The Surface Duo officially headed to Europe (and the UK)

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Do I really have to add "and the UK" after the word 'Europe' from now on? I guess so... gah. Anyway, there has been official word from Microsoft about plans to bring the Surface Duo to this side of the pond in 2021. See the blog post quote below. There's no indication of any hardware upgrades, sadly, so the year old chipset will be err... two years old when this device finally hits European shores. And with the same terrible speaker and camera. Oh well. At least we might start to see these second hand in the UK by the end of next year at a sensible price.

From the post:

Since introducing Surface Duo in August 2020, people have asked when we would make this product available outside of the US. We’re pleased to share that in early 2021, we’ll be offering Surface Duo in Canada, United Kingdom, France and Germany. 

With Surface Duo, we set out to unlock new levels of mobile productivity and reduce the need to reach for a larger screen to complete quick productivity tasks. With enhanced Microsoft 365 apps, productivity can take place across two distinct screens, enabling true multi-tasking. Whether viewing your Outlook Mail and Calendar side-by-side or seeing your colleagues and the presentation simultaneously on Teams, the magic of Surface Duo is the intersection of hardware and software in the palm of your hand.

...Over these past few months, we’ve delivered app enhancements, software and Android security updates, and improvements to the Android platform at-large. Microsoft is the third-largest Android ISV in the world, and we’re proud of what we’ve been able to deliver since August. Customers have enjoyed hundreds of improvements to our first-party Android apps, benefiting anyone using Microsoft applications on Android. This ensures a healthy future for this dual-screen category and a stream of improved, delightful experiences for Surface Duo customers.

You can register interest in this, thanks to:

Sign up to be notified when Surface Duo becomes available: Canada | United Kingdom | France | Germany.

Obviously there's no mention of European pricing, but I'm guessing £1200 in the UK. Which, for the specs, will still be outrageous. 

Surface Duo

For completeness, just in case you missed the previous AAWP coverage, here are the Surface Duo specs:

  • 145 x 187 x 5mm opened, 145 x 93 x 10mm closed
  • 250g
  • Android 10 (upgradeable to 11)
  • 4G, Wifi to 'ac', Bluetooth 5
  • Nano SIM + eSIM
  • 2x 5.6" 1800x1350 4:3 AMOLED Gorilla Glass displays
  • Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6GB RAM
  • 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.0 storage (the latter possibly $1499), no microSD expansion
  • Mono speaker, no 3.5mm jack
  • 11MP camera, f/2.0, PDAF 
  • Fingerprint sensor (on the edge of the right hand phone half, see the graphic above)
  • 3,577mAh battery (total, split across each half)
  • 18W fast charging
  • Surface Pen supported but not included

I've said that I wished this still ran Windows 10 (Mobile), but the more I look at the specifications (mostly the camera, it's true), the more I think we'd all have been mightily disappointed. Oh well.

PS. Some of our previous Surface Duo coverage here:

Source / Credit: Microsoft