Considering an iPhone Duo? Here’s what having a foldable phone is really like

As someone who’s enjoyed foldable phones for several years now, I’m glad Apple’s gotten around to making one.

The iPhone Duo, which launches on October 23 for $1,999, looks a bit like a passport when it’s folded up, and it unfurls to reveal an inner display that resembles a small tablet. While foldable phones have been around for years, Apple believes it has arrived at a better design than its Android-based rivals.

I can’t yet say whether that’s true, but after using all kinds of foldable phones over the years, I can give you a rough sense of what living with the Duo will be like. Even the best foldables come with trade-offs, and Apple’s will too.

Video is the best use case

With the iPhone Duo, Apple is emphasizing versatility. You can run two apps side-by-side, prop the phone up like a tent for Apple’s StandBy mode, and take selfies with the superior outer cameras while the cover display provides a preview.

That stuff is all nice, and you’ll feel especially satisfied on the occasions that you use them. But whenever I’m using a foldable phone, I always gravitate back to video.

Being able to summon a larger screen from your pocket for movies, shows, and sports feels like a superpower no matter which foldable phone you use. Split-screen also comes in handy for video, as you still get a decent-sized view while being able to read or check email. (The proportions of the Duo and Samsung’s Fold8 are both better for this than the taller book-shaped foldables of years past.)

The second-best use case is nothing in particular

If you’re still wondering what a foldable phone is for, consider this: A small tablet is simply more enjoyable to hold than a phone. You can cradle it in both hands, control it with your thumbs, and have more room to read, type, and play games. Reading an e-book on a foldable feels decidedly less sad than squinting at a phone screen. The use cases may be largely the same, but the experience is better.

It’ll be harder to use with one hand

I’ve been using Samsung’s Fold8, which has nearly the same proportions as the Duo, on and off for the past month. Compared to earlier book-style foldables, this format is more pocket-friendly, and the inner screen’s proportions make more sense for video.

But no matter what Apple says, one-handed use is a compromise. Stretching your thumb across the screen will take some careful posturing, and you may find the phone more difficult to grasp if your hands are on the smaller side.

Apple is trying to cover for this with some software optimizations, putting menu items and the app dock in a strip along the side of the screen, but that won’t prevent you from having to reach to the opposite side. Ultimately, you’ll sacrifice a bit of the normal phone experience in exchange for that glorious inner display.

That thing where you split a book into separate pages on each half of the screen isn’t really that great

Roughly 90% of the people who’ve seen one of my foldable phones ask whether you can crease it like a hardcover book and read with separate pages on each half of the screen.

Yes, you can do this—Apple briefly showed it during its presentation—but you probably won’t want to. Because each half of the inner screen is about the size of a regular phone, reading those cramped pages is far less enjoyable than using an e-reader or, you know, a physical book. It makes for a great demo, but you’ll probably end up going back to a single page that spans the full inner screen, more like an iPad Mini or Kindle.

You’ll get used to the thumbprint reader

Apple couldn’t make Face ID work within the confines of its first foldable, so you’re back to using Touch ID to unlock it. Like most other foldable phones, the fingerprint reader is built into the power button along the side of the screen.

It’ll be awkward at first, but quickly you’ll develop the muscle memory of resting your right-hand thumb on the power button whenever the phone leaves your pocket. (I also suggest adding your left index finger to Touch ID so you can wrap it around the power button as needed.) You might even come to prefer fingerprint readers again, since they can unlock your phone regardless of whether you’re looking straight at it.

The photo features will be less useful than you expect

Folding the iPhone Duo out partway so you can prop it up for group photos sounds great, until you realize there’s no great place to put the phone other than the ground. How often do you see folks pose for selfies with their phones held out low? It’s pretty much the least flattering angle for a photo.

Using the phone’s outer display to preview yourself while taking selfies with the rear camera is more helpful, but it’s also a bit clumsy in practice. Think about taking a selfie with an iPad Mini and you’ll see what I mean. (It’s great, though, if you’re taking photos of others. It’s even better if you can impress a stranger with your cool foldable phone by having them take a group photo for you.)

There’s fun accessory potential

Over the years I’ve had a blast not merely using the phone by itself, but pairing it with a foldable keyboard to use as a miniature workstation, or plugging in a grip-style game controller for playing retro game emulators. I bet we’ll see some creative cases and accessories specifically for these kinds of use cases, especially with the iPhone Duo’s MagSafe support.

The best part is that it’s an iPhone

Invariably when I show someone an Android-based foldable phone, the reaction is along the lines of this is really cool, but I could never switch from an iPhone.

I get it. While I’ve personally made a point of being ecosystem-agnostic, most iPhone users are not going to give up things like iMessage, FaceTime, and iCloud Photos (not to mention AirPods and Apple Watches) just to embrace a foldable phone. The lock-in effect is real, and if Apple was not going to sell a foldable phone, iPhone users were not going to buy one.

Now that Apple has addressed the foldable gap in its iPhone lineup, everyone (or, rather, everyone with $2,000 to spare) can get in on the fun. Even if foldable phones have trade-offs, there’s no type of phone I’d rather be using.