Microsoft’s first-ever Android Phone, the Surface Duo, spotted in the wild

• The Microsoft Surface Duo, running what seems to be Android 10. [credit: Israel Rodriguez ]

Microsoft's first-ever Android phone, and its first self-branded phone, is slowly becoming a reality. The Surface Duo, which was announced a full year before it was planned to release to market, was recently spotted in the wild. Twitter user Israel Rodriguez spotted a person with a prototype device on the Vancouver subway and snuck a spy video out into the world.

The video appears to show one new hardware addition that wasn't present in the initial announcement in October 2019: an LED flash next to the camera. The Surface Duo has a single camera above the right display, which, thanks to the 360-degree hinge, acts as the front and rear camera. The video shows a new white circle next to that camera, so now it seems like you'll get a rear (and front) flash.

The Surface Duo actually spends a good portion of the video being slow and unresponsive. At 46 seconds in the video, you can see the device lock up in some kind of app. First tapping on a button doesn't do anything, then it takes multiple swipes down from the top of the screen to open a panel. Swipes in from the bottom of the display, meant to trigger gesture navigation and close the app, take multiple attempts to work. The good news is that the "Holiday 2020" release window means Microsoft still has something like nine months to work out all the bugs.