26 PCWorld NOVEMBER 2019NEWS HANDS-ON: MICROSOFT SURFACE DUO
- WHAT’S THE
RESOLUTION
OF THE
SURFACE DUO
DISPLAYS?
The centerpiece of the
Surface Duo is obviously
the dual display. Microsoft
revealed that the phone
uses a pair of 5.6-inch
screens. But that’s all we
know about them. Are
they 2K resolution like the
Surface Pro X (go.
pcworld.com/pr0x) or
Quad HD like the Galaxy
Note 10+ (go.pcworld.
com/glnt)? Are they OLED or PixelSense IGZO
screens? Are they 60Hz or 90Hz? Can you
watch a movie full-screen and have it span
across the hinge? Smartphone display tech has
advanced in leaps and bounds since the days
of the Windows Phone, so the Surface Duo
needs to start with a killer screen. - WHAT KIND OF
PROCESSOR WILL IT USE?
In its exclusive look at the Surface Duo, Wired
noted that the unit it saw was powered by a
Snapdragon 855 processor, the same found
in today’s premium Android phones. That’s
going to be outdated by next year, so clearly
it’s just a stop-gap. But will it simply run the
Snapdragon 865 (or whatever the latest chip
Qualcomm releases is called)? Or will it follow
the Surface Pro X and use a custom chip?
Microsoft’s custom silicon would go a long
way toward separating the Surface Duo from
the pack, so the fact that Microsoft didn’t say
either way during its reveal is intriguing.- HOW MUCH STORAGE
AND RAM IS INSIDE IT?
Today’s phones can pack half a terabyte of
storage and 12GB of RAM at the high end,
and Microsoft clearly wants the Surface Duo
to be a work-first device. A base model of
8GB RAM/128GB storage like the Surface Pro
X seems likely, but we want to know what the
maxed-out version is. We’ll take 16GB and at
least 512GB, please.
Are those screens LCD or OLED?