Bad on the outside, great on the inside
When you have the fold folded, it’s not a great experience. Even with the home row and side controls, it’s the smallest iPhone screen in many years, and most apps simply aren’t formatted for that strange shape. Unless you’ve been holding on to your iPhone 13 mini all this time, you’ll likely find that even streamlined apps, which place their controls on the right edge to allow for more vertical space, are frustratingly small.
If you’re a fan of the iPhone mini, the screen won’t bother you, but the enormously fat and chunky form factor will. What good is a small screen when the phone is so thick and wide that it will definitely No Will it fit in the pocket of a pair of skinny jeans?
The actual quality of the screen is good, as is the exterior selfie camera. But that outer screen is for quickly checking information, sending a short response, dialing a phone number, or asking Siri things. That said, there is one big plus: the keyboard. While taking as half The vertical space and extra wide shape make the entire keyboard much larger and easier to use. It’s even wider than the keyboard on an iPhone 18 Pro Max and the extra few millimeters really help.
However, the interior screen is a delight and makes me want this same nanotexture treatment on all iPhones. It has a nice paper-like feel to the touch and greatly reduces glare, while still being bright and crisp. Of course, the blacks aren’t as deep as on a glossy screen, but they’re still very good, and the trade-off is worth all the reflections (and creases) you don’t have to deal with.
Using the internal screen, the Duo feels super thin and light, comfortable and easy to use. The more time you spend with the Duo deployed, the more you love it.
A status bar and Dynamic Island update
Without a camera cutout in the middle of the screen (inside or outside), Apple moved the Dynamic Island to the top right corner. It surrounds the front camera when closed and appears out of nowhere on the interior screen.
