Will Microsoft’s Surface Duo be here three months earlier than expected? The latest leak suggests so, which means Redmond’s Android-powered duel screen hardware could be in a head to head with Samsung’s second iteration of the Galaxy Fold.
Microsoft's Chief Product Officer Panos Panay holds a Surface Duo at an event, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019Details on the accelerated release schedule have been reported by the team at Windows Latest:
"Microsoft hasn’t told us much about the specs and release date of the Surface Duo, but according to internal sources, the tech giant is now planning to launch its first dual-screen Android phone before Samsung Galaxy Fold 2. This is the current target.
"Microsoft is wrapping up development of the Surface Duo and is getting ready to launch its dual-screen Surface Duo before Samsung’s Galaxy Fold 2, which is expected to be announced in the first week of August.”
There are two big and obvious caveats to this, but let’s assume Taniyama-Shimura and take the launch dates of the Galaxy Fold 2 and the Surface Duo as read.
Samsung has been working it ‘Second Half’ launch event earlier and earlier over the years. Previously it was a week or so ahead of Apple’s iPhone launch, then there was clear space, and now there could be five weeks between the two events. That gives Samsung a clear run at the digital ink written in the smartphone space. The release of the device will likely be two to three weeks after the event, which which will keep all of Fold 2 sales (along with the premium Galaxy Note 20) in the reporting for the fourth calendar quarter.
Into this comes Microsoft’s Surface Duo, its Android-powered folding device. While Microsoft is not pitching this as a smartphone, the media are going to see ‘folding’, ‘Android’, ‘phone’, and ‘big names competing with each other’ and the story angles are obvious.
When the Surface Duo was introduced in October 2019, the release date was not locked in, instead we had ‘The Holidays 2020’, heavily suggesting the fourth quarter of the year. That long gap between reveal and release has allowed Microsoft to do much of the development in public, and the occasional leaked images of the device - notably on the desk of Microsoft’s Senior Director Frank Shaw while he tweeted he was working from home - have helped build up the excitement in the public.
Changes could also be made to the SDK to allow for a folding device, along with commits to open source projects to support devices like the Surface Duo.
It’s worth noting that the Surface Duo is not yet a mainstream device in the way that the Galaxy Fold 2 is. Perhaps it should to be treated in the same way - the Surface’s bread and butter come from the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop machines - with a bit of high end from the Surface Book family.
But we all know that’s not going to be the case. The Surface Duo is going under the metaphorical microscope. And if Microsoft’s Surface team has the confidence to launch it earlier than expected, we have a classic case of under-promising and over-delivering.
Assuming it delivers… Given the issues Samsung faced when it launched the first Galaxy Fold, that’s one comparison Microsoft will not want to be made.
source
