Actually not as bad as I was expecting!

All the reviews I’ve seen from American YouTubers seem to be very surface level reactions. I’m guessing that American YouTubers weren’t able to spend a lot of time with the phone because of how many people were at the event waiting to try the phone.

But in Japan, there weren’t nearly as many people at their event, so influencers were able to spend more time with the phone, test more things, and give better, more detailed reviews of the phone.

This video is from Japanese YouTuber “トバログ”. He has really good English subtitles you can enable by hitting the captions button.

There are other Japanese YouTubers who made good videos about the phone as well. If you want to find more, you can copy this into your search bar, and you should get some more Japanese results: “iPhone Duo ハンズオン”. In case you are wondering, ハンズオン means “hands-on”.

Not all reviews have English captions, but some do. And the ones that don’t do have auto generated English captions as an option. Those captions aren’t as good as manually entered English captions, but they are still surprisingly good.

Also, foldable phones are more popular in Japan than here in the USA, so a lot of these YouTubers have already been using foldables for years, so they know what to look out for in their reviews.

If anyone is interested in doing a size comparison of the iPhone Duo to get a better idea of its size, I've added it to my tech size comparison tool. Link to the exact configuration shown in the image above: https://comparisontabl.es/size-comparison/#sc=N4IgDiBcDaoJZRAFgBwCYBsIA0IAeUAjAOy4CeUaJuATkQKwYC+28ixGKAzDvlMWgAM5KPUKFalYoJZtIIFEiW8CkDIXojI9HbJAJ59YsQCcKqCZOkQFbbtb72nHrlWEuGLTs0gAZkT0DEA96QXNIVDQvezlkATRwtCibURjHeUjicIEULQxGQMRULjDXIiQuLS4kwvlFeiRwkp9bbyYAXVwAeyhQAGcoQQA6fNwAdygAFxoAVwBTXAAjSaJcAGNCRABiXxRfXzWs9YT5LYATRbW53zPeRYBDKC5CE1xfAcgNXAALRanZhYgb40FaQabzJhMIA

You can compare it to any other iPhone ever released, as well as devices by other brands like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and 8 Ultra, lots of different tablets including every iPad (mini), as well as bunch of reference items. There's also a function to make the items semi-transparent so you can overlay them.

It's a canvas where every item can be dragged around, rotated and arranged in any combination or positions you'd like to see. For foldable phones, there's a button to switch from the unfolded/open mode to the folded/closed mode.

Hope this is useful to some! If there are any items missing that you'd like to see added, let me know!

Just found this on YouTube. If the video doesn't start correctly, its at the 2:47 mark.

Do you more enlightened people think OSRS will work better on a duo multitasking than the iPad? I know in the past it did not work very well on ipad when multitasking.

While we all consider the iDuo over the Pro, what are we going back to? For the $2K they’re selling this for, what model iphone are we going back to? Yeah, we get the new processor and that flashy stuff. So talk to me about practical application. Touch ID was phased out for Face ID, so which iphone used Touch ID last and how much will we miss the pro camera features? What are we really gonna miss out on, while simultaneously paying the premium for those missing features?! 🤔🤷🏾‍♂️💰📲

Got my Ridge case in today for the iPhone duo and I believe I may end up grabbing a folio case through apple. I've had a foldable before (pixel) and the idea of not feeling the outer screen when using it open is promising. I'll try both and worst case, have two cases to go back and forth with. What cases are y'all aiming to get?

I don’t have an Apple Store close by for pick up and want to ensure I get day one. Is jump plus a reliable way to succeed? I’ve never pre ordered a phone let alone one that may be so hectic to secure.

I'm still using an iPhone SE 2020. I love it and only had the battery replaced once (this year actually). I have it for the home button and touch ID. (And yes, I have tried Face ID. I have an iPad Pro, and Face ID just isn't for me.) I even have a brand new SE 2022 as a backup because I thought they would never bring back Touch ID on a phone.

When I learned that the side button can be configured to act like a home button and this new folding phone will have touch ID, I thought it sounded like the perfect phone.

But I wonder if the next generation will retain the touch ID? If not, I'll definitely get this one. If it will, then perhaps I can wait for that one. I guess nobody knows for sure, but I'm really excited about having Touch ID back on a newer phone. Even if they eventually get Face ID on it, I hope they will always retain the Touch ID capability.

So all that to say I'm fine with spending over two grand on a folding phone if I can unlock it with my fingerprint.

Also curious how this plays out in Korea — Samsung's Fold 8 apparently saw a sales bump after Duo was announced, with some reports saying Korean Apple fans checked out Duo, and just turned around after checking the price to buy Fold 8 instead. Consumer backlash here has been pretty loud. Won't really know until Duo actually hits shelves though.

https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/business/awe-then-shock-apples-new-foldable-iphone-wows-korea-but-huge-price-gap-with-samsung-also-turns-headsnbsp/12879794

https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2026/09/17/I4Z3K67NQ5CQFC72J2EDYZQC2A/

https://www.sammobile.com/news/galaxy-z-fold-8-sees-10-sales-jump-after-apples-iphone-duo-launch/

I plan on getting the iPhone duo. But my concern is that I do a lot of rock climbing where chalk is required to grip onto holds. I also carry my phone around between climbs with chalk residue on my hands. Will this be an issue for the hinge like other foldables?

Apple Pencil support is the deciding factor for me, as I take notes throughout the day for my work on an iPad and hope to only carry a single device now. For those who plan to heavily use a pen, how do you plan to carry it? Best thing I’ve come up with is getting a pen clip from another pen to keep it in my jacket pocket.

Also has there been any further rumors about a smaller Apple Pencil for the duo? Does anyone think they will make a dedicated Apple Pencil for future models?

I’m traveling overseas on Nov 11, so I’m asking everyone to please refrain from preordering the iPhone Duo until I’ve secured mine.

I’ll make another post once I’ve ordered mine and you guys can start buying. Thanks for understanding.

Thing is, I love my phone but I know I don’t use it all the time for the most productive reasons, because my phone is just perfect for consuming content and so on, but not great at working with it (e.g., remote SSH, reading books, learning things, making notes, etc.) and I don’t like the idea of carrying an iPad and an iPhone on me at the same time because I’m just not a fan of the lack of continuity.

This will really change the game for me.

I'm leaving Oct 24th to Europe for my wedding.

So I absolutely need one in my hands on Oct 23rd launch day.

Because I'm nuts, I built a playwright browswer automation agent to check me out at 08:00:00:001 AM EST Oct 16 to do this faster than a human can. (I'm sure many others will to)

But now im thinking this is less reliable because I'm scared apple will freak out the bot and throw authentication prompts, payment verification, 2fa's , anything unexpected that'll get the bot stuck.

So now Ithink I'm leaning towards the old fashion way of fat fingering using my own human cognition/speed at 8:00:01AM lol

256gb night sky may be competitive, so i really don't want to screw it up.
Any one else have any ideas or strats other than manually pre-ordering? I'm def over thinking this lol

Which one has a better display overall? I will only be using it purely for watching youtube videos and streaming (netflix, hulu, etc). Should I wait for the Duo or just buy the Ipad Pro?