Microsoft first announced the Surface Duo in October 2019, showing a video where something in a bag rang, and immediately the crowd knew that the long-awaited Surface phone had arrived. While it was planned to launch in the holiday 2020 season, it arrived over the summer, but it definitely had some shortcomings.
It included a Snapdragon 855 chipset, which was last-gen even then. However, it"s entirely possible that the reason was because a Snapdragon 865 would require 5G and reworked antennas. The camera also wasn"t impressive, packing a low-end 11MP f/2.0 sensor, and being that the device itself is so thin, there"s only so much z-depth that the camera can possibly offer.
According to a job listing that was spotted by Windows Latest, both 5G and a better camera should be coming in the next model. OF course, none of this is surprising, as the new Snapdragon 888 comes with an integrated 5G modem and a separate 5G modem is a requirement for the Snapdragon 865, 865+, and 870. The job listing calls for someone with experience with 3GPP standards and 5G radio technologies.
And then there are the camera improvements, where apparently, Microsoft will be using machine learning and artificial intelligence for better image processing. While this will certainly help with a camera that"s mediocre even in broad daylight settings, there"s only so much that image processing can do to overcome the barriers set by entry-level hardware.
Other than that, there"s not much to say. Again, this stuff isn"t surprising, but it"s nice to see that Microsoft is working on solving the weaker points of the Surface Duo"s hardware.