• il y a 2 mois
Transcription
00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here, and this is something that we've been waiting for, for a pretty long time.
00:10Ever since over a year ago, when Microsoft sort of pre-announced that they're working on a foldable Android Surface phone,
00:20this is what we were waiting for. Now it's finally here.
00:24So this is the Microsoft Surface Duo, and this will be the first time I've held it since those initial pre-unveilings.
00:32Now, right from the top, this is just an impressions video, and there's again a limitation of what I'm allowed to show here,
00:39and it's very specific. I can't turn it on until the full review.
00:43So this is going to be a shorter video, but I just wanted to talk for a second about this hardware choice in foldables in general,
00:50and how I think this actually smartly fits in.
00:53So in this fancy reviewer's kit box here, there are some Surface earbuds as well as the Duo itself,
00:59and there's also a letter from Panos about being one of the first to try the Duo and how excited they all are about it.
01:05Of course, I'm interested in the Duo's box itself here, and I think this smaller box is what we can expect people to actually get when they get the phone.
01:13So as we get into it, it's always weird to see it says Microsoft and Android on the same box,
01:19but that's what's happening here.
01:20Right at the top, you have the device wrapped in some plastic.
01:34So this is it, and wow.
01:37But I'm going to put it down for a second, because notably also included in the box, we've got to show,
01:42is a Surface Duo bumper, which is actually designed to protect the edges of this razor-thin foldable.
01:49And you also get your paperwork, you get an 18-watt power brick, and you get a USB Type-C cable.
01:57Okay, so my first impressions of this thing, just holding it, are wow, this thing is thin.
02:03This is an incredibly thin piece of hardware, holy smokes, and it feels great to hold.
02:08So, I think a reason why Microsoft is limiting this whole first impressions thing to just hardware only,
02:15is because the hardware first impression experience all around is super, super positive with this whole tablet, phone thing, whatever we're calling it.
02:26Now I think once you turn it on, and you get a load of those bezels, and you start using the last year's specs and the not-so-impressive camera,
02:35I think that's when you start to fall back down to earth about the whole thing, but there's no denying, this is a super impressive piece of hardware.
02:43The whole outside of this thing is glass, not metal like other Surface products, so it is shiny as you can see reflections from it,
02:50but since it's white, you don't really see many fingerprints, and there is no screen on the outside.
02:54It's just a Microsoft logo under the glass on the front, and nothing, not even any cameras, nothing on the back, so clean.
03:03All the buttons are on the right side, so the volume rocker, the power button, and then a fingerprint reader,
03:08which doubles as kind of like a pry point to open the Surface Duo like a laptop, that's all on the right side, along with the SIM card tray.
03:15And on the inside here, you see the camera up near the earpiece, and that flash all up on the inside, plus some other hidden ambient light and proximity sensors.
03:24And from there, it's really all about the hinge.
03:28Now, Microsoft making a folding phone, to me, shows that they believe it is the future in some way, but the important part is they've made this bet here on this hinge.
03:39This is a 360 degree hinge, and I think I said out loud within like four minutes of taking it out the box,
03:46I think this is the nicest hinge I've ever used in a piece of tech.
03:51It is so smooth and firm and satisfying.
03:55It's honestly incredible, and I'm including laptops and other folding phones and everything in this.
03:59I think the hinge engineers, specifically for the Surface Duo here, deserve a round of applause.
04:05And really, the best part about all this is it can firmly hold itself up at any angle that you want.
04:10So you can have it halfway open, or completely flat, or anywhere in between really, which is super satisfying,
04:19unlike something like a Galaxy Fold, for example, which really just sticks to two positions which are closed or locked fully open.
04:26Anything in between really isn't going to work.
04:28And then there's also this little move I kept seeing in the demo, where if you want to put it flat on a table,
04:34there's this thing where you kind of place it down and then just press in the middle to get it perfectly flat.
04:38And I thought that was nifty, it just ends flat.
04:41And that's probably why they didn't want a camera bump on the back of this thing,
04:44because they actually see a lot of people probably using it while it's just sitting on a desk, just halfway open.
04:49A couple other things I noticed.
04:51Yes, there are magnets inside the Surface Duo, potentially for other accessories,
04:56but I was just messing around with a Surface Pen.
04:58And yes, it will hold a pen to the back of the Surface Duo if you want to.
05:02It makes sense, I guess, to attach it to the back or the side.
05:05And a little magnet paper reveals where those magnets are.
05:09And this does seem like a perfect form factor for note-taking, like writing in a little notebook here.
05:14So I'm glad those magnets are in there.
05:16And I just, I don't know, I really can't get over how thin this thing is.
05:20The USB-C port on the bottom right side is almost the thickness of the entire half of the tablet.
05:27So if you've got a USB-C port around you somewhere, take a look at that.
05:30That's how thick half of this tablet is.
05:34And it actually doesn't feel flimsy at all as far as flex when you really bend or pry at it and try to twist it.
05:40I think that's thanks to the glass sheets on the front and the back.
05:43The only concern I have with the thinness is just, of course, how it will do with battery.
05:48You already know, not a lot of internal space means not a lot of battery.
05:51And the Surface Duo has battery in both halves that add up to about 3600 mAh.
05:57And that's for 8.1 inches of total display.
06:02So I don't know, I might as well toss up the rest of the spec sheet while we're at it.
06:05There is some concern with the older specs, as I've mentioned.
06:08And I think as soon as you really intake that, that's when the falling back to earth starts to happen.
06:13It's an amazing first impression, but, you know, I'm going to turn this thing on and I'm going to start using the last year's specs.
06:20And I'm going to have this 60 Hz screen and this 11 megapixel camera,
06:25which is also not just a selfie camera but the primary camera because you flip it around and take pictures like that.
06:31So, you know, all this is going to start to wear on you and it's 1400 bucks.
06:36There's the small battery, there's the no headphone jack, there's no water resistance, there's no wireless charging.
06:42This to me kind of feels, it's so first gen like the Galaxy Fold was that I'm almost already considering not recommending it at all for anyone
06:51because it's not about buying this as a finished product as much as it is a proof of concept
06:56and an attempt to see how this idea of a foldable works.
07:00So really the point is everyone has a different way of attacking this new frontier of foldables that we're moving into,
07:08whether it's LG with the dual screen case or the Samsung Galaxy Fold or the Z Flip or this or the Royal FlexPai.
07:14Everyone does it different.
07:16And I actually think this is a really smart way to do it from Microsoft in 2020.
07:23So basically they can just build around this whole dual screen thing for now, right?
07:27You can have this unique 360 degree hinge, which again can't stress enough how amazing that is.
07:33And then you don't have to deal with the extra thickness and all the problems that right now come with the early generation
07:39not so mature tech of actual folding displays.
07:43And that's the stuff that, you know, Samsung and others will have to deal with.
07:47But then sometime in the future, after you're done leaning into the dual screen thing,
07:52you can eventually move the Surface Duo to a foldable screen when the tech is actually good enough to be this thin.
07:58I think that's a good plan.
08:00It's basically the opposite of the Samsung plan where I love the Galaxy Fold,
08:04but it's going straight from the infant tech that is foldable displays
08:08and building a chunky phone around it to try to make it work.
08:12So that's how we ended up with this.
08:14And, you know, this is just my first impression.
08:16Of course, the full review of this is coming very soon.
08:21So make sure you subscribe and hit that bell if you want to be among the first to see that when it comes out.
08:25But let me know in the comments what you want to know about using a phone like this.
08:29Is it a phone? A phone, tablet, like this, as a daily driver?
08:33Because that's what I'm going to be doing.
08:35I'm going to turn it on now.
08:37Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one.
08:39Peace.