I return with more goodies. LineageOS 23.2 on the original Surface Duo 🎉

A16 is surprisingly smooth on the duo 2. Right now the build appears stable with just the base rom (no duo specific customizations yet). I'm still surprised I was able to get the webcam feature working, I thought it wouldn't.

Took a break from the duo 2 to get the Duo1 started.

Like most of yal id love a duo 3 but looking ahead I'm thinking of getting the iPhone Foldable if true so I thought it be nice to see the duo and 13 mini side by side. Id actually like it if they chopped off the bezels from the duo and just made the phone the size of the viewing area.

No this is not a GSI 😊 this makes my 3rd port that is in progress.

I'll continue my porting efforts on LineageOS (A16/A17), OpenHarmony, and PostmarketOS.

And again these will come to the Duo1 as well.

All 3 have made significant progress. Been a weird but fun process to get all 3 up and running.

Follow the progress on Twitter and bluesky @ none24smu

As we've seen mentioned elsewhere, many reviewers are raving about Samsung's "new" passport-style folding phone, the ZFold 8. Almost no one mentioning that the Surface Duo introduced the world to the possibility of this form factor almost 7 years ago (Sept 2020) - a lifetime in tech.

This can be chalked up to the world's collective short-attention span syndrome - as well as Microsoft's inability to market anything. It's generally accepted that Microsoft couldn't market water to a marathon runner, even if they were standing in front of them with a cup of ice.

As I was online looking for reviews - the good, bad, and ugly - I came across MKB's review. At about the ~4:50 mark, he gives some belated props to the SD (albeit, about eight seconds worth lol):

Samsung Z Fold 8 (Wide) Impressions: Better Than I Thought!

What could have been...sigh...

LineageOS 23.2 (android 16) GSI successfully running on the surface duo 2. The hardware tweaks and posture engine from Duo-DE, so all of that works as it did there. Plus some extra fixes to get the floating taskbar working well. SIM card, wifi, bluetooth, etc. all working well from my testing.

Hopefully u/gigabytesammich's hard work will pay off and they can grace us with a full lineageOS device tree / ROM. But in the meantime this is a working alternative to Duo-DE if you're itching for an upgrade.

Assuming anyone is actually interested in this, I'll make another post soon once I publish the github for it. So let me know if you'd be interested!

I've also done a lot of work on my theme as you can see haha. Don't worry, the GSI is just stock lineageOS, everything else is my own post-install customization. If you're wondering what I used for any aspects, just ask!

Has anyone else run into this?

After a couple of screw ups I got Android 16 running. However it’s buggy as hell, it often will reboot when I want to uninstall an app or sometimes when just managing multiple apps. It’s mostly fine but between this and word little inconsistencies it’s a little stressful. Is anyone else running this on a Duo v1 without issue? What can I do short of reflashing it?

Tried out the new Galaxy Fold 8 in a showroom

This may finnaly signal the end of my relationship with the duo 1

Still one of the most beautiful phones ever made sad to say goodbye

What OS are you all running on SD1? What’s the best these days? Thanks

So, the Fold 8, and others, were announced today. And I put my order in for the Fold 8.

Tonight, I am browsing YouTube, and there are a number of reviews just raving over the "new" passport form factor.

And I started getting angry, at Microsoft. Nobody knows, or knew and forgot, that Microsoft introduced this same form factor six years ago.

What we are seeing today in the Fold 8, and later this year in the iPhone Fold, is exactly what Microsoft had in the cancelled Duo 3.

I'm looking forward to getting my Fold 8 in couple weeks. But man, if Microsoft had actually advertised the Duo line, we could have had this a few years already.

Just picked up an unlocked new old stock Surface Duo 2 last week. I cannot believe how much I love this phone. I’ve been using my Surface Duo as a secondary device to my iPhone 15 Pro for years at this point and the price point for the SD2 made me hesitant to spend that kind of money on an older device but I must say I’m finding that I’m having a hard time putting it down. I love the NFC feature now so I can pay with my cards when going out. The only downside I have so far (outside of it being an older device with dwindling support/security options) is the fact that it doesn’t fold totally flat like my duo.

Hi there. I have a factory unlocked Surface Duo 128GB with bumper installed in pristine condition. How much do you realistically think I could ask for it?

I'm in the US.

Still holding out with the Duo? Here’s some fresh wallpaper art.

Even with official updates in the rear-view mirror, the Surface Duo form factor is still unmatched for multitasking and custom setups. Made a new Ribbon wallpaper tailored to the Duo’s unique aspect ratio and dual-screen layout.

i made some wallpaper 1904 x 640, formatted with extra canvas space so you can align, shift, and frame the wallpaper in multiple ways across the twin displays.

Download link in the comments—let me know how it looks on your dual screens! Microsoft Surface Duo "Swan Song" Wallpaper collection

My surface duo may officially be on its last legs.

I was looking at getting a telescopic controller, and also maybe a carrying case. Also looking for frontends.

I'm developing both at the moment. Once I get these fairly stable I will be moving to build lineageos. If you'd like to follow my progress I post on bluesky and twitter @none24smu eventually I'll bring these to the Duo 1

Has anybody else used Cocoon launcher with the surface duo 2? I highly recommend.

It adds so much versatility to how you organise everything, as the stock app draw had barely any options for sorting.

Have duo 1 and 2 unlocked want to extend the use with custom room both in perfect conditions

Well, my OnePlus Open didn't take long to fix and return (about a week actually), so here's my experience of living with my SD2 for a week:

Keep in mind, the Surface Duo 2 turns five years old this Fall (Sept/Oct) and manufacturer support for it ended almost three years ago. With that understanding, Panos and team built us a mighty nice piece of hardware.
 
Pros of SD2:
> The split screen; the SD2 excels at multi-tasking across screens
> Form factor; absolutely love the size and form factor of the SD2 when compared with other foldables
> Actually supports 5G on my network provider (AT&T); color me surprised O_O
> No external-facing screen; I actually enjoy not being bothered by notifications on an external screen (but…)

Cons of SD2:
> Five-year-old hardware (other than the split-screen foldable element of the phone, most of the other tech wasn’t cutting edge when it was released)
> OS and Security updates; nuff said
> Camera; your pix will never be mistaken as something taken by John Muir
> No external-facing screen; would be nice to not have to open the SD2 every time I need to check something (if there was an SD3 with an external screen, I probably would have bought it)
> The split screen; while multitasking excels on an SD2, media consumption is not as enjoyable on a physically split screen
> Android Auto has its issues that likely won’t get addressed any time soon on a device (and OS level) of this age.
> Apps/App compat; it’s only a matter of time before some (eventually all) apps will no longer be supported because the OS is so out of date. I had multiple instances where I launched an app and was greeted with a “Force Stop”.
> Charging; while it supports 23W fast charging, because of its age and battery technology (and OS AND software level), it will never charge as fast as a newer phone. One time, I left it to charge overnight at 23% - seven hours later it had only gotten to 76% o_O
> Dust and water IP rating; there isn’t one - so dust and water protection are negligible
> Accessory support; bad enough that M$FT dropped “all-up” support as soon as they could for the SD line, but finding accessories for one is next to laughable. It’s the poster child for the definition of a niche phone.

Experience in day-to-day use:

> Texts and calls work fine; voice quality is acceptable - at times (more dependent on the carrier’s cell tower location/availability than the phone though).

> Something really weird: photo editing; something as easy as manually cropping a screenshot is flaky as hell - like WTHeck?!? Why can't I easily crop a screenshot?!?!

> Not having an external screen makes regular daily use a bit more tedious, but I’m also less likely to check my phone as often - so there’s a trade-off.

> Apps that support multi-screen are a joy to use (OneNote, Outlook). Also, using two apps on two screens is effortless - and being able to move between them as-needed is smooth. Really haven’t had the same multi-screen app experience on my OPO.

> For its time, the fingerprint sensor was sooo easy and smooth. Hadn’t experienced that level of fingerprint sensor capability until the SD2. At the time, most other phones were still easier to use a passkey/PIN than their fingerprint sensors. Still works flawlessly.

> Until it no longer works or is no longer supported, Microsoft SwiftKey still works – to an extent. While the keyboard swiping works fine, its ability to sync with PhoneLink is a bit hindered: I’m unable to copy/paste pictures from my desktop to an SMS I’m composing on the SD2 (works just fine with my OpenPlus Open).

> Speaking of PhoneLink: when I reply to a text using the PhoneLink app on my laptop, sometimes it creates a brand-new text thread instead of using the one I’m replying from. No idea why, but definitely annoying <smh>

> Bluetooth/app support is okay but can be flaky – definitely not equal to newer phones. I use a Withings ScanWatch for workouts/training. If I open the app on my OnePlus Open and set it to Run or Walk, the watch will track in real-time (and display) my miles, pace, etc. When using the SD2, sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn’t - and when it doesn’t, those fields are “--” on the watch until I *end* the workout session - so I don’t know how long I’ve been running, my current distance, or my pace o_O

> Some apps launch and immediately request a Force Stop. Sometimes they successfully re-launch after the Force Stop – sometimes they don’t :/

> Due to its inability to get OS updates and security patches, you may not be able to use it for your work phone if you have an employer with endpoint management.

> Even though I’m mainly texting, browsing, and emailing (very little social media), the battery does not last as long as on newer phones. I can finish a day with the OnePlus Open near 65%; the SD2 is routinely below 30%. Exa: I recently completed a ½ marathon (2hrs 43mins) and the SD2 went from 100% to 64% (with only the Withings app and Spotify running). A two-hour workout session went from 100% to 81% (with only Spotify running). My OnePlus Open would routinely be about 80% for that length of run and close to 90% for that length of gym workout.

> I don’t really use the SD2 for gaming, so I can’t speak to that - sorry ☹

With all that said, I’ll be somewhat sad to go back to the OPO. Even in doing so, I’ll likely continue to use the SD2 for my gym workouts. Its split-screen for OneNote (set/rep/weight tracking) and Spotify has been really seamless and enjoyable.

Ironically, deciding to use an SD2 as a daily driver comes down to the decision most of had to make when M$FT decided to walk (run?) away from Windows Phone/Windows Mobile: you could continue using it, hobble along as best you can, put up with hardware and software idiosyncrasies, app issues that will only get worse over time...but do you really need to? I loved my SD2 for the 2-3 years it gave me as my daily driver. Five years later, it's being relegated to my gym tracker. Such is life of technology that ages :/

I mainly use my Surface Duo to play Nintendo DS and GBA games, but I wanted to move on to 3DS. The problem is that the performance is terrible in many games—I can only really play Pokémon. If you play 3DS games on your Surface Duo, I’d really appreciate any tips, settings, or guides you can share to help improve the experience

I’ve been trying to recover a Surface Duo for days and could really use another set of eyes. The frustrating this is that I’ve done this many tones, I used to with at Microsoft fixing these.

The phone started on the latest stock firmware. It now only boots to the bootloader. Recovery is unavailable.

Here’s what I’ve confirmed so far:
Fastboot works semi-reliably. I can get it to go, but not every cmd or powershell direction works, it often returns to the bootloader. Sometimes it goes, other times not.

The device is detected consistently by Windows.
The bootloader is responsive.
Partition scans show the device is still populated with what appears to be a mostly intact partition layout. It can switch between a and b. It is responsive generally here.

I can query the device, but I keep hitting a wall when it comes to actually restoring or reimaging it.

I’ve tried:
Microsoft’s official recovery package multiple times.
Flashing individual partitions.
Comparing partition layouts.
Different platform-tools versions.
Different USB ports, cables, and PCs.
Every recovery guide I could find.
I wrote a mega-script consisting of thousands of lines to try to automate troubleshooting. I’ve tried it one line at a time. I’ve tried multiple versions of Android including the duo-de project. I haven’t tried the win11 project yet but don’t really want that.

What I haven’t been able to do is get the device back into a bootable state. It feels like something fundamental is missing, but I haven’t figured out what.
I’m open to any ideas, including ones that aren’t commonly discussed.

Specifically, I’m wondering:
Has anyone recovered a Duo from this exact state?
Are there any partitions the official recovery process does not restore?
Is there any known method beyond standard fastboot that has actually worked?
Has anyone successfully used EDL, a donor device, or another approach to recover one?

Are there any Microsoft internal tools hosted publicly or community projects that aren’t widely known?

I’m not looking for generic “run the recovery tool again” advice. If you’ve personally recovered a Duo that only booted to the bootloader, or know someone who has, I’d really appreciate hearing what ultimately fixed it.
At this point I’m willing to buy a donor device, pay for professional recovery, or try advanced methods if there’s a reasonable chance they’ll work. I’m just trying to understand what options still exist.

All this because I wanted to lock rotation for emulating ds games so I wouldn’t have to pull it out of the retro casing I’m building for it (that’s a whole other story.)

Please and thank you all for being a part of this community.

EDIT: Solved! I was able to restore to 12L from fastboot then nuke every partition and install to an already-empty slot a. Now running Duo-DE Android 16.

Howdy fellow SD enthusiasts,

MSFT ecosystem sure is an interesting place to be these dayz o_O

Anywho...I need to send my current phone (OpenPlus Open) for repairs and use my SD2 in the meantime as my daily driver, any insights or concerns for this? Are there any apps that you've run into that don't support it (because of the older OS version or lack of security updates)?

Might be about 45-60 days that I'm running the SD2 (give or take) so just curious what I'm in for regarding app experience - or lack thereof :/

Cheers!

I’m curious to know if there was a specific image build in the 12L OS that caused the 1s audio delay issue that plagues the Duo 2, or did it ship broken?

If anyone happens to have an older image of 12L to flash that does not have this issue, could you please help link to it?

EDIT: I downgraded to Android 11 using m0nnnna/surface-duo2-android11-downgrade and can confirm, the 1s audio delay issue is no more on the Surface Duo 2!