Try out the iPhone Duo, Apple's first and most "weird" folding phone

As a technology lover and longtime Apple fan, I couldn't bear to miss out on the fun of experiencing a product that is considered Apple's most unique and newest product in recent years (except for the Vision). Receiving the device early with the @NamAir mod (thanks Vender.vn) and experiencing it early still brings me many emotions like the first days of being addicted to technology, but the more I use it, the more "weird" problems I see on this iPhone. No matter how much you feel, share it with everyone to make it happy. Compliment first:

As always, Duo is an extremely high-end finished device from Apple, everything is carefully cared for from the glossy titanium frame, front and back glass, sturdy buttons to speaker holes, mic holes, flash... all beautiful and neat. Just holding it in your hand, you will immediately feel the solidity and high-end quality of the device. In exchange, the weight is quite heavy and the body is a bit "truncated" compared to regular bar phones.

When folded, the device is quite thick but when opened it is very thin, thinner than the iPhone Air I am using. I guess this is the physical limit of Duo in the next few years, it will be difficult to get any thinner.

The titanium frame is coated with glossy paint for a grip similar to steel but is lighter than steel. Although lighter, the overall device is still very heavy, heavier than the 18 Pro Max. Holding a short but heavy object will feel different from holding a traditional bar phone of the same weight.

The power button (cum TouchID) and Camera button are located on the right side of the Duo. Many people criticize the fingerprint sensor, especially when compared to FaceID. But it's okay for me, I find TouchID on Duo works very well, unlocking is still very fast and accurate. The delay is used to avoid unintentional unlocking during normal handling of the device and this delay can be turned off in the settings.

Then comes the Camera button, the most useless and clumsy thing Apple has ever produced. I once wrote a whole article criticizing this culin button. I don't know if Apple has statistics on how users use it, but when I asked, no one used it. And the most important thing is that the location of the Camera button on the Duo is right where your hand is every time you open and close the device. 90% of the time when I open the Duo, I press this culin button and it calls up the camera, probably to disable it, stupid.

The volume button is placed on the top of the device, a very "weird" position that has never been seen on an iPhone but will be familiar to iPad users. There is a funny thing when you use Duo that while using it in tablet form, sometimes you will lose your way to determine where the volume up and down buttons are or where the power button is.

Duo has 2 cameras, 1 standard 48M cam and 1 wide-angle cam. I am someone who used the iPhone Pro line for many years and then used the iPhone Air with only 1 cam and still felt comfortable, so for me this Duo cam is more than enough, the quality is relatively good for everyday shooting needs.

However, you can see that the screen ratio has changed, so the layout and interface distribution are completely different. What I don't understand is that Apple has left a line on the right side to contain commonly used icons and display connection statuses, but still leaves very large spaces above and below, which is quite "weird".

Not only the icon layout, the software also feels "weird". Previously, Facebook's navigation buttons would disappear when scrolling the page, making the interface cleaner and the user more focused, but now they always display a line there, quite annoying.

Many people say that the apps have not been updated promptly, but this is the owner's Safari, still there with the navigation buttons. Personally, I think it would be very difficult to optimize or do something for the entire side display strip like this. I still remember the day Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, he opened the topic by criticizing other phone companies for having fixed navigation buttons and keyboards that couldn't be hidden when not in use, but the iPhone back then was fine. Now his descendants are doing the opposite, bringing a fixed line back to the iPhone...

Then comes the main character, the clear screen. Personally, I think this screen is beautiful. Although the anti-glare coating has reduced the clarity and contrast of the screen, it is still a beautiful screen and I have no complaints about the display quality.

Choosing to use anti-glare coating in exchange for reducing dents and increasing screen durability for use with Pencil is a choice that not everyone wants but is not necessarily bad for me.

In addition to anti-glare, the roughness helps the screen stay cleaner than a glossy screen, using it all day only sees a few insignificant blurry streaks. This is important for me because my hands are a bit sweaty and I like cleanliness so it will take a lot of effort to clean the screen if it is a glossy screen.

One thing about Duo you have to keep in mind is that when you open it, it does not become an iPad mini, but it is also no longer the iPhone you often use. It becomes an iPhone displayed horizontally but for right-handed people... Most software and interfaces will have navigation buttons on the right side and we cannot customize this, it is very "weird".

Ignoring the right shift, when we open it we have a bigger screen so doing everything is more fun, viewing pictures is better, watching movies is more fun, surfing the web is more fun.

In particular, my main job is to read and process a large amount of A4-sized documents every day. Reading on Duo's large screen right after receiving mail is a great thing for me, and my eyes are getting old.

Let's talk a little about the Duo's folding and opening and closing mechanism. Even though we are receiving many suspicions that there is an error that makes the screen easily crack from the inside, mine has not been and I personally rate the Duo's folding mechanism as very good, everything is just enough, opening force, holding force, suction force, everything is perfectly calibrated.

The part that gets a lot of compliments on the Duo's folding screen is flat, not convex like other folding phones.

Looking at this from a close angle, it looks a bit creepy. With a hole this size, can dust and hair get in?

The only minus point on the screen is the camera cluster hidden under this screen. 1 is that the resolution is low, 2 is that this hole area is not blurred so you can see it immediately. But in general it's just aesthetics, no stress.

To summarize, after a while of using Duo, although I still have a lot of excitement, I really miss my iPhone Air, it's so simple, gentle and effective to use, and the price is so cheap. However, I decided to keep Duo and use it more until the apps are optimized, anything new takes time. Hope my baby's hinge is okay...