UPDATE: The dual-screen YotaPhone is officially launched in Malaysia at RM1,699.
Remember the YotaPhone? If you don’t, allow us jog your memory. When it comes to smartphones, the YotaPhone is unique in that it comes with two displays — on one side, you get your standard AMOLED screen while on the other side, is an E-Ink display similar to the ones you typically see on an eReader. The idea is for you to use the E-Ink screen for reading and other applications with an always on screen allowing you to save battery by not using the AMOLED display.
We took a look at the YotaPhone 2 that was announced earlier this year at Mobile World Congress and was rather impressed with the unique dual-screen device. The YotaPhone 2 features a full HD 1080p 5-inch AMOLED display and runs on Android 4.4 KitKat with a Quad-Core Snapdragon 800 processor. There’s NFC and 4G LTE connectivity as well. Over at the back, there’s a 4.7-inch touch-enabled E-Ink display that’s clear, sharp and easy to read but as with displays using E-Ink technology, refresh rate is slow, so don’t expect to be able to watch videos with the secondary display.
In any case, Yota is not a recognised brand outside of Europe but the company is planning to expand and will be launching in Malaysia this week. It’ll be interesting to see how Yota will fair against the more established makes as well as the hyper-competitive Chinese brands as well.
We will be at the Yota launch event to give you the latest on prices and availability so stay tuned to get the latest.