Lending support for that notion is the fact that a device from Microsoft that is described as a phone and a portable handset was caught by Windows Central passing through the FCC and confirmed a slew of connectivity options for the follow-up to Microsoft’s unique foldable (via SlashGear).
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The addition of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 support will certainly help the case for the Surface Duo, which featured woefully outdated hardware. Microsoft announced the phone in October of 2019, but didn’t release it until October of 2020, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor that was almost two years old at that point. Considering this was a phone that Microsoft was asking $1,399 for at launch that was a tough sell. The Surface Duo 2 will also feature NFC and UWB (ultra-wideband) radios, although it remains unclear if the phone will feature wireless charging this time around. Unfortunately, the FCC documents didn’t provide any further details as Microsoft requested confidentiality until January 2022, so only these bare details were pulled out of the filing. The rest of the rumors regarding the Surface Duo 2 hardware seem positive too, like the inclusion of a vastly superior camera system, a Snapdragon 888 processor, 120Hz displays, and more. However, the hardware wasn’t the only issue with the Surface Duo. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft has managed to make similarly drastic improvements to the software and we may not really know the answer to that question until we get it in for review.
