- Man, remember Windows Phone?
Did you ever have one?
No? - [Johno] Nope.
- Did you ever want one? - [Johno] Not really?
- No one did.
No one ever wanted a Windows Phone.
To say that Windows,
Microsoft doesn't have the greatest track record with phones
is an understatement.
I think this is their fifth attempt
at making a phone,
at making some sort of,
a mobile productivity device.
The most recent one was probably,
a Nokia thing.
This is probably the one that I'm most excited for,
in terms of,
well, Microsoft devices at the very least.
Because, it's Microsoft's first Android phone.
It says Surface Duo.
You'd be forgiven for thinking
this is some sort of accessory for their PCs.
But look on the back, Android!
You got that?
Android, it says Android on the back.
This is an Android phone.
Let's check it out.
(sighs) (laughs)
Why am I always the one to unbox?
This is the second
device that we've gotten from dbrand
that has some insane wrap on it.
Wow, that's amazing.
And that's the phone, thanks for watching, guys (laughs)
This thing is fricking,
thin, or it feels really thin.
It's a really smooth feeling hinge, hey?
Hey, do you guys feel that?
This is a device that really
makes you want to play with it.
Ooh, that's satisfying too.
Right, and you'll notice I have the Surface Pen here
because apparently it works with it
and it can like magnetically attach to the outside.
Ooh!
Okay, so I guess it stays there but like,
what are you, are you just supposed
to put that in your pocket?
Come on.
Linus, (speaks foreign language) mustache.
Okay, that's enough fooling around.
My initial impressions of the device are very nice.
Feels good in the hand, very thin.
What do you get with your a $1,400
that you pay for this thing?
That's right.
Surface Pro, for Surface Duo bumper,
especially designed to protect your device.
(laughs) What am I looking at here?
It shows you, to see how to attach the bumper,
check out the video.
I'm not going to go into a website to find out how to...
And without actually putting on the adhesive,
that's kinda what it ends up looking like.
It's like,
Oh no, it's turning on.
Johno, it's turning on.
I didn't mean to.
I know you want me to say hello, but not yet, okay?
We got also in the box, a wall wart,
a black wall wart.
And over here, we got papers that,
do I look at the papers?
Okay, SIM removal tool.
Okay, without even opening it, it probably just says,
"congratulations, you've just got the future in phones.
Get stoked, bro.
With love, Microsoft."
And another black USB-C cable.
Very cool.
Standard phone packaging type stuff.
Okay, let's turn it on.
This is the power button.
Oh, there it is.
Okay, so it's already on.
Hello, hi there.
"Let's get started to set up your Surface Duo."
Oh man, should we have done this before?
Scan, QR code.
That there's only one camera and it's on the front.
Hi, Linus. - [Linus] Can I see it?
- Can you see what?
- Is this? - Look at yourself in there.
Oh, look at the back.
That's the most important part.
- Oh, very funny, dbrand.
Ha Ha!
Sorry, am I ruining your reactions here?
- Trying to social distance while you do this.
- They really do hinges well, don't they?
- That's what I was saying. It's really smooth to open, yes!
- That sound, oh!
- Yeah, - Ha Ha!
- Snap it closed.
- Oh! - I know.
- Okay, I'm sorry, I'll let you do your job.
- There's only one camera on the device.
So I guess that doesn't mean that you,
you can't take photos like this,
and you can't take photos when it's closed.
You have to have it in this mode.
And anyways, that's interesting.
"Your phone needs to download an update and restart."
It's installing a system update.
Which screen do I listen to?
This is (laughs)
I'm pressing next.
Nothing happened.
It loaded for a second then it came right back.
So I guess that's the answer to that question.
Oh, it's installed, it's restarting.
See, that's a cool shot right there, you know?
I think it's beautiful that Microsoft
who is like responsible for their own operating system
can just be like, "You know what?
Windows Phone didn't really work out.
We're doing Android."
Checking for updates again.
Sign in with your Google.
Should I sign in or no?
Skip, skip for now.
Sign in with Microsoft.
Jeez Louise.
Okay, so this is interesting.
Because it's a Microsoft device, it's a Surface device.
Normally with a Windows device,
you sign in with your Microsoft account.
But on an Android device,
you sign in with your Google account.
But this one asks you to sign into both because,
there's kind of two competing ecosystems here.
Wait, what did I just,
did I just accept something?
Protect your Surface Duo.
I'm not, I don't need protection.
Oh, there's a fingerprint reader.
Okay, there's a fingerprint reader on the side.
"Go to your home screen, swipe up (laughs)
swipe up quickly from the button."
Okay, oh, okay.
This is basically just telling you about Android gestures.
Check out tips anytime.
I will.
Thanks, what was that sound?
Okay, here we, wait, what?
Where's the notification?
Okay, so there's a notification screen.
But when I
swipe down from the Google.
Okay (laughs)
So it's very clear right off the bat that,
you know, this is not your average Android phone.
It's two screens.
They're super wide.
It's not like,
you know, this is a regular phone for comparison.
Look at how wide that is!
Some of the gestures are supposed to be the same.
Okay, so there's the Google app.
But, hello?
So okay, let's open photos.
Let's open news.
You've got these apps along the bottom, you got a dock,
like you do on Android, normally.
But when you swipe up on one side to go into multitasking,
all the icons go to the other side.
So then at any time you can still access your entire dock.
That's pretty cool.
And the multitasking menu is vertical instead of horizontal.
A lot of things are different here.
It's okay, we're going to be all right.
What is this, is this Bing?
Shut up.
Is this Bing right now?
(laughter)
That's hilarious.
A regular swipe down on any home screen
brings up a Bing search.
I hope that there's a way to customize that gesture.
'Cause that's really annoying.
First off, the thing that's really interesting
to me about this is, the fact that it can do this.
It's like a little laptop.
So I'm gonna see what the typing experience is like,
in this mode.
Notes, here we go.
Okay, let's see what happens.
So, turn it,
this way.
Okay, look at that.
I got a little laptop.
Hello, fellow co-workers.
Oh no, co-workers.
Hello flow coworkers.
Oh no, this is guys, I'm disappointed.
So, oh and it's gone!
All right.
So far productivity isn't looking great.
In vertical mode.
Okay, so I could just do this.
And I think I read that when you do this,
the other screen is automatically disabled.
So it says double tap to switch screens.
So I'm over here, I'm using this one
and then flip it over, it's like,
"Oh, you wanna use this? Double tap."
And now you're using on this side.
But where's that?
The app didn't come with it?
Okay, that's weird (laughs)
Look, these things aren't bad, okay?
These are just like things that you have to get used to.
And I think that's part of the
deal with the Surface Duo in general.
Because, obviously it's not a regular Android phone.
If you get this thing,
there's gonna be a bit of a learning curve.
There's gonna be a period
where you have to accustom yourself
to using a dual screen Android phone.
Okay, I'm in settings.
I'm in settings and I'm gonna keep
the notes open on this side
so I can keep working as I'm scrolling through settings.
Oh, what?
That's weird.
Did you see that?
I'm, you can't type and scroll at,
it only takes one input.
That's, I'm against that.
Is that not dumb or am I being dramatic?
You can't do two things at once.
- [Johno] Would you do two things at once?
- Maybe, there's two screens, why not?
Okay, whatever.
System update, update to Android 10.
It's only running Android 10.
Now I don't blame them for that
because this thing is actually
also running a last gen processor.
It's running a Snapdragon 855.
There's six gigs of RAM.
I think you can get 128 or 256 gigs of storage if you want.
Interestingly, I know that the battery is a
third, 3,755 milliamp hour, I think?
It's like 3,700.
But, apparently
they've done a really good job with battery optimization,
splitting the cell in two.
So part of the battery's over here,
part of the battery is over here, and
apparently it's lasting all day.
We don't have all day to test that,
because this is short circuit, Johno.
This is kind of interesting.
Normally with the phone
you know, you can only see one of your home screens at once.
But as you swipe through,
you kind of have access to two at any one time.
Am I just like, am I expecting too much of this device?
It's not responding.
How do I get to the app drawer?
Just checking for Cortana,
I don't see Cortana anywhere.
There's no Cortana,
Oh, that's the other thing I wanted to try.
A conference call.
Also, I can't do it 'cause I have to sign into Teams.
Johno, nevermind.
I don't wanna sign into teams on this thing.
I can't.
Is it frozen?
Froze, dude.
The screen just froze
and I had to like rotate it in order to wake it up.
So I think, I guess I was right about it
having two full sets of like productivity apps.
We have all of the Google apps, I think.
And all of the Microsoft apps.
That gives you options, I guess.
I'm trying to look on the bright side here.
It's not bloatware, it's options.
- [Screen] Well, hello there.
What's that?
You'd like some tech news.
Okay.
Oh, I should--
- "Viewing full screen.
To exit swipe down from the top" Gotcha.
Oh, stop.
Okay.
Wait, what?
Hello?
It didn't go full screen when I...
There we go.
Speakers aren't bad.
- [Screen] This is particularly annoying
because EA has apparently added the promos
after the games launch.
- Hear that? - [Screen] Some players
who thought they had paid a lot
- There's a lot of bass there.
- [Screen] For the privilege of not being advertised to in.
- We also, which I didn't mention,
there's a single USB-C port on the bottom
and a volume rocker and a power bar, fingerprint reader.
Okay, there's the ports for ya?
I mean, overall,
I think this concept is really cool.
I like the idea of having a two screen device.
But there are a few things in this iteration
that just make it kinda confusing
as a device that's launched in 2020.
The Snapdragon 855,
the giant bezels,
only six gigs of RAM for something with two screens.
I mean, is that a reason why I'm experiencing some of the
performance hang ups that I'm, that I am?
Maybe, what else was I gonna say?
- [Johno] Oh, when you talked about camera quality?
- Camera quality, that's a whole nother thing
we haven't even touched yet.
Welcome to your camera.
Let's get started with some quick tips.
This is a selfie mode.
And instead of like pressing a button to switch
to rear camera mode,
you just do this.
And hopefully it understands that that's what you did.
Wow, the video is like completely vertical.
What's up guys (laughs)
We're having, we have so much fun over here.
I heard a lot of bad things about the camera,
but this doesn't look horrible.
Photo.
Oh wow, that was really slow.
I'm viewing this thing primarily
as like a productivity device.
So I'm not looking for like the phone or the camera
to be like super amazing, like.
The one thing that's really annoying me so far is the bugs.
It's the bugs.
That they gotta fix those.
I can't help but notice that it takes a good second
when you switch orientations,
for it to like react to that,
which is weird because
this device has dual accelerometers, gyroscopes,
and a bunch of other sensors that it uses to do that.
Like they have one in each side.
So, very clearly a first-generation device
as evidenced by the specs,
by kind of the inconsistencies and bugs in the UI design.
But, feeling the thing,
is glorious.
It's so thin, it's so light.
Let, does it fit in the pocket?
It does!
I think it,
even though it's so wide,
I mean, it depends on the pocket that you have.
I would definitely carry this around if it wasn't $1,400
I think this pen might not actually be charged.
So we might not be able to use it.
Can you not draw in the notes app on Office?
Dang it, dude, I wanna draw something.
Anyways, we can see that the pen is working.
The pen is something that we'll have to look at
in the full review.
But I imagine that it works
because they say that it works in everything,
I believe what they say.
All right, conclusions.
I think this is a really promising device.
I can't wait for gen two.
In the meantime,
I'm more than happy to play around with gen one,
even if it does have a few bugs, and
a horrible skin on it (laughs)
Just kidding, it's great, I love it.
Thanks, dbrand.
And thanks to you for watching this video.
If you liked it, guess what you should do.