On September 10, 2020, Microsoft officially released Surface Duo, its first dual-screen folding phone, and announced that Surface Duo will receive three years of Android system and security updates. Three years later, the development of Surface Duo 3, which was originally scheduled to be released this year, has been canceled, and even Surface Duo 2 stopped production as early as the beginning of the year. Since then, we can almost say that Microsoft’s strategy of finding a new way to make dual-screen foldable phones has gone bankrupt.

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Microsoft Surface product purchase entrance

This isn't just a Microsoft problem. ZTE has launched the Axon M, Kyocera has launched the Kyocera Echo, and Sony has also released an Xperia Tablet P. Without exception, they have long disappeared in the history of consumer electronics.

Compared with them, Surface Duo is undoubtedly lucky. Thanks to Microsoft's brand influence and the explosive point of "Microsoft's return to the mobile phone market", although Surface Duo is a failed product, it is at least remembered by many people.

But for the same purpose of increasing the display area of ​​mobile phones, why do dual-screen folding phones and folding-screen phones have completely different trends? We may need to rethink how dual-screen foldable phones came to be.

Everyone knows that more display area is good.

The idea of ​​multi-screen display has actually taken shape in the PC era. Many people have tried to use dual-screen or even more screen monitors for a long time. Some may be programmers, and some may be stock analysts. Nowadays, more and more people are using multi-screen monitors, and ordinary office workers can enjoy the efficiency improvements brought by dual-screen monitors.


Picture/WikimediaCommons

As a part of PC, laptops also naturally think of multi-screen display. Lenovo released the dual-screen notebook ThinkPad W700ds in 2008, and Razer also launched the more experimental three-screen notebook Project Valerie in 2017.

Even in 2023, there are still a large number of manufacturers exploring multi-screen notebooks. Lenovo continued to bring a series of dual-screen notebooks at this year's CES conference, including the ThinkBook Plus Twist, which replaced the C side with a physical keyboard and another large screen.


Dual-screen notebook, photo/Lenovo

Everyone understands the benefits of multiple monitors on PCs, but more monitors also mean greater energy consumption, larger volume and weight. These characteristics may become fatal problems in portable devices. This is why multi-screen notebooks have never really entered the consumer market. They are more used as a display of manufacturers' "muscles" at various exhibitions.

Back to smartphones, Apple made a splash in 2007, using the iPhone's large screen and multi-finger touch interaction to break through a major obstacle to mobile phones embracing the Internet. Subsequently, mobile phone screens continued to get bigger and bigger, and mobile apps included more and more designs, content, and interactions, dooming the decline of small-screen mobile phones.

However, there has always been a fundamental contradiction between portability and large screens. Before mobile phones found a size and full-screen design acceptable to consumers, some manufacturers began to try dual-screen folding solutions.


Fujitsu’s dual-screen foldable phone, photo/IDG

Fujitsu demonstrated a dual-screen mobile phone in 2010, and the dual-screen clamshell design also realized 90-degree screen rotation; Sony wanted to fold the tablet into the size of a mobile phone, so it launched the Xperia Tablet P folding dual-screen tablet; ZTE launched the AxonM folding dual-screen mobile phone in 2017, allowing the mobile phone to be turned into a tablet at any time.

It's a pity that they all died in one generation and did not form a series of continuous iterations.

Let’s look back today. These dual-screen folding products have not been accepted by the consumer market due to various problems. The core lies in the fact that with almost no adaptation to the application ecosystem, dual-screen folding mobile phones are basically equivalent to two independent mobile phones. But users don’t need to use two phones at the same time, not to mention facing significant regressions in performance, reliability and weight. On the other hand, the popularity of large-screen mobile phones and full-screen designs has also wiped out some of the value brought by dual-screen folding mobile phones for a period of time.

But when the full screen has come to an end, dual-screen folding and folding screens have become two important ways to further increase the size of mobile phone screens. Microsoft chose to once again challenge the possibility of dual-screen folding mobile phones through Surface Duo. However, Microsoft ultimately failed to solve all dual-screen folding phone issues.


SurfaceDuo, photo/Microsoft

Dual-screen folding has never been successful.

Although dual-screen attempts have failed in the field of notebooks and mobile phones, if we think about it carefully, we cannot ignore the most successful dual-screen portable device in history-Nintendo DS (NDS).


NDS, photo/Nintendo

In fact, NDS was not optimistic at first. The then director of Nintendo's technical development department, Okada Tomoe, said that in the early days of NDS development, the concept was actually opposed by many internal developers. They think that if they want to add an extra screen, why not choose a larger screen? Moreover, players can only focus on one screen during the game and cannot watch two screens at the same time.

This problem actually also occurs on dual-screen folding phones, and it imposes a greater burden.

Taking the ZTE Axon M as an example, with the dual-screen folding design, a large number of components have been added to the fuselage, including screens, hinges, and a series of new and changed parts to cope with "folding", which directly increases the weight, thickness and cost of the fuselage. You know, this mobile phone equipped with two 5.2-inch screens weighs 230g. This is still in 2017 when flagship phones generally weighed less than 180g.


ZTE AxonM, photo/ZTE

More importantly, dual screens have never brought more actual value. After all, what’s the use of dual screens? Even with the 2020 Surface Duo, Microsoft has only found some answers in a few usage scenarios such as reading e-books, and is far from being able to drive consumers to try and fall in love with dual-screen folding devices.

In contrast, at least on the NDS, Nintendo has successfully changed the interaction between players and games, creating a large number of gaming experiences that cannot be achieved on a single screen. If you simply summarize, the dual-screen gameplay of NDS can be summarized into three types.

One screen displays the main game screen, and the other screen separates the map, prop bar and other menu interfaces, which solves the problem of various UI controls blocking the game screen. The other is to use the upper and lower screens as the display area of ​​the game screen at the same time to get a larger screen.

As for the last one, it is mainly about the release of imagination. For example, in the military war chess game "Advanced Warfare: Double Strike", the upper and lower screens display the air and ground fronts respectively. There is also the text adventure game "Dusk Inn", which uses the product form of NDS books to directly create the feeling of an interactive e-book.


Picture/Nintendo

But no matter which presentation method is used, these games make full use of the upper and lower screens of the NDS. This is the biggest difference between the NDS and most dual-screen mobile phones. Nintendo clearly knows that the key to the success of the NDS is how to use the innovative form and interactive methods of the NDS to create good game content.

Fundamentally, hardware is just a container that carries content. What ultimately supported the sales of 154 million NDS units was more than 5,000 dual-screen games.

It is true that there is a big difference between mobile phones and handheld consoles. Mobile phones have more core functions besides content than handheld consoles, but software is still the key to building product experience. However, dual-screen folding mobile phones have never attracted mainstream mobile phone manufacturers, let alone influential enough software manufacturers for adaptation and development.

Is folding screen another way?

Compared with dual-screen folding phones, folding screens obviously have a completely different destiny curve. Since Samsung entered the field of folding screen mobile phones, major global manufacturers such as Motorola, Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, Honor, vivo and Transsion have successively entered this track.

The more noteworthy changes come from Google. Since Android 12L announced support for folding screens, Google has been continuously promoting system-level support and follow-up in the development ecosystem. Almost all Google apps are adapting to relevant features. It is rare in the history of Android phones to quickly provide support and promotion at the system level after a new hardware form is launched.

Frankly speaking, software adaptation for foldable screens today is still a big challenge. However, with the participation of mainstream manufacturers and the promotion at the system level, folding screens obviously have greater possibilities and hopes than dual-screen folding.

But no matter what, mobile phone manufacturers’ exploration of screen forms will not end. In the final analysis, whether it is a PC extended display solution, a dual-screen folding in a mobile phone or game console, or a bright folding screen, it is essentially a confrontation between people's infinite pursuit of screen size and the physical limitations of the hardware carrier itself.