Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales
The iPhone Duo has all the messiness of a first-gen product . And while I’m not sure I love all of the decisions Apple made around its design, it got one thing right: the matte finish on the inner screen. I’ve been using it for the past week to watch movies on a plane, peruse my photo gallery, and catch up on a little reading, and I’m convinced. The matte screen is the best thing about the Duo, and I hope every other foldable maker copies it.
When we first got our hands on the Duo , the nano-texture finish on the 7.6-inch inner screen was genuinely a surprise. I’ve used a dozen or so book-style foldables over the past five years, and every one of them came with a glossy inner display. Aside from occasionally noting that they can be hard to see in direct sun, I never really questioned it. That’s just how screens are, I figured. But opening up the Duo for the first time, it clicked. Matte makes sense.
The benefits proved out while I used the phone for the past seven days. I propped it up on my tray table to watch an episode of Widow’s Bay . The matte screen effectively fought off the glare from the open window in my row. Reading a longer article felt a little easier on the eyes, and that’s what the inner screen is really there for. And there’s something about that slight matte finish that signals to my brain that it’s time to read . I can sort of fool myself into thinking that I’m holding an e-reader when I open the Kindle app and turn the phone sideways to its portrait orientation. It’s cute to imagine using your reading app in the landscape-oriented, partway-closed posture like a physical book. But I wouldn’t actually read anything like that; portrait all the way.
The thing to know about the Duo’s matte finish is that it’s pretty subtle. You don’t feel it under your finger quite as much as the more paperlike finish on TCL’s Nxtpaper devices. My colleague Dominic Preston wondered if it would be jarring flipping between the glossy cover screen and the matte display, and personally it hasn’t bothered me. The fact that the Duo’s big screen isn’t full-on e-reader matte probably helps ease that transition.
In fact, changing between the two screens somehow feels nice in both directions. Opening up to the inner screen feels like a welcome break from the reflections on the outer screen. When closing it and going back to the outer screen, the richer blacks and colors feel inviting.
I can concede that if you’re watching something with a lot of dark, shadowy scenes, the matte might feel like it obscures a bit of the detail that would otherwise stand out. It didn’t really bother me. But the bottom line is that this is a device that you will, by its nature, take outside. You’ll use it in ideal lighting conditions and crappy ones. I’ll take a slight hit in richness and detail for a more comfortable overall viewing experience. When my seatmate throws the window shade open, I’ll be ready for it.
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