A Tiny Review of the Microsoft Surface Duo
The Good: Gesture and orientation sensing system. Wildly productive. Looks/feels executive.
The Bad: Still some early bugs. Expensive.
The magic of this phone comes from how it senses its orientation. There are several key modes. In "phone mode" you have the two screens folded back against each other. The right screen goes up to your ear and the other one turns off automatically. To multitask in phone mode, just open it up into "book mode."
Two screens side-by-side or "book mode" lets you run two apps next to each other (web browsing and watching a video, writing an email while you look something up). When you turn the phone the tall direction, the two screens flow together into one long screen for reading documents. It's great for web pages.
When you need to type on that long, wide screen, fold the right screen flat down onto your desk for "notebook mode" and a full screen keyboard appears on the bottom with your document on the other screen.
To watch a movie, just fold into "tent mode" and place on a surface (sorry, couldn't resist). It detects this mode and makes your video full screen on the screen that's facing you.
To take pictures, turn the camera toward you and your selfie shows on the screen. To take outside-facing pictures, just turn the (folded) phone around. The camera will face outside and the other screen facing you shows the image.
All in all, its remarkable how much the phone can detect with just these orientation changes. There are a few bugs in exactly that area and sometimes the gestures that let you move apps between screens can be touchy, but in total I think its great and well worth the money if you work any of these ways.