It Hinges On…

Microsoft’s odd slow-mo reveal of the Surface Duo continues…

M.G. Siegler
500ish
Published in
4 min readAug 31, 2020

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I’m on record as being quite skeptical of the Surface Duo — Microsoft’s new dual-screen Android phone,¹ tablet,² device. At the same time, I’m quite intrigued by it. Case in point: this is not the first, but the second post I’ve written on the product. One I’ve never used. Nor have I even seen.

That’s because I found Marques Brownlee’s product overview video illuminating. And when I say “product overview”, I really just mean “hardware overview” because, amazingly, the reviewers who got the device ahead of time are not allowed to talk about the software yet.

Yes, this is weird. A product is not just its hardware, no more than its just its software. The two halves make a whole. And yet Microsoft is very explicitly asking for you to only see half here. It’s not quite asking you to review a piece of music by its packaging (when music still had packaging!), but it’s not entirely not that either. And this follows the truly bizarre move of shipping out hardware with no internals several weeks back.

Okay, we’ve determined that this is weird. But why? What is the strategy here? Brownlee may have hit on it in his video at the 2:08 mark:

I think a reason why Microsoft is limiting this whole first impressions thing to just hardware only is because the hardware first impression experience all around is super, super positive with this whole tablet phone thing — whatever we’re calling it. Now 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, I think that’s when you start to fall back down to earth about the whole thing.

Now, maybe it’s as simple as Microsoft knows they have a winner here with the hardware. Such a winner that they want everyone to focus on that for a click before they move on to the full reviews. But Brownlee’s idea above makes even more sense. If you think the hardware is great, but you know the software experience is just so-so (or worse), you’re going to want everyone to focus on that hardware. The winning half. So you set two embargoes, I guess.

But it’s actually not even a winning half because the real disappointment may not actually be in the software either, but rather the specs that are a part of the hardware. But those are untestable right now because you’re not allowed to turn the thing on. Or you are, but you’re not allowed to talk about it in such a state. The first rule of Surface Duo review club is…

Even if those specs are just okay (which is what they would seem to be, on paper), they’re going to be downgraded significantly to something worse because… this thing costs $1,400.

So, Occam’s razor. Microsoft is trying to sell a premium product with a premium price, but the only thing that may be premium about it is the exterior shell. And more specifically, the hinge.

But the important part is they’ve made this bet here on this hinge. This is a 360-degree hinge and I think I said out-loud within like four minutes of taking it out of the box I think this is the nicest hinge I’ve ever used in a piece of tech. It is so smooth and firm and satisfying — it’s honestly incredible and I’m including laptops and other folding phones and everything in this. I think the hinge engineers specifically for the Surface Duo here deserve a round of applause.

Now, it does look like an amazing hinge. Just look at it side-by-side with the ridiculous Galaxy Fold (start at 4:05 in the video). Everything about the outer shell looks fantastic. I would absolutely want a device with this type of form factor.³ But, to Brownlee’s points at the end, his “guess” is that he won’t be able to recommend the Surface Duo as a whole. Because the whole is not just one half of one half.⁴

Microsoft may well get there in a couple years. But you’re being asked to pay $1,400 today to help subsidize that future for others. Or, at least, that’s what the early reviewers think they’re going to think. Because Microsoft won’t let them talk about the entire product. They just want them to gush about the hinge. Which does look great!

¹ Not a phone.

² Not a tablet.

³ It does seem like the dual screen will make more sense than Apple’s confusing iPad OS dual app side-by-side paradigm. But it also feels like a bit of a crutch. A temporary solution until we’re ready for truly foldable screens, which as the Galaxy Fold continues to show — we’re not yet.

⁴ Again, the hinge and shell without the internals.

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Writer turned investor turned investor who writes. General Partner at GV. I blog to think.