At Redmond, they threw in the towel on Windows Phone in 2017 — the platform had been half-dead for a long time — but wanted to try again with the launch of the Surface Duo, which launched in August 2020. Dual screen, which has a unique feature. : It was managed by Android.

Product lead Panos Panay tried to convince us all that the device would boost creativity by running two different applications simultaneously. Really? Almost no one seems to want to do such a thing. At least on a mobile phone.

we see it exponentially longer. Although the biggest reference here is Samsung, there have been striking offers from Huawei, Motorola or OPPO lately. Even Google has joined this segment and seems to be encouraging it, but neither its own devices nor those from other manufacturers are often seen on the street.

They make it clear with market share data at IDC: foldable devices represent 1% of all smartphones worldwide. They are a niche product and seem hard to get out of there.

But the Surface Duo wasn’t even a “pure” foldable and resorted to a more convenient and simpler solution (dual screen) without affecting the price: at the time of launch, this device It cost 1,549 euros.

What Microsoft is doing with mobile phones is a tragedy

Succeeding with such a product seemed complicated, and this was proven by independent analyzes criticizing problematic software and mediocre cameras. What could be the route of this product?

The Surface Duo 2 tried to renew the claim, but its future also looks complicated.

It’s not very long. As revealed on Windows Central, Microsoft announced that the Surface Duo will stop receiving support soon after it turns three years old. The device was born with Android 10 and took two updates It’s down to Android 11 and Android 12L (both of which were a year behind the release of those versions), but it’s officially stuck there. Independent developers have allowed the upgrade to Android 13 on these devices, but it’s disappointing that such an expensive product remains without official support three years after its launch.

The product’s progress was difficult from the beginning, and Microsoft quickly implemented significant discounts to try to sell the product. A month after its launch, they had the first discount ($200) and then sold it at a 50% discount and finally sold it at full strength for $409, which was 70% less than its original price (almost $1,000 off).

Despite these clear signs that they cannot sell the device, They insisted on Microsoft With the Surface Duo 2 released a year after its predecessor with better cameras and displays. This model, which they direct to companies, will be supported until 2024 and seems to be the last of an epic that perhaps should never have happened.

Because? Mainly because it’s a solution looking for a problem. Foldables have at least a certain appeal and are certainly a technological genius, but the proposition of a two-screen handset has proven to do nothing better than what we’re already doing with a single screen.

This, along with exorbitant price and disappointing performance, sealed the fate of a device. What Microsoft wants to forget as quickly as possible. The Redmond company’s situation with mobile phones is a real tragedy, and although they have managed to build a ruthless ecosystem on Android and iOS, their relevance in this market is a shadow of what a company with these resources and potential should achieve. Time will tell whether and how they will try again in the future.

in Xataka | Microsoft believes it has a solution that will finally conquer our mobile phones. ‘A great application’