It is certainly no secret that Microsoft’s return to the smartphone world, with the Surface Duo line, has far from left its mark: two models have been released so far, one in 2020 and one in 2021, no updates have been received in 2022 and there are no significant rumors for 2023, although Microsoft has promised that a third generation will arrive – sooner or later.
The Redmond giant has also performed rather badly with operating system updates, which arrived very late and infrequently. First-generation Surface Duo, which came with Android 10 at launch, received Android 11 a full 18 months later; neither model received “smooth” Android 12; and Android 12L or Android 12.1 arrived six months after the presentation by Google (and therefore one year after the release of Android 12). After that, nothing: Microsoft made no mention of any other updates to Android 13 or Android 14.
Step aside Pixel Fold, we have a real foldable in the house. Pixel Experience on Surface Duo, with posture support!
Test builds soon! pic.twitter.com/Hayp20FVsB— Thai Nguyen 💻 (@nqtspinner) May 15, 2023
However, a glimmer of hope to see the current stable release of the Robottino’s operating system, thanks to the community of independent developers – more specifically, a former own employee of Microsoft Thai Nguyen, who declared on Twitter his intention to bring the “Pixel Experience” to his former employer’s two-screen foldout, complete with support for his multiple postures.
As you can see above, we have a very short video demonstrating that the operating system seems to run quite fully, although of course there is still a lot of work to be done. The build shown in the video is based precisely on Android 13, with the hope that if the project goes ahead we will also be able to see Android 14. Nguyen says in any case that the first experimental build is coming soon for those interested in testing it.
It’s been several years since the modding and custom ROM world for Android was at its peak of popularity, but a law remained constant: it is (relatively) easy to start a project of this type, but it is much more complicated (and rare) to see it reach a level of refinement comparable to the work of an official manufacturer. However, it will be interesting to follow Nguyen’s project and see how far he goes.