In part testing whether I can get Features to work on this site again - but also testing some of my favourite recent smartphones with a bevy of updates under their belt now. In theory, this is as good as photography will get on the Surface Duo 2, the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and the Pixel 6 Pro, so I took advantage of some nice Spring weather in the UK to see what they could do, six months after launch for the Duo and Pixel, and a whopping 18 months for the iPhone.
So yes a bit of an experiment. Writing about the laptop in your pocket ON a laptop in my pocket. In this case the Microsoft Surface Duo 2. No corrections or additions were made on any other device. It has been the dream of every mobile enthusiast for three decades to have a workable laptop, for Office, email, and so on, in a pocketable form. Think Psion, think Nokia Communicators. This is the latest attempt, in 2022!
Here, for April 2022, three months after the previous update, is the refreshed/latest news and comment on applications and services on Windows 10 Mobile - the OS itself has now had its very last security update, but it still works... if your needs are limited. This feature will summarise what's broken and what's not, along with workarounds where possible. Details and links have all been updated throughout. Note that I've kept the URL the same, so the last two years of comments are all still here.
The method of zooming in on the Duo 2 may be almost identical to on Microsoft's previous Lumia series of camera phones (albeit in the opposite direction, i.e. swipe down to zoom in, not up!), but the mechanics are different, of course. A dedicated 2x telephoto lens gives genuine optical zoom, even in video capture here, thanks to the discovery that 'HDR video' knocks the extra lens out of action! See what you think in the embedded video below.
The only downside to a manufacturer significantly improving phone camera performance is that I have to re-do one or more of my imaging features on the 'All About' sites. Luckily, I love doing them, so following the January 2022 feature update for the innovative Microsoft Surface Duo 2, I headed out with a brace of test phone cameras to compare it against. Firstly, here, against Microsoft's own older - but still a reliable benchmark - Lumia 950 XL.
Many have bemoaned the death of Continuum circa 2016, with Samsung's DeX taking up a lot of the slack, albeit in the Android world. And then we have the Microsoft Surface Duo pair of devices, ostensibly without a desktop interface but I hope to prove in the video below that the very nature of USB 3.1 (here over Type C), along with a landscape-first device like the Duo and a capable standard lapdock, means that 90% of the functionality you'd expect from a 'desktop' interface is in fact taken care of automatically.
Having to confess that I hadn't even heard of Wifi '6E' until last week, I resolved to investigate on behalf of the All About sites and report back. It turns out that Wifi 6E is both very new and yet established, both at the same time. But it's significant in the way it opens up more spectrum and bandwidth to overworked home and office Wifi networks - and that's got to be a good thing.
'Duo 2 month' continues, it seems. Having already established that the stills imaging on the Surface Duo 2 is pretty impressive, perhaps even inheriting some of the Microsoft/Nokia expertise from the Lumia range, I turn my attention here to video capture, but am disappointed at every turn. From panning to stabilisation to zoom to interface, video capture using the Duo 2's camera (note the singular) is currently profoundly disappointing. See below for results with the December 2021 firmware. Hopefully future updates can improve things significantly.
As part of my continuing 'Duo 2 season' here on the All About sites (which I think is appropriate, given the way the device spans the world of Microsoft/Windows, and Android, plus it also spans phones and tablets), I have been wondering again what imaging compromises (if any) are incurred by choosing such an odd form factor and Microsoft's first cut at 'pro' level cameras on a Surface. I did a shootout with the Lumia 950 XL months ago, but we now have updates galore, plus I wanted to pitch it against something a lot more current.
When a smartphone falls out of use in your life, there's a temptation to find a good home for it. Often a family member, often a second hand market like eBay, but sometimes - just sometimes - the phone is special enough, is unique enough, in fact is downright collectable enough, that you might like to hang onto it. Not necessarily just for pecuniary reasons, but perhaps sentimental reasons as well. As an example, I've picked out a dozen smartphones from my own collection that fit this bill. Classics one and all...
