iPhone Duo pre-orders — 7 reasons to buy and 4 reasons to skip

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The iPhone Duo's release day is coming in fast, and pre-orders open up this Friday (October 16). This means a lot of people are going to decide whether they're actually going to pick up the foldable for themselves, or if they're going to stick with a non-folding phone for the time being.

Making that decision isn't always easy, especially if you find yourself enamored by all the things the first foldable iPhone has to offer. But when it comes down to it, you simply need to weigh up the pros and cons of buying the iPhone Duo for yourself. This is something we can help out with.

Here are seven reasons why you should pre-order the iPhone Duo this Friday, and four reasons why it might not be worth it. And stay tuned for our full rated review and test results for the final Tom's Guide verdict.

The main selling point when it comes to iPhone Duo is the fact that this is the first foldable iPhone. It's something that people have been asking Apple to make for years, and after so many delays and an apparent quest for perfectionism Apple has finally done it. You get a 5.4-inch iPhone that unfolds to reveal a massive 7.6-inch main display.

The iPhone Duo might as well be the cross between an iPhone and the iPad mini, offering the best parts of both in a single device. You get a compact and portable iPhone experience on the exterior display, while opening it up offers the tablet-like interface for all those times a larger screen is more beneficial. And it's all within the usual Apple ecosystem.

Historically speaking, foldable phones have not been the most hardy of devices. Durability has come a long way in recent years, but older models were comparatively fragile devices in the grand scheme of things. The iPhone Duo is not falling into that trap, and it looks like Apple is going all in on making this phone as strong as it can be.

The IP68 water and dust resistance rating puts the iPhone Duo above Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, which offers no dust resistance at all. The Duo is also one of only a handful of phones that has a titanium frame, which should enhance the overall strength of the phone. On top of that, Apple is utilizing Ceramic Shield 2 glass, which is famed for its damage and scratch resistance on the exterior display, alongside a Ceramic Shield 1 backplate.

We're still not sure how durable the interior display is yet, but the rest of the phone is looking pretty sturdy so far.

Multitasking is common on a lot of phones, but Apple largely ignored it — saving it as an iPad feature. Since the iPhone Duo is essentially a hybrid device, it wouldn't be complete without multitasking of its own — which is why side-by-side multitasking is available on the iPhone Duo.

Admittedly being able to display two apps next to each other is the bare minimum Apple could offer, and other devices (including iPads) offer additional windows and split-screen functionality. But that doesn't change the fact that this is the first iPhone that lets you run two apps simultaneously. And Apple makes it super easy to choose new apps, as well as drag and drop content between windows.

There are still things we don't know about the iPhone Duo's main display, like how it's going to handle repeated folding over extended periods of time. But we do know that this is a large 7.6-inch screen with an impressive peak brightness of 3,000 nits.

That's the same as the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, but with the added benefit of the nano-texture coating. It's not the same as the anti-reflective coating we've seen on phones like the Z Fold 8, but it does diffuse incoming light. That means the screen itself is a lot less reflective, and prevents the kind of glare you get on glossy displays. The nano-texture display also does a fairly good job of hiding the crease.

Apple's A20 Pro is one heck of a chip, and we've already seen the kind of things its capable of while testing the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max. Computing and graphics performance is so high that we declared them the fastest phones we've ever tested. And that same chip is coming to the iPhone Duo.

We don't know how much of a difference there will be on the new devices. There were some variations between the Pro and Pro Max models, but not enough to really matter. It all comes down to whether the need to operate two screens is going to make much difference to the numbers. But, even if it does, the Duo is still shaping up to be one of the best performing phones of the year.

We haven't tested the iPhone Duo's battery life yet, so we don't know how long it will last in comparison to the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. Still, Apple promises that the exterior screen can last for up to 44 hours of video playback, while the larger foldable screen is rated for up to 31 hours.

That's a little less than the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max's respective 36 and 45 hours. But considering those phones offer some of the best battery life, with a respective 16 hours 17 minutes and 18 hours 27 minutes in our custom battery test, we expect the iPhone Duo will come out pretty strongly.

Plus, the iPhone Duo supports up to 60W charging, which is more than you can expect from a lot of other foldables. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Pixel 11 Pro Fold max out at 45W and 25W, respectively.

Pairing a foldable phone with a stylus seems like a perfect match, but it's not something that's easy to come by right now. The Razr Fold supports its own specialized stylus, as does Oppo's Find N series, but that's about it — and the support is limited to foldables. Apple's going in a different direction, offering support for the existing Apple Pencil (USB-C).

That's the same Apple Pencil that's compatible with almost every recent iPad, even if it isn't the most advanced and feature-rich stylus Apple has to offer. Not only does this mean the iPhone Duo had the productivity boost a stylus offers, it's the same low-cost accessory that a lot of people might already own.

The biggest downside to iPhone Duo is the same as all foldables phones: The high price tag. With prices starting at $1,999 for a model with 256GB of storage, this is the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever released — $700 more than the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

That's obviously going to put a lot of people off, especially when you remember that Apple is asking you to sacrifice certain things in the process. Is it worth spending more money just to get the foldable design? Some don't believe that it is.

The biggest issue with the Duo is that the camera experience is going to be, as a whole, worse than you'd get on a non-folding iPhone. The most obvious issue is that there's no telephoto lens, which means you're automatically at a disadvantage for zoomed in photos.

The iPhone Duo also misses out staple Pro-level camera features like ProRAW photos, ProRES video, LOG recording and spatial photography. Not to mention the fact it's missing iPhone 18 Pro's variable aperture lens and Pro photography controls.

Some might argue that these are either niche or power-user features, and they may have a point, but it doesn't change the fact that Apple is offering less in the camera department for the iPhone Duo versus the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.

The iPhone Duo supports MagSafe, which is great for wireless charging, but the unique design means it's going to struggle with certain MagSafe-compatible accessories. In fact, we've already seen images of people who tested the foldable with MagSafe wallets, only to find that the phone is too short to support them without some overhang.

Wallets won't be the only accessories affected by this either. Any MagSafe-friendly accessories that have been designed to fit on regular-sized iPhones are going to fit a little awkwardly on the iPhone Duo — including batteries and some stands. It may not cause many practical problems, but when you have a brand that prides itself on design as much as Apple, it's not ideal for long-standing accessories to suddenly not work.

You can expect a wide range of iPhone Duo accessories, so stay tuned for our coverage.

The iPhone Duo is Apple's first foldable phone, so it stands to reason that some shoppers will bide their time and wait for the sequel so Apple can work out any possible kinks.

The things Apple learns in the months following the Duo's release will undoubtedly be used to improve the next generation. Which means waiting a year might be a better use of your money.

For example, perhaps the next iPhone Duo will support Face ID instead of just Touch ID. Or maybe Apple will find a way to add a telephoto zoom camera while keeping the design compact.

The iPhone Duo has a lot going for it, from its nano-texture display and durability to Apple's approach to the software and the multiple modes the Duo supports. It should also be the fastest foldable yet.

However, $2,000 is a lot of money to spend on a phone, even if it can double as a tablet. And you have to be willing to give up certain iPhone 18 Pro features to get Apple's first foldable, such as a telephoto zoom and Face ID. But we're betting a lot of people will be willing to live with these trade-offs.

Stay tuned for our iPhone Duo review and test results for our final verdict. In the meantime, if you have any questions or agree or disagree with any of my reasons to buy or skip, hit us up in the comments.

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