- Carl Pei: iPhone Duo = wasted money
- It lacks Face ID as well as a telephoto lens
- Price from $1,999, in the eurozone from approx. €2,300
- Pre-orders from October 16
OnePlus co-founder and today’s head of Nothing has taken aim at Apple’s first foldable. In an Instagram video, he called the iPhone Duo wasted money, because, in his view, a phone for almost $2000 doesn’t have the features Apple typically includes even in cheaper iPhones.
No Face ID and no telephoto lens
What bothers Pei the most is the missing Face ID. Apple introduced face unlocking with the iPhone X back in 2017, and since then every new iPhone has had it, but the iPhone Duo unlocks with a fingerprint on the side button or via Apple Watch. A phone for $1,999 should, according to Pei, have Face ID, writes PhoneArena.
The second objection is the camera. The iPhone Duo has only two 48 MP sensors at the back—main and ultra-wide—and since it doesn’t have a separate telephoto lens, the 2x zoom is done by cropping from the main sensor. According to the portal Notebookcheck, Pei also criticized the fact that the phone lacks advanced camera controls that Pro models have.
Chinese foldables are doing better when it comes to the camera. Xiaomi 18 Fold and Huawei Pura X Max use the same wide format, but both offer a 50 MPx telephoto lens with 3.5x zoom—and in China they start from 10,999 yuan, i.e. roughly €1,410. We compared them in detail in the article iPhone Duo vs Xiaomi 18 Fold vs Huawei Pura X Max.
Why does the foldable lack Face ID?
Apple hasn’t officially explained why, but two reasons are mentioned most often. The unfolded iPhone Duo is only 5,2 mm thick, so it’s hard to fit the TrueDepth sensors that Face ID needs. Also, because the phone has two displays and is used both folded and unfolded, Apple would have to fit two sets of sensors—making the foldable even thicker.
Notebookcheck expects that Apple’s future foldables will be even thinner, since the regular iPhone Air 2 is also supposed to be as thin as the iPhone Duo. That’s why it’s still unclear how the missing features will be handled by the next generation.
For whom does the iPhone Duo make sense?
But not everyone agrees with Pei. The internal display with a 7,6-inch diagonal has an aspect ratio of 1,41:1, making it wider than foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra or the Oppo Find N6—so videos and documents look better on it. If you read a lot on the go or work with documents, you may not need to carry a tablet or a e-reader, and you can even open two apps side by side on the unfolded display.
In the United States, the iPhone Duo starts at $1999, and in the eurozone Apple sells it, for example in Ireland, from €2369. Pre-orders in the first wave of countries start on October 16, and the phone will arrive in stores on October 23. Another 28 countries follow on October 30. Slovakia wasn’t named in Apple’s press release among those countries, and we haven’t found the Slovak price yet on apple.com. However, even the euro price from Ireland is more than 900€ higher than the Chinese price of Xiaomi and Huawei foldables that include a telephoto lens.
Follow the China Planet website, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, and be sure to check out our Facebook page, the China Planet group, and join our Telegram, where we add the best offers and coupons from China every single day.
Don’t miss the best coupons 📩
Subscribe and we’ll email you new coupons before they expire. We only send it once a month — no spam.
