The original Surface Duo to have Android 11 before the end of 2021: Microsoft

Microsoft announced a new Surface Duo 2 this week that ships with Android 11, and now the company is committed to rolling out the operating system update for original devices this year. "We remain committed to providing updates to Surface Duo, and we're working to bring Android 11 to existing customers before the end of this year," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement.

That's not a firm release date, but we've never had one for Android 11 on the Surface Duo. Previous reports suggested it would land in the summer, but as we head into fall and there was no mention at Microsoft's Surface event, it is clearly taking longer than expected.

We still have to wait to know exactly what Android 11 will bring to the Surface Duo. Android 11 has native support for dual-screen devices like the Duo, so it should improve some of the software experiences on the device. During our brief look at the Surface Duo 2, it appears that Android 11 brings minor tweaks to Microsoft's multitasking system, rather than a patch. Surface Duo 2 now assumes by default that the screen on the right is the primary one, but it's unclear if that similar change will make it to the original Surface Duo.

While Microsoft has shipped a number of updates for the Surface Duo, it is still a pretty buggy device. Surface Duo users have complained of common problems with multitasking and gestures, a screen that turns off during book mode and crashes with the fingerprint reader.

Android 11 will arrive just as Google moves to Android 12. We expect Android 12 to debut on Pixel devices imminently, and it's unclear when the Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2 will be updated. Microsoft has previously committed to three years of security updates and Surface Duo operating system.