Microsoft Corp.’s long-awaited Surface Duo phone is finally coming to market, with the phone set to go on sale Sept. 10 for $1,399 to $1,499.

The phone, which comes in 128- and 256-gigabyte versions, was unveiled in October, but at the time Microsoft was somewhat coy with the specifications of the phone. With the phone now open for pre-order, the specs are finally available.

The device offers two 5.6-inch 1800 x 1350 (4:3) OLED screens which when unfolded offer an 8.1-inch “PixelSense Fusion Display” supported by a 360-degree hinge. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 855 processor with 6 gigabytes of RAM and a 3577 mAh battery. There is one single 11-megapixel camera above the right screen that doubles as both a selfie and a rear camera. The device includes a single USB-C port, a single speaker, a fingerprint reader, Android 10 and support for a Surface pen.

Surprisingly for 2020, the device only offers 4G LTE support, with no 5G version available.

The Surface Duo will also ship with a standard range of Android apps such as Search, Assistant, Calendar, Drive, Photos, Maps, YouTube and Gmail, along with a range of Microsoft apps including Office, Teams, Authenticator, Bing Search, Intune, LinkedIn and Your Phone. The Office app has been customized for the Duo with support for specific postures and features offered on the phone.

Microsoft is also pitching the security aspects of the device. “Surface Duo has protection built-in at every layer with deeply integrated hardware, firmware, and software to keep your devices, identities, and data secure,” Frank Buchholz from the Surface team said in a blog post. “Part of what makes this happen is that we built in our custom engineered Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) which enables full control over firmware components. Microsoft delivers Enterprise-grade security to Surface Duo by writing or reviewing every line of firmware code in house, enabling Microsoft to respond directly and agilely, to potential firmware threats and to mitigate supply chain security risks.”

While certainly interesting to look at and offering something different, the price for the Surface Duo given the specs is coming in for criticism. Rom Amadeo at Ars Technica wrote that “$1,400 is a lot of money to ask for this device, especially when the spec sheet has so many deficiencies in it.” Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet wrote as well that “I believe these prices will make it a non-starter for anyone other than Microsoft Surface superfans.”

Part of the issue may be the time to market. The Snapdragon 855 processor is last-generation tech, since flagships this year are shipping with the later Snapdragon 865. Cameras have become a major selling point, with increasingly large camera arrays and related functionality. The single 11-megapixel camera on the Duo is underwhelming, particularly given the cost of the device.

Pre-orders for the Surface Duo are available through the Microsoft Store. At this stage, the device is available only in the U.S. and Microsoft isn’t saying when it may become available in other markets.

Photo: Microsoft