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battery rundown test streams a long video over Wi-Fi, while at the same time
running a process in the background that records the battery percentage
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falls back into a low-power mode in which the background process is
deprioritized and the video runs on the phone’s lowest-power core. That’s why
you see 12-hour results on some phones with our video test.
The Duo never fell back into low-power mode. It looked like it was running on
all cylinders, all the time. Therefore, I got shorter battery life than I did on the
Galaxy Z Fold in its big-screen mode (11.5 hours).
For powering back up again, the Surface Duo supports 18W charging but not
wireless charging.
DON’T BUY IT FOR THE CAMERA
The Surface Duo has the worst outward-facing camera experience of any phone
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shooter and the main camera. The idea is that if your phone is folded all the way
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an outward-facing camera. But this usually doesn’t work.
The blown-out lamps
here betray poor HDR
(also, the photos
taken with the main
camera get saved
upside-down for
some reason)