Microsoft Surface Duo teardown shows what it takes to make a thin dual screen device

BY admin August 22, 2020 Microsoft 7 views

The Microsoft Surface Duo is now available for pre-order and it costs a whopping $1,400 – that is not cheap, but the phone has a rare dual screen design with a hinge that allows it to fold in half. CNET got an exclusive in-depth look at the hardware, including a teardown. Let’s see where all that money goes.

The Microsoft Surface Duo is now available for pre-order and it costs a whopping $1,400 – that is not cheap, but the phone has a rare dual screen design with a hinge that allows it to fold in half. CNET got an exclusive in-depth look at the hardware, including a teardown. Let’s see where all that money goes.

The hinge is pretty standard, you can find similar designs on many laptops. The Duo is not a foldable phone and it avoids all the complexities associated with those, instead it’s built on tried and true technology.

Like the Snapdragon 855 chipset. It’s a year old now, but Microsoft added a few bespoke chips to handle some of the extra features on the device – things like Surface Pen stylus and the split battery.

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You can see the battery here. There’s a big cell on the left and a smaller one on the right. A custom chip ensures they are drained and charge at the same pace to keep things balanced. In total, the two cells have 3,577 mAh capacity.

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Of course, the unique proposition of the Surface Duo is not only the hardware but the software as well. With two 5.6″ OLED displays (4:3) side by side, set to work Microsoft on perfecting the multitasking experience.

You will be able to easily move information between in house apps like – Word, OneNote, Outlook, etc – just as easily as you do on Windows (the Duo, however is an Android device). Google is working on enabling the Duo’s flavor of side-by-side multitasking for its own apps and Microsoft will allow third party devs to use its APIs to add support to their own apps.

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The old S855 chipset means that the device only supports 4G. Microsoft thought it was more important to get the hinge and battery right – with each “half” measuring only 4.8 mm thick, fitting a battery is tricky business.

Enabling 5G is tricky too, though Microsoft is confident that it’s doable, thinner bezels should be achievable with more work as well.

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Follow the Source link for more details on how Microsoft designed the Surface Duo.

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