Microsoft Surface Duo Dual-Screen AT&T LTE Tablet

UPDATE: I left my original review but I wanted to update this. After a lot, I mean A LOT, of work I was able to get my device unlocked. I posted an answer in the questions section for anybody that wants to know how. I just don't wanna retype it 😅. I don't know if it's still a headache to get it unlocked but if you aren't afraid of a little work to make that happen, the duo is a fantastic phone. It's a brilliant device for reading, gaming and just about everything else. Let's get the negatives out of the way. It doesn't have the latest processor or even the one right before that. It runs the 855 and has 6gb or RAM. Is that a big deal? Nope. It handles everything I throw at it with no slowdown. The screen can, very rarely, get a little weird where one side will be on and the other won't. Scared me the first time. Close the device and reopen it and it's all fixed though. It's a small glitch but Microsoft releases patches once a month and the phone is way better than it was even a month ago before the last one. Also we'll be getting Android 11 at some point which is supposed to work way better with this kinda device. It can be a little unwieldy to use one handed. They've got lots of stuff to make that easier but I find I just prefer to use both hands. Skip the cases for this one. Most of them aren't very good. The bumper is kinda cool and you can remove it a reapply it a couple of times if your careful with it. The only other downside I can think of kinda relates to the size again. Any car mount, aside from maybe a tablet mount if you just happen to have that, will probably not work. The only one I could find is the one from Vicseed here on Amazon and it only works on the widest setting when the duo is folded over and using only one screen. Ok bad stuff over. On to the positives. The phone, even folded is wide, like really wide. That makes reading, writing notes, and anything on the internet so much better. I've had galaxy note phones and they didn't come anywhere even remotely close to how good the note taking is. You do have to have your own stylus and I wouldn't use a cheap one but if you already have a surface pen or something similar it'll work. Two weeks after I started using my Duo I wrote and gave a presentation from it. I won't go back to a tablet. The other benefit to it being such a wide device is reading. So many devices are getting taller and skinnier (I'm looking at you Sony with your 21:9 nonsense (sorry I ramble😅)). Microsoft did the exact opposite and you can hold this thing like a book and any of the e-readers that support it work just like you would expect a book to work. It's awesome! And also the most comfortable way to hold the duo with one hand when it's opened up. All you ever hear about with the Duo is productivity, but it's actually really really good at gaming. I've never had any games slow down or have problems. Even better, if you have Xbox Gamepass that's a section of games that work specifically with the Duo. You get a controller setup on one screen and the actual game on the other. Not all games support it and some are a little tough to play on a touch screen but it's very cool. You can pair an Xbox controller with the duo though and play everything that way. Still looking for a controller mount though. But you can use it in tent mode so you may not need one. The battery life is... Well it's better than you're afraid it'll be but not as good as you might hope for it to be. I'm a heavy heavy phone user and I charge it at night and it's about 20% or so by 4 in the afternoon. The only other thing is like to add is, I'm usually somebody who switches phones frequently. IPhone, Android, even the old Windows phones. I'd get bored, get a new one, or switch back to an old one for a while fairly often. Usually within a couple of weeks I'd at least be looking for new toys, ya know? But not with this one. I genuinely can't see myself using something else unless they come out with a Duo 2 or something. Old review: I want to make it clear that this review has nothing to do with the seller. I bought the surface duo locked to AT&T because you should be able to unlock it if it's been paid for. Every other phone I've ever bought had been this way. Apparently Microsoft dogs not provide AT&T with the unlock keys to do that on this phone. They ran out months ago. AT&T will direct you to Microsoft who has the worst customer service setup ever. No two people will tell you the same thing. Microsoft had me send in the device I had and promised to replace it with an unlocked version of the phone. What they actually did was send me a refurbished AT&T version. Which means I can no longer return the phone because Microsoft had the original. Three weeks into this mess Microsoft will not unlock my phone, will not replace my phone and certainly won't refund my phone. DO NOT BUY THIS! Unless you have AT&T and you don't plan to switch any time soon. The phone itself is great it would be a very handy device. The experience though.... If you see a great deal for the unlocked one jump on it but this one should be a hard pass.