Is that lt and lb and rt and rb buttons in the corners?
I keep hoping software-bindable shoulder buttons would become standard on phones. Beyond the challenge of touchscreen face buttons, the lack of triggers is a huge limiter.
Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
41–50 of 144 posts
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#42What's pretty clear is that the small form-factor multi-screen device needs a compelling story to establish value and utility. The Surface Duo looks like a very cool device that I would probably never use over a phone with one good screen, more power and a great camera. Similar to tablets, I personally just reach for the phone or the laptop or my TV, and never a tablet. But a Duo released with some more power and som…
This seems to be the ongoing story with Windows Phone / Surface: interesting and well-made hardware, let down by mediocre software and UX.
Windows Phone 8.1 was the pinnacle of modern smartphone UX and is still far ahead of Android, with BB10 OS being the only serious competitor.
If I had to describe Android's UI in comparison: usable but I hate every second of it. Especially the text input is so frustrating I have to wonder whether it's intentional.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#43Get a Razer Kishi or Backbone (seems better for iPhone) for your current phone. Much better experience as you have actual buttons.
I have a clip for a regular xbox-style controller (SteelSeries duo) and I gotta say the top-heavy weight is extremely awkward, and my phone is pretty small (pixel 4a).
Are those better?
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#44Get a Razer Kishi or Backbone (seems better for iPhone) for your current phone. Much better experience as you have actual buttons.
Or just use your XBox GamePad with the phone clip https://cdn-reichelt.de/bilder/web/xxl_ws/E910/8BIT_XB-CLIP_...
I use one and the top heavy weight is super awkward. Nice part of the DS was that the weight was in the bottom, the flip-up part was just a dumb screen.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems to be the ongoing story with Windows Phone / Surface: interesting and well-made hardware, let down by mediocre software and UX.
Windows Phone 8.1 was the pinnacle of modern smartphone UX and is still far ahead of Android, with BB10 OS being the only serious competitor. If I had to describe Android's UI in comparison: usable but I hate every second of it. Especially the text input is so frustrating I have to wonder whether it's intentional.
It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up (but SwiftKey co-existed with Word Flow...)
At this point, some seven years since I've used Windows Phone, maybe my memory isn't that accurate, but I remember the transition to using Android keyboards to be very painful.
It's interesting to see a thread where even going from Windows Phone 8.1 to 10, the predictive keyboard got worse.[1]
[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-word-flow-keybo...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/4smmuc/what_h...
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#46Touchscreen buttons? No thanks.
That was my thought initially too, but on further reflection, there are plenty of games that have input that's not time sensitive (or not that time sensitive) that having a built in (mediocre) controller is better than not having one and needing to put finger over the display screen for the same controls.
And you can still pair a controller. I think that maybe makes this "better than other phone devices for xcloud" at least, which is something.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems to be the ongoing story with Windows Phone / Surface: interesting and well-made hardware, let down by mediocre software and UX.
I'll disagree with UX on the Windows Phone. I miss it to this day. The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support. Friends having social apps I simply couldn't get my hands on (and third-party apps that worked great getting blocked by official sources.) And bank apps that required Android/iOS - the convenience of mobile check deposit can't be overstated in the U.S.! The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massi…
That one has always felt to me like monopoly abuse by Google to prop up android
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows Phone 8.1 was the pinnacle of modern smartphone UX and is still far ahead of Android, with BB10 OS being the only serious competitor. If I had to describe Android's UI in comparison: usable but I hate every second of it. Especially the text input is so frustrating I have to wonder whether it's intentional.
It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up (but SwiftKey co-existed with Word Flow...) At this point, some seven years since I've used Windows Phone, maybe my memory isn't that accurate, but I remember the transition to using Android keyboards to be very painful. It's inter…
> It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up
I worked with the guy who lead the swipe keyboard on Windows Phone. Amazing machine learning engineer who lead an amazing team. Some of the work he did for my team was out of this world (ML models to do predictive touch inputs to decrease perceived touch screen latency and improve touch recognition accuracy, on a Cortex m3)
Unfortunately for whatever reason his code was never adopted outside the mobile org, and I believe he was moved off that project after its initial version was completed. This is also why the desktop Windows swipe keyboard for Windows tablets at that time terri-bad compared to Windows Phone's swipe keyboard! Also this is possibly why the keyboard got worse, not sure it was long enough ago that I remember it was mid-Win8.1 mobile -> 10 transition but I don't recall all the details and the timeline.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#49Touchscreen buttons? No thanks.
That was my thought initially too, but on further reflection, there are plenty of games that have input that's not time sensitive (or not that time sensitive) that having a built in (mediocre) controller is better than not having one and needing to put finger over the display screen for the same controls. And you can still pair a controller. I think that maybe makes this "better than other phone devices for xcloud" a…
I play a lot of JRPGs on my Android tablet. Input is far from time sensitive. I still prefer a gamepad 100% of the time and I just won't play at all if I don't have one on me. The UX is simply not comparable.