The Microsoft Surface Duo is expected to launch this month, and could deliver some of the best battery life we've seen yet from a foldable when it arrives.
Despite it being slated to have a 3,460 mAh battery and a Snapdragon 855 chip from 2019, Windows Central has been told that Microsoft’s tablet-meets-phone will have enough electrical endurance to get it through a day’s worth of use.
- The best big phones with screens 6 inches or bigger
- Xbox Game Pass coming to Android phones Sept. 15
- Breaking: Samsung's entire Unpacked device lineup just leaked
That tip doesn't give us an exact indication of how long the Surface Duo will last. But when you consider that the Surface Duo will be using a smaller battery size than the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s 5,000 mAh pack, yet has two displays to run and an older chipset, a day’s worth of battery power is noteworthy.
Furthermore, the Galaxy Fold only managed 10 hours and one minute in our in-house battery test with its 4,380 mAh battery. So the Surface Duo could outlast it, which is also interesting considering that the Duo looks to have more total screen real estate at 11.2 inches compared to the 7.3-inch main display of the Fold.
The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is expected to have a 4,365 mAh battery and a 7.7-inch interior display, as well as a 120Hz refresh rate. We don’t expect it to beat the Surface Duo on battery endurance based on these specs, but we'll have to see how the two handsets hold up in the real world.
That’s all going by the rumored specification of the Surface Duo. There’s a good chance that since its announcement in October 2019, Microsoft may have done a lot more on the internal hardware front to make the device more efficient. And there could even be an outside chance that the Surface Duo could use a more recent Snapdragon chip like the Snapdragon 865.
Some of the Surface Duo’s battery life could come from its lack of a high refresh-rate display, with its pair of screens sitting at 60Hz. And no 5G connectivity will mean the foldable gadget will use less power when connecting to cellular broadband, but then won’t have the fastest connection available.
Nevertheless, for a device that’ll use a heavily modified version of Android in order to provide a Windows 10-like experience, all-day battery life will be a boon for people who plan to use the Duo as a productivity machine. With support for Office apps and a modified version of the Surface Pen, the Surface Duo is looking like it’ll be a strong partner device for the likes of the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 when they arrive, likely sometime in October.
Other rumored specs for the Surface Duo include 6GB of RAM, storage that comes in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB variations, and a single USB-C port and nanoSIM slot, and an 11MP camera.
With both the Surface Duo and the Galaxy Z Fold 2 both tipped to launch this month, we could be in for a big showdown between two of the most promising foldable phones yet.
