Is the New iPhone Duo Worth It? Our Hands-on Impressions! (Video)

Four of us ran out of the Apple keynote and straight to the iPhone Duo demo tables (Tayllor Lloyd cleared a row of theater seats to get there), then sat down on Geared Up to argue about what we'd just held. Kevin the Tech Ninja, Miles Franklin, Tayllor, and I all walked away liking the folding iPhone. We didn't all walk away sure it's worth $2,000.

The Duo is only the third way to use an iPhone in the product's history, which is a big part of why it feels like more than a spec bump. There was the home button era, then the gesture era that started with iPhone X, and now there's a phone that opens. Apple took its time. Samsung has been shipping folds for eight years, and foldables are still around 2 percent of phone sales.

In hand, the Duo is comfortable and rounded, and the hinge doesn't have the crunchy feel the early folds had. The inner display is what everyone kept coming back to. It's built from eight independent layers that slide past each other as the phone opens, and the top one has a matte nano-texture finish nobody had rumored. Miles thought it looked even more matte than a nano-texture Studio Display, which raises a fair question about how it holds up in direct sun. The under-display camera is a bold choice too, since most manufacturers gave up on that tech because it hurts photo quality.

The software is where Apple's version pulls ahead. On a Samsung or an Oppo, I'm always hunting for how to pin an app to one side and open something else next to it. On the Duo, I never had to ask. Multitasking, the half-open mode, and the opening animation (the left side of the screen goes transparent as you unfold it) all felt like they'd been there for years. Miles kept hitting preproduction bugs on the demo units, though, so we're reserving judgment on software polish until retail phones show up.

The wish list is short but real. There's no Face ID, only Touch ID. There's no telephoto camera, though the 48-megapixel main lens crops to 2x. The launch date stung too, because the Duo doesn't arrive until October 23, and anyone who preorders late is probably looking at November. Kevin made the point that plenty of people are excited about a folding iPhone in the abstract, and we don't know how many will spend $2,000 to find out. The counterargument around the table was that Apple has the retail presence, support, and app pressure other foldable makers never had. Samsung's Z Fold 8 outsold every previous Fold at $1,900, and Apple sits right between Samsung's two prices. We expect the Duo to become one of the best-selling foldables almost immediately.

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max sparked a different fight. Miles called it an S year: the same design as the 17 Pro in new colors (black is back, alongside silver, Glacier, and burgundy), with the changes on the inside. The battery claims are the biggest on any iPhone, up to 45 hours on the Pro Max. There's a variable aperture that runs from f/1.4 to f/4.0, an improved vapor chamber Apple says delivers 40 percent better sustained performance, and charging that reaches 50 percent in 15 minutes. The Dynamic Island shrank enough to show three live activities. Tayllor said the new pro camera controls alone would make her buy one, since the iPhone camera has always felt limited next to what a Pixel lets you adjust. Miles and Kevin were less convinced, because a variable aperture can only do so much on a sensor and lens this small, and Miles noted the display got no brightness bump.

What I keep coming back to is a poll I ran last week asking viewers what would make them upgrade immediately. Sixty-four percent said much better battery life. Reviewers swap phones every year, so we never feel a battery age. One of us checked mid-episode and was at 482 charge cycles in under a year. We'd love Apple to start saying what battery capacity looks like after two years of normal use, now that people are on four-year payment plans. Most buyers aren't coming from a 17 Pro anyway. They're coming from a three- or four-year-old phone, and for them the 18 Pro is a huge upgrade.

AirPods 5 got the cleanest reaction of the episode. Noise cancellation now comes in the $129 base model, and Apple claims it's 50 percent better. The pricier version adds five hours of battery with ANC on instead of four, a wireless charging case that works with an Apple Watch charger, and stem volume controls. At $129, and probably less on Black Friday, the table agreed that's cheap enough to keep a spare pair in the car. The ear tip debate got personal, because the best earbuds in the world still have to fit your ears.

Apple Watch Series 12 tempted one longtime Ultra wearer at the table to switch, and the reason is the white ceramic. The bigger story is health: heart rate readings 60 times more often than before, readiness scores, HRV, and a new chip fast enough to run AI on the watch instead of handing it to your phone. Apple also showed an AI recap that uses the microphone to summarize your day, and the fact that it's processed on device went over well with everyone. Apple Watch Ultra 4 shares the same software direction. What a few of us still want is a screenless band for sleep and recovery that pairs with the watch, the way the Pixel Watch works with Fitbit Air. We'll all have retail units soon, and the real test is what these devices feel like after a month, not after a sprint across an auditorium.