While smartphones with foldable screens are nothing new, it’s nonetheless pretty exciting to see Apple finally unveil their take on it. We have to admit, the Apple iPhone Duo’s foldable screen implementation does seem very interesting.
You see, Apple didn’t just put one large foldable screen like the ones we’ve seen from other brands. Instead, the phone is fitted with both a large foldable inner display and a smaller outer display, so three-fourths of the phone’s entire surface is literally covered in screens.
The Apple iPhone Duo comes with a smaller outer screen that, basically, makes it look an oddly-shaped smartphone. This allows you to easily use the device without having to unfold the whole thing, which is great for quickly checking messages and alerts, among other things. The outer screen is a 5.4-inch Super Retina XDR display with a Ceramic Shield 2 cover for reducing glare and providing reinforced scratch resistance. This is important since you will be touching the outer screen a lot when you unfold the phone and use the larger inner display. The inner screen, on the other hand, is a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR panel, so it’s practically a small tablet. Both displays come with 3,000 nits of peak brightness, making this plenty legible even when used outdoors in direct sunlight.
The inner and outer display get a FaceTime camera each, with the outer one situated on the upper right corner and the inner one near the bottom. According to Apple, the inner FaceTime camera is nearly indiscernible, which is intentional because they wanted to maximize the large continuous display. The two sides of the inner screen, by the way, are connected by a custom hinge that’s been engineered with more 100 components, enabling precise control when opening and closing, all while being durable enough to support the large display, no matter how the hinge is opened. And yes, the hinged designed allows you to set it down on a flat surface at various angles without the need for a stand or a tripod.
The Apple iPhone Duo comes with a Dual Fusion Camera system on the rear, comprised of 48-megapixel main and ultrawide sensors, with the main module also getting 12MP 2X optical telephoto capabilities. It can shoot 4K video at 120 fps, as well as timelapse video in 4K with Dolby Vision HDR. Naturally, it comes loaded Duo-specific camera tools that takes advantage of all the cameras and screens installed on this thing, such as using the outer display to let subjects see how they’re framed and multi-person FaceTime on the same phone using different cameras.
The device is powered by the same A20 Pro chip found in the iPhone 18 Pro, which boasts a six-core CPU, a seven-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine for running on-device AI. It also gets an advanced thermal management system that, let’s be honest, it probably needs with those dual-displays out there. The onboard battery, by the way, is rated to provide 31 hours of video playback using the larger inner display and 44 hours using the smaller outer screen. There’s fast-charging, of course, allowing it to fill back up to 50 percent in just 20 minutes.
The Apple iPhone Duo opens for preorders October 16th. Price starts at $1,999 for the 256GB model.
