YotaPhone : The Dual screen Android Phone having a Always On e-ink screen

The YotaPhone, a unique dual screen mobile with an always on e-ink display on its backside in addition to a traditional LCD on the front, is finally become available for sale. A product of Russian company Yota Devices starts with a price of 19,990 Russian rubles, and in Europe (Austria, France, Spain and Germany) at €499 / $675.

YotaPhone is a dual screen smartphone based on Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 OS With dimensions of 133.6x67x9.99mm and a weight of 146g, the YotaPhone sits nicely in the hand and feels fairly solid. It is the first smartphone to use Corning’s Gorilla 3 shaped glass and has a special chassis housing YotaPhone’s six antennas on the outer rim. Although 9.99mm is fairly thick, the e-ink side of the phone curves inwards at the top to only 7.9mm, giving the impression of a thinner device. It comes with a Dual Core 1.7 GHz Krait and 1800mAh battery to run both screens. The device also features a 13-megapixel camera.

The rear E-ink display is a type of monochrome displays that is extremely battery efficient and aren't refreshed until new information needs to be displayed. It is also perfectly readable even under direct sunlight.The rear display of 4.3 inches in size with 360x640-pixel resolution can be used for reading books, RSS feeds, even your Twitter and Facebook updates can be displayed on the back panel too.

YotaPhone Specifications

OS

Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2

CPU

Dual Core 1.7 GHz Krait

FORM FACTOR

Monoblock touch with front and back screens

DIMENSIONS

133.6 x 67 x 9.99mm

WEIGHT

146g

COLOURS

Black and white

MAIN SCREEN

4.3” 720x1280 LCD, 16.7M colours; capacitive multi touch

BACK SCREEN

4.3” 360x640 EPD, 16 grayscale; capacitive touch zone below the EPD for gesture controls

NETWORK

LTE 800/1800/2600 MHz, UMTS 900/1800/2100 MHz, GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz

CAMERA

Main camera 13 MP AF, LED flash, front camera 1MP

MEMORY

2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC

CONNECTIVITY

WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, BT v4.0, GPS w/A-GPS + Glonass

VIDEO

1080p 30fps; H.263, H.264 AVC, MPEG-4, WebM

AUDIO

MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, AMR, MIDI, WAV

BATTERY

1800mAh

OTHER

Accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, FM radio, micro-SIM, 3.5mm Audio Jack

SPECIAL

YotaPhone gestures and Put2Back applications for the back screen

Conclusion

Its quite a good concept of mobile phone having a LCD display to deliver multimedia content, while the low-energy E Ink display can be used for reading. But to compete in the 2014 gadget market, it needs to be a sleeker and more powerful device than it currently is. Hope the next version will convince the user by its pricing, features and specifications.