Microsoft’s Surface Duo 2 is one of the most divisive devices out there. On one hand, its dual-screen design has won laurels, and there’s a very small bunch of loyal enthusiasts that swear by its productivity tricks. But there are a whole bunch of practical flaws with the camera, battery life, and UI departments that kept this phone-tablet hybrid from realizing its true potential.
Of course, a sky-high asking price didn’t do it any favors. However, one enthusiast has turned it into a handheld gaming machine with a few cool add-ons — and it honestly looks pretty incredible. On Reddit, one Surface Duo 2 owner (going by the username u/Sarspazzard) showcased their Frankenstein version of Microsoft’s doomed phone after giving it a glorious handheld gaming makeover.
One-half of the modified
The fans are there to keep the device cool while gaming, but they didn’t offer much of a performance boost, according to our DIY champ. “I ran some Geekbench tests, and I only saw a bump of like 10 to15 points on single-core and multi-core with the cooler,” says the
The other half also has a dock, which enables passthrough charging. But more importantly, it allows the addition of an external storage solution like a thumb drive, which is key considering that the 128GB of onboard storage inside the device isn’t enough to store a lot of game files. Plus, the
“These features are USEFUL to us. I’m talking about microSD support and 3.5mm headphones. There was no good reason to remove them in the first place,” the modder writes in one of the comments. Valid point there! But given the odd placement of the USB-C port on the
Apparently, the whole modification was done to play PC and console games with a layer of emulation on top. One half of the
The mobile gaming segment is no stranger to such add-ons, as they really give an edge in games like Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG: Mobile. The best part of this gamified
The only apprehension is that the
There are, of course, pitfalls with running emulated game files. The
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