone.
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I believe I mentioned when Panos got his big promotion that his focus would go up the food chain - to the detriment of many projects.
It would have been less cruel (and expensive) to us bleeding edgers to have killed Duo like they did Surface Mini.
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A fork of Win 10x on the Duo would have done better than Android. MS and Google are bad bed mates, what with all the bad blood between them. Lesson for Satya and Panos.
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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it .” – George Santayana
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Even Samsung don’t get on well with Google.
Tizen is still alive and kicking partly because they don’t trust Google. The Galaxy Store is a major card they hold against Google, despite Google’s best attempts to get them to axe it.
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From the article:
I have heard from many sources now that Microsoft’s highly touted “partnership” with Google on the Surface Duo extends no further than a standard OEM partnership that Google holds with all Android manufacturers. In fact, I hear that the partnership has turned a bit sour, with Google refusing to offer Microsoft access to Android source-code ahead of general availability like it does with other OEMs such as Samsung.
Google to Microsoft: “Go on, get outta here!”
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Microsoft to Google - “FU…Edge+ChatGPT will sink Chrome, and we’ll do our own Win11x!”
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“… and unicorns!”
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I was thinking more like
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