Neo & Duo - let's guess pricing :)

[Jcmg62]

We're a year away from the Neo and Duo hitting shelves, but I'm already thinking about what sales pitch I'm going to use on the wife to own these devices

What's your best guess on price and rollout/worldwide availability for when these eventually make it into the wild?

And, in the case of the Duo, does that thing have e-sim technology built-in? Will carriers have to support it? Will it be exclusive to certain networks? Or do we just throw a sim card in and away we go. So many questions.

 

[justjun555]

last dual screen device zte axon m had launch price of 730$.
now considering Microsoft's more premium hardware Duo should be between 1000$ to 1200$

As for neo considering surface pro x starts at 999$ so with dual screen it should start at same price point or 100$-200$ more & with accessories base model should reach 1500$ mark.

 

[Drael646464]

I'm going to guess 1000-1200 for the Duo.

 

[justjun555]

quote from the verge :

Panay says “we’ve got probably a couple more months [before developers are] going to have their hands on it and be running,” but he won’t talk about pricing at all except to say people will be “super happy,” clarifying that “when I say happy, I think the value of the product you get for how much you’re paying, it’s there, and that’s what matters to customers.”

 

[Royal Tippetts]

Yeah, it's that "value" part that gets us back to the $1,000+ mark for Duo. We'll see, that same interview gave the impression at one point that since the device is a Surface and not a phone, they may position it as a tablet or secondary device even if you already have a different phone, which I think is interesting. If they follow through on that I can see it selling ~$800 for the base model to justify stand alone sales.

Also to answer one of @Jcmg62's questions, there are a few photos that clearly show a sim slot.

For Neo I have to agree with @justjun555, as much as I'd like the price to be less I'd also hate for the device to be less than it should be because we consumers want to be cheap about a device we have no experience with.

 

[DavidBS1989]

Around 1.000$? That's crazy!

 

[justjun555]

Around 1.000$? That's crazy!

Screen is one of the most expensive part of phones & surface duo got 1 extra which will surely drive price higher.

 

[Drael646464]

Around 1.000$? That's crazy!

That's about what the iphone 11 costs (maybe a bit less), and that only has one screen. The samsung galaxy fold is expected to be $2,326.

Keep in mind, the price of a phone drops dramatically each year after release. I'd like to see the duo release at somewhere around $800, but it could be $1k. More screen, and that hinge is fairly complex.

We'll see. I do agree that 1k for a phone type device is a lot. For businesses to add productivity it might still be worthwhile though.

The new razor gaming phone is also about that. Surface is usually competitively priced, but very much premium. Again, more than what I would pay (Not sure I'd even pay half that); but time will bring the price down, and I expect others will riff on the device style.

Hey, at least it's not over 2k

 

[sd4f]

I have a suspicion that the Neo and the Duo will be the same price. I wouldn't be surprised if the Neo is actually cheaper.

 

[Grimlock]

I'll be surprised if they will be $1000, I'm expecting nothing less than $1299. Even if it's $1000 both devices are going to be priced so high they will be niche even by surface standards.

 

[Razius]

Yeah, it's that "value" part that gets us back to the $1,000+ mark for Duo. We'll see, that same interview gave the impression at one point that since the device is a Surface and not a phone, they may position it as a tablet or secondary device even if you already have a different phone, which I think is interesting. If they follow through on that I can see it selling ~$800 for the base model to justify stand alone sales.

Also to answer one of @Jcmg62's questions, there are a few photos that clearly show a sim slot.

For Neo I have to agree with @justjun555, as much as I'd like the price to be less I'd also hate for the device to be less than it should be because we consumers want to be cheap about a device we have no experience with.

I'm still curious about E-Sim though. There are several phones out that still have a SIM slot but also have E-Sim capability.

 

[Razius]

As I would like them to be the same cost, I just don't see it happening.

Side note: I'm pretty sure it does, but does the Neo have LTE capability?

 

[justjun555]

As I would like them to be the same cost, I just don't see it happening.

Side note: I'm pretty sure it does, but does the Neo have LTE capability?

I have doubt since it running intel. I hope lte is optional for neo unlike Windows on arm which hugely suffer from forced lte from Qualcomm which drives it's price high.

 

[DavidBS1989]

Screen is one of the most expensive part of phones & surface duo got 1 extra which will surely drive price higher.

That's about what the iphone 11 costs (maybe a bit less), and that only has one screen. The samsung galaxy fold is expected to be $2,326.

Keep in mind, the price of a phone drops dramatically each year after release. I'd like to see the duo release at somewhere around $800, but it could be $1k. More screen, and that hinge is fairly complex.

We'll see. I do agree that 1k for a phone type device is a lot. For businesses to add productivity it might still be worthwhile though.

The new razor gaming phone is also about that. Surface is usually competitively priced, but very much premium. Again, more than what I would pay (Not sure I'd even pay half that); but time will bring the price down, and I expect others will riff on the device style.

Hey, at least it's not over 2k

Yeah, that's the point. If they want to make this device sell as a smartphone, they have to think in the cost. And I'm not talking only about Microsoft, but all the companies that are trying to make this new dual screen devices our future smartphones.

So... We can accept this always that they actually drop the price within at least one year. If not, they would be trading a "premium device" as Drael said, and this is not a good point if the strategy is to start making clients and users.

 

[justjun555]

last dual screen device zte axon m had launch price of 730$.
now considering Microsoft's more premium hardware Duo should be between 1000$ to 1200$

As for neo considering surface pro x starts at 999$ so with dual screen it should start at same price point or 100$-200$ more & with accessories base model should reach 1500$ mark.

New detail reveals that surface neo will run on battery friendly next generation intel atom processor instead of expensive core i processors. So based that & surface go's pricing I expect surface neo with 8 gb of ram and 128gb ssd to cost around 799$ mark and with surface pen and keyboard cover it should end up around 1000$ for full package.

 

[ochhanz]

New detail reveals that surface neo will run on battery friendly next generation intel atom processor instead of expensive core i processors. So based that & surface go's pricing I expect surface neo with 8 gb of ram and 128gb ssd to cost around 799$ mark and with surface pen and keyboard cover it should end up around 1000$ for full package.

, yeah this makes sense, perhaps they will even release a cheaper version like they did with the Go. I personally would love that, I cannot buy the Neo as a primary device but as a secondary device I might buy it. ^.^

 

[Drael646464]

New detail reveals that surface neo will run on battery friendly next generation intel atom processor instead of expensive core i processors. So based that & surface go's pricing I expect surface neo with 8 gb of ram and 128gb ssd to cost around 799$ mark and with surface pen and keyboard cover it should end up around 1000$ for full package.

That sounds promising.

As a tablet, it actually seems rather good. The main thing I personally want to do on a tablet is read comics, magazines, pdfs and webpages (when at home anyway). Having two large pages could make for a very nice reading experience.

 

[justjun555]

lg g8x thinq with it's bundled dual screen accessory is priced at 699$ with snapdragon 855 , 6 gb of ram ,128 gb of storage & fhd+ display. which gives us hope that surface duo will stay below 1000$ price tag.

Also lg's device is interesting choice for those who are looking for new phone till duo comes out and want to move to dual screen form factor to experience what surface duo will be like.
If possible should hunt for zte axon m which is most identical to surface duo & according to some youtubers it is selling cheap at 150$ currently.
Windows central should pick one of this and review it.