Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, is now officially available for pre-order. With stock reportedly limited due to minor production hiccups, buyers are advised to act quickly ahead of its release on Friday 23 October.
Pricing and availability
The iPhone Duo starts at £1,999 for the 256GB model, making it the priciest iPhone ever. The 512GB version costs £2,199, the 1TB model £2,599, and the 2TB variant £3,199.
Pre-orders are open at Apple, John Lewis, Amazon, Argos, O2, EE, and Three.
Design and features
Tech critic David Phelan, who had an early look at the Duo, described it as “a phone shaped and sized roughly like a passport with a 5.4-inch display when closed and a 7.6-inch screen when you open it out. That’s almost as big as the original iPad mini, with a similarly shaped display.”
He added: “Apple has introduced special software to make the move from inner to outer screen look especially slick, and has built hardware to reduce the dreaded crease between the two halves of the inner screen to almost nothing.”
Cameras and pricing context
Phelan noted that the Duo has two cameras, unlike the three-camera Pro models. “Despite that, this is the priciest iPhone ever, starting at £1,999, which is at the higher end of what other brands charge for their foldables. The tech required for a multi-screen phone that folds in half always adds cost, and sometimes time.”
Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo on Wednesday at an event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park in Cupertino, California. It is the company's first launch event since CEO John Ternus took over on September 1. Apple's first foldable comes seven years after Samsung pioneered the category, but the American tech giant is expected to take a sizable chunk of the market.
