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(Bloomberg) – Microsoft Corp. begins receiving orders for its dual-screen surface device in the United States on Wednesday, in an attempt to re-enter the cell phone market with a product that combines pill functions with those of a phone.
Surface Duo, powered by Android, has an initial price of $1399 and will be available on September 10, said Panos Panay, Microsoft’s product manager. The device will be sold in Microsoft.com, as well as through AT-T Inc. and Best Buy Co. This is the thinnest surface ever designed, with screens that extend completely to serve as a phone or as an eBook to provide more space for other applications.
The device represents Microsoft’s return to the mobile phone market after an ignominious retirement in 2016 after the company’s acquisition of the Nokia phone crashed into an expensive depreciation. It is also the first Surface device of the company to run Google’s Android operating system, which Windows Phone once sought to defeat. Why Android? Panay told reporters that this boiled down to the need for programs: Microsoft’s past efforts were largely doomed to failure due to the lack of cell phone developers.
“The product designed as Microsoft as you like and like Android you know,” Panay said. The device’s OLED presentations measure 5.6 inches separately or 8.1 inches together, and Microsoft promises a “one-day battery life.” It will have 128 GB or 256 GB of internal storage, 6 GB of memory, a Snapdragon 855 processor from Qualcomm Inc. and will work on verizon Communications Inc., AT-T and T-Mobile US Inc. wireless networks.
This U.S.-only edition will disappoint foreign courier enthusiasts of the Courier concept device that Microsoft advanced a decade ago—it’s the original inspiration for the “digital laptop” that underlies the Surface Duo and anything enthusiasts have long demanded as a genuine product.
Microsoft’s two-hinged display is less futuristic than devices like Samsung Electronics Co., with a single screen that folds in the middle. For it to work, the Duo has 56 cables that connect the two screens to the batteries and the motherboard divided between the two halves.
The device has a 360-degree hinge and can be used in portrait or landscape orientation. You can run different apps on the screen or an app can be distributed on screens for things like games or a larger view.
Users can create app teams, a set of two apps that open with a bachelor click. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella used it to mix the Kindle and OneNote app from Microsoft so you can take notes while reading. To watch the video, you can partially open the hinge and turn an aspect of the Duo into a stand.
“I’m not looking to reinvent the phone,” Panay said. “But I think it’s a better way to get things done, a better way to create and a better way to connect to a cellular device.”
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