iPhone Duo: the first tests are in, is Apple's foldable worth its €2,339?

€2,339. That's the starting price in France for the iPhone Duo, the first iPhone that folds, going on sale this Friday, October 23. Preorders have been open since the 16th, and on Wednesday, Apple finally let the journalists who had been using it for a week speak. I haven't had it in my hands yet, so I read all the reviews. The hinge is a marvel, the rest is a first attempt.

Open, it's a small book. The croissant isn't included in the price

For those who missed the September 9 announcement, here's what Apple's spec sheet says: closed, it's a phone with a 5.4-inch screen, about the size of an old iPhone mini. Open like a book, it becomes a small 7.6-inch tablet, 5.2 millimeters thick. The whole thing weighs 254 grams, a little more than an iPhone 18 Pro Max, and Marques Brownlee would like it to lose 20% of that weight.

The crease: you can feel it, but you can barely see it

That was THE question. On Samsung's foldable phones, you can see a little valley in the middle of the screen, the crease, which catches the light and eventually gets annoying. Apple has covered the inner screen with a very fine matte coating, the same kind of finish as on its high-end anti-glare screens, and according to almost all the reviewers, it works. The Verge sums it up very well: you can barely see the crease, but you can feel it under your finger.

You have to look for it from a certain angle to find it, and that's exactly the point

And the hinge has everyone in agreement. Joanna Stern, a tech journalist with a big following on YouTube, had her unit folded by a machine more than 32,000 times. Result: nothing broke, the hinge is just a tiny bit stiffer than before. I did the math: at fifty openings a day, that's almost two years of use. Well, not bad for a first try!

What you lose by switching to the Duo

This is where things get a little worse. To save space, Apple sacrificed things that iPhone regulars have considered a given for years.

First, Face ID, the face unlock feature. It's gone, replaced by Touch ID, a fingerprint reader in the button on the side. It works, but almost all the reviewers regret it. Chance Miller, from 9to5Mac, calls it a “step backward”. Joanna Stern is more lyrical: “Face ID, I can't tell you how much I miss you.” The advice that comes up most often: wear an Apple Watch, it unlocks faster than your thumb.

Then there's the camera. No telephoto lens, the lens used to zoom without losing quality, so photographing your kid at the back of the stage during the school show is out. And the little camera hidden under the big screen, the one used for video calls, Marques Brownlee, the best-known tech YouTuber, flat-out calls it “lousy”.

Finally, the gesture itself. The small outer screen is narrow, The Verge compares it to “an iPhone 5 in a world of iPhone Pro Maxes”, and many web pages don't fit on it properly. And to open it, you need both hands. Left-handed people can't reverse the controls to the other side, according to CNET. I can already picture the scene on the packed eight o'clock subway.

The coffee or the phone, you're going to have to choose

The battery depends on who you ask

This is where the tests contradict each other the most. In its review published on Wednesday, Tom's Guide carried out its usual test, which consists of browsing the web continuously until the battery dies: 13 hours and 20 minutes. That's more than three hours better than Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8, but a long way from the iPhone 18 Pro Max's 17 and a half hours. The Verge, for its part, reckons that the Duo “doesn't seem ready to last a full day of heavy use”, and several testers say that it heats up on the right side when you put it to work.

My interpretation: for someone who takes it out for their emails, messages and a bit of video, it'll do. For someone who films, plays games and browses all day, they'll need to keep a battery pack in their pocket.

The apps, the real work in progress

A foldable phone is only as good as its apps. An app that wasn't designed for the big screen appears in the middle with large empty bands around it, and The Verge finds that frankly “ridiculous”. Max Weinbach, an analyst who is very widely listened to on X, says that at first, only two apps were really adapted: Perplexity and Claude. Two AI apps, fancy that! In six days, almost half of the apps had received an update.

It's no coincidence that it's happening so quickly. I told you a month ago that Apple had released the iPhone Duo simulator three weeks before its launch, so that developers would have time to get to work on it. It pays off: according to Wired, developers are adapting their apps to the Duo faster than they ever have for Android foldables.

On the multitasking side, though, we're left wanting more. You can put two apps side by side, but still only half and half, without being able to make either one larger. Good news all the same, the Apple Pencil stylus is coming with iOS 27.2, according to Max Weinbach.

The price, and who it's worth it for

860 euros more than an iPhone 18 Pro, just so you can fold it in half

According to the prices displayed by Apple in France this month, at equal capacity, the Duo costs 860 euros more than an iPhone 18 Pro and 710 euros more than a Pro Max. And it climbs quickly: 3,839 euros for the 2 TB version. For that price, you get a worse camera, no Face ID and an average battery.

So who is it for? For someone who today walks around with an iPhone AND an iPad mini, and dreams of having just one in their pocket. Tyler Stalman, a photography YouTuber, thinks that heavy iPad users could well replace both devices with the Duo. For reading, watching a series on the train, editing a photo or following a spreadsheet of figures, the big screen really changes your life. For everyone else, the iPhone 18 Pro does a better job for less money.

A tip if you're hesitating: buy it online rather than in a store. In Europe, the law gives you fourteen days to send back a purchase made remotely, without having to give a reason. Two weeks is more than enough to find out whether you can live with Touch ID, the battery and the subway with both hands.

My opinion

The Verge has the best line in the whole press: it's an incomplete product, but an idea complete enough for us to see where it's going. I agree. The difficult part, the part nobody knew how to do, the hinge and the fold, Apple got right on the first try. What's missing (Face ID, the zoom, the apps, multitasking) is software or space gained over the generations, and it'll come.

So I'm waiting for the second one. The one that will have got its Face ID back and lost 50 grams. And to those who will be queuing outside the Apple Store on Friday morning: take the case anyway, at this price, this isn't the time to test the fold on the pavement!

Sources

• MacStories, October 21, 2026: the roundup of iPhone Duo reviews, from The Verge to Marques Brownlee
• iPhone in Canada, October 21, 2026: the first reviews praise the hidden fold and criticize the weight
• Gizmodo: Raymond Wong's review of the iPhone Duo
• Tom's Guide: the iPhone Duo in hand, and its battery test
• CNews: price and release date of the iPhone Duo in France

Article written with the help of Claude Code, proofread and corrected by me.