iPhone Duo: One Week Later, and the iPhone Is FUN Again!

After spending a year with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, I decided to come back to iPhone. But not just any iPhone. I was coming back to Apple's first foldable, the iPhone Duo.

And after a week of using this thing, I think I've figured out what I've been missing from the iPhone for years.

FUN.

Look, I'm not saying Apple hasn't made good iPhones. They have. The A-series chips are consistently impressive, the cameras are excellent, and the hardware and software generally work incredibly well together.

But year after year, it's been another slab. Sometimes a little thinner, sometimes a little faster, sometimes with a new button or camera feature. Nice upgrades, sure, but nothing that fundamentally changed how I interacted with my phone.

And I'm certainly not calling the Duo revolutionary. Foldables have existed for years. I've been using them!

But there's something genuinely refreshing about picking up an iPhone and having it feel completely different.

And that's where my week began.

The first thing that struck me wasn't actually the display or even the weight. It was the shape.

I've always loved the original Google Pixel Fold's passport-style form factor, and when Apple announced the Duo, that was immediately what caught my attention.

There's something about a shorter, wider phone that just feels right in your hand.

It's a little squat compared with practically every other phone on the market, but after holding it for a while, that starts to feel like an advantage rather than a compromise.

The wider outer display might make you think one-handed reachability would be a problem, but it really hasn't been for me. I can comfortably use it with one hand, reach across with my thumb, and navigate without much trouble.

And it's surprisingly comfortable to carry around. Despite being heavier than my Fold 7, the shape makes it easy to pull out of my pocket, check something, and put away.

Then came the moment that really sold me on the proportions.

I'd spent most of the day transferring apps, signing into accounts, and getting everything set up on the Duo. I hadn't touched the Samsung for hours.

Then I picked it up to check whether I'd forgotten to transfer something.

And HOLY SHIT, why was this thing suddenly so TALL?

Seriously. I'd used the Fold 7 for a year, and suddenly it felt elongated and awkward. Even my wife's phone, which had always felt fairly wide to me, now felt narrow.

Apparently, it doesn't take very long for your hands to develop a completely different opinion about what a phone should feel like. lol

And honestly, if I could change anything about the Duo's dimensions, I'd maybe make it an inch taller. But I wouldn't touch the width. I think Apple nailed that.

Even the camera bump has become part of how I hold it. My index finger naturally rests against it, giving me a little extra stability. No idea whether Apple intended that, but it works.

And then there's the keyboard.

Good God, I love typing on this thing.

The outer display is wide enough that the keyboard actually feels comfortable. My thumbs aren't constantly smashing into each other, I'm making fewer mistakes, and I'm typing faster.

On my Fold 7, the narrow outer display frustrated me so much that I gradually started using speech-to-text more and more. Not because I particularly wanted to, but because it was easier than correcting everything I typed.

The Duo has completely reversed that for me.

It's one of those everyday improvements that matters more than a specification sheet could ever explain.

And that's before we even get to opening the thing.

The Duo REALLY wants to be an iPad.

With the Fold 7, I rarely opened the internal display. I know that sounds strange when you're talking about a foldable phone, but the outer display was where I spent most of my time. Opening it often felt like an extra step.

The Duo is completely different.

I constantly find myself wanting to unfold it, even when I don't particularly need to.

Because, dear God, Apple absolutely COOKED with this screen.

The first thing you notice when you open it is how little the crease interrupts the image.

Now, the crease is there. You can't break physics. Fold a piece of paper, there's a crease. Fold a hot dog and... well, you've probably just broken your lunch, but you get the point. lol

It's not that the crease is physically gone. It's that the matte-like finish, illumination, and overall appearance of the display make it practically disappear during normal use.

It looks like one continuous surface.

And the texture is something else entirely.

There's this almost paper-like quality to the screen, yet when you run your finger across it, it's incredibly smooth. Scrolling, swiping, and interacting with the display feel fantastic.

It genuinely feels like you've opened a little iPad rather than unfolded a phone.

I've used some excellent displays over the years, and this is easily one of the most enjoyable I've experienced in a long time.

Now, that doesn't mean I've suddenly become someone who loves typing on tablets.

I've never been a big fan of that, and the Duo hasn't magically changed my mind.

When I'm using the inner display, I generally prefer holding it in portrait orientation. Typing is pretty decent that way, and it feels more natural when I'm doing actual work.

Landscape? Absolutely not. lol

That's for watching something, reading, or consuming content.

What I do appreciate is having two apps open side by side. Reading documentation while using a terminal, working between notes and another app, or copying information from one place to another.

That's where foldables make sense to me.

I know people want increasingly elaborate multitasking systems, but personally, if I need three or four different windows open simultaneously, I'm probably reaching for my laptop anyway.

Two apps on a phone is plenty for most of what I do.

And that really sums up a lot of my experience with the Duo so far. It's not about replacing every device I own. It's about making the things I already do on my phone more enjoyable.

Touch ID is another good example.

I know some reviewers haven't been particularly enthusiastic about Apple's decision to use it, but I actually really like it.

I registered multiple fingers depending on how I'm holding the device, and it's been reliable for me. If anything, I've had more accidental activations than failures.

But where Touch ID really shines is Apple Pay.

Instead of authenticating with my face and then moving the phone toward the terminal, I can just put my thumb on the fingerprint reader and tap.

That's it.

For me, it's a much more natural experience.

And given how often I use Apple Pay, that's a pretty significant quality-of-life improvement.

Of course, none of this means I spent the entire week walking around thinking Apple had created the perfect phone.

I've been deliberately looking for problems with the hardware, partly because I wanted to make sure my enthusiasm wasn't getting in the way of judging the thing fairly.

And I did find a couple of things that bother me.

The first is the placement of the volume buttons.

When the phone is folded, they're in an awkward spot. Reaching up to adjust the volume with one hand isn't particularly comfortable, and I've accidentally pressed the power button while trying to reach them.

The funny part is that when you unfold the phone, the buttons are in a great position.

So the placement works beautifully in one orientation and not particularly well in the other.

My second complaint?

This thing is SLIPPERY.

And I mean REALLY slippery.

The Duo is gorgeous. It genuinely looks like a piece of jewelry, and the construction feels incredibly premium. There's a substantial quality to it that makes the Fold 7 feel almost toy-like by comparison.

But that beautiful finish doesn't give you a whole lot of grip.

My advice to anybody getting one is to pick up a nice thin back case and a good edge-to-edge protector for the outer screen.

I personally wouldn't bother with one of those bulky front frame cases.

And if you want a little more stability when holding it unfolded, an OhSnap or PopSocket can help enormously.

Those are the two hardware complaints that have consistently stood out to me.

I'm not saying the hardware is perfect or that other people won't find problems with it. But after a week of actively looking for things that bother me, those are the issues I keep coming back to.

The rest of the hardware has been pretty damn impressive.

Battery life, for example, has been fantastic for my usage.

I've gotten into the habit of charging the Duo in the morning before leaving for work, and it's been comfortably getting me through the day.

There's something nice about knowing I don't necessarily need to leave my phone plugged in overnight or worry about finding a charger later.

And the cameras?

They're excellent.

The rear cameras deliver everything I need from a smartphone. Apple's been making great cameras for a long time, and I'm perfectly happy with what they've put in the Duo.

I don't need every professional camera feature imaginable squeezed into my phone. If I need specialized lenses or more control over aperture, I have dedicated camera equipment for that.

The outer front-facing camera is perfectly fine, and I really only use the inner camera for video calls.

Could the cameras be better? Of course.

But I haven't found myself wishing they did something they currently can't do for my needs.

Which brings me to the one area where I think Apple has the most work to do.

Software.

I've been deliberately separating my impressions of the hardware from the software because I wanted to understand how I felt about the device itself.

But software absolutely matters, especially when you're paying this much for a phone.

There are bugs, there are little quirks, and some apps still aren't particularly well adapted to the Duo's unusual display dimensions.

I've already seen developers working on updates, and I'm optimistic Apple will continue refining the experience as well.

Apple has a pretty strong history of making meaningful software improvements, and I expect we'll see plenty of that here.

But there's an important distinction between what software could become and what it actually is today.

A problem being fixable doesn't mean it isn't a problem.

And I don't think anyone should buy a $2,000 phone based entirely on the assumption that every issue will eventually disappear.

One part of the software experience that took me a little getting used to was actually the shorter outer display.

Coming from taller phones, you notice pretty quickly that there's less vertical real estate. You can't see as much content at once, and depending on the app, things can feel a little cramped.

But after a few days, I started appreciating how focused everything felt.

There's less surrounding information competing for my attention. I'm looking at what's directly in front of me rather than everything else happening on the screen.

It's a different way of using a phone, and I've grown to like it.

I'd still love additional display scaling options, especially the ability to fit more information on screen when I want to.

Giving people that flexibility would go a long way toward making the form factor work for different preferences.

But for me, the shorter display has become a feature I appreciate rather than something I'm constantly working around.

And there's one last thing I think is important to acknowledge before wrapping this up.

I'm really happy to be back on iOS.

I spent the last year using Samsung's One UI and Android, and coming back to Apple's ecosystem has reminded me how much I enjoy the overall experience.

The speed, the smoothness, the way the hardware and software work together. For my preferences, there's something about iOS that feels particularly cohesive.

That's not to say iOS is perfect. Good God, it has its own quirks.

But I think it's important to separate my enthusiasm for being back on iOS from my enthusiasm for the Duo itself.

Because they're not necessarily the same thing.

Some of what I've enjoyed this week is simply returning to an operating system I prefer.

And I've been conscious of that while putting this review together.

But a lot of what I've enjoyed really is the Duo.

The passport design, the way it feels in my hands, the typing experience, that incredible internal display, the battery life, and the fact that I genuinely WANT to unfold this thing.

Those aren't things that returning to iOS alone can explain.

And that's really where I've landed after a week.

I don't think the iPhone Duo is for everybody.

It's an expensive phone, it's heavier than some alternatives, and not everybody needs a foldable.

There are legitimate software issues, and there are a couple of hardware decisions I would change.

But what's made this week so enjoyable isn't simply that the Duo is a good phone.

It's that the Duo has changed how I want to use my phone.

I'm finding excuses to unfold it. I'm enjoying typing on the outer display. Phones that felt perfectly normal a week ago now feel strangely proportioned.

And for perhaps the first time in years, I'm not just picking up my iPhone because I need to do something.

Sometimes I'm picking it up because I actually WANT to use it.

That might sound like a small distinction, but I think it's an important one.

Apple didn't invent foldables. The Duo isn't some revolutionary leap in smartphone technology, and it certainly isn't perfect.

But after years of predictable upgrades and familiar slabs, they've made an iPhone that genuinely feels different to use.

And damn, it's FUN to have an iPhone again. lol