![]() ![]() From the notification panel, you just need to pull down, select Link to Windows, and sign in with your Microsoft Account. Thanks to this feature, you don’t need to download the Your Phone Android app to sync up the Duo to Windows. While Link to Windows is also available on select Samsung phones, Microsoft has plugged a deeper Windows and Android integration right into the Duo hardware. However, the Duo takes the functionality a bit further to deepen the connection between phone and PC. Any single-screen or dual-screen Android phone can already sync up to Windows 10 with the Your Phone app on Windows 10, for cross-platform photo, text, message, and notification sync. Next up on our list is the Link to Windows functionality. While some of the success of the Surface Duo relies on third-party developers making use of those two screens, the Surface Duo has plenty of functionality right out of the box. The focus here is on productivity and work, which is right in Microsoft’s wheelhouse. Finally, you can turn the Duo over 90 degrees, and use the Duo like a laptop, and reply to that email, too. Then, with the Outlook application, you can a list of emails on the left screen, and reply on the right. OneDrive, meanwhile, will show you a list of all your photos on the left screen, and then an individual photo on the right. Each of these apps can make use of the two screens, all within a single app.įor instance, OneNote will span across both screens, showing you a list of notebooks on the left screen, and an area to ink and write on in the left screen. The Duo comes with a lot of first-party Microsoft apps made optimized specifically for the dual-screen setup.Ī complete list of apps optimized for the Surface Duo is seen on the product listing page, but they include Office apps, the Edge browser, Teams, News, Bing, LinkedIn, and more. While Samsung and LG have since made improvements, this is an area where Microsoft has an upper hand. When the dual-screen or foldable trend first started, a lot of smartphone makers and developers struggled to optimize their apps for the new devices. You can see Panos Panay demo this in the video briefing for the Surface Duo, at around the 9 minute and 44-second mark. Finally, to span the app, just hold it across the hinge. Then, when you want to switch apps from one screen to the next, simply pull down on it, and drag it across the seam to the other screen. Open that app on one screen, and then pull up the dock on the other screen and choose your browser. If you want to open up your mail app alongside your web browser, you just pull up on the dock. Opening and dragging apps looks intuitive and is a blend of what you experience on Android, iPadOS, and other dual-screen phones. We haven’t tested it yet ourselves, but Microsoft has made things far easier - in concept. But with the Surface Duo, Microsoft is doing this through its Microsoft Launcher app, and it is what makes its two-screen multitasking unique. They didn’t feel as fun or smooth as on a true tablet like an iPad.Īll of these attempts run into the underlying limitations of Android. Thanks to a floating window that can be pulled out from the side of the phone, you can open multiple apps side by side (up to three.) However, in our review, we found that Samsung and Google could do a bit more work on optimizing the split-screen mechanics. ![]() ![]() What about foldable phones like the Samsung Galaxy Fold, or the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 2? Well, opening apps across the fold on the screen seems quite seamless. You can’t easily “drag” your apps or content across either screen without an awkward three-finger gesture. The two screens do not really flow well together. But even on other dual-screen phones, like the LG G8X ThinQ or LG Velvet, your second screen gets treated as a separate space, or, a separate phone. That isn’t physically possible on single screen phones, and split-screen multitasking often doesn’t quite cut it. Report: Microsoft to delay Surface Neo and Windows 10X devices to 2021īest tech of IFA 2019: From OLED TVs to lightning-fast laptops Microsoft Surface Duo goes into production, could ship by August 24 ![]()
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