Yota Devices, the Russian handset maker company, has unveiled YotaPhone 2, the second generation e-ink display equipped dual-screen smartphone, at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.
As compared to the first phone, which was launched last December in Russia and select European markets (Austria, France, Spain and Germany) costing around €499/$684, the new flagship device will come with fully touch sensitive e-ink display on the rear allowing for easier control and extra functionality.
The new YotaPhone’s electronic paper display (EPD) has been upgraded to 4.7-inches on back with a 960 x 540p resolution versus the 4.3-inches of the original with 640 x 360p resolution. Sportscaster, Fitness Tracker and Mutliple Personas are some of the dedicated apps for the EPD display.
CEO of Yota Devices, Vlad Martynov, said: “A full touch second display opens a tremendous number of unique user cases for YotaPhone users. You can look and not just get information from the second display, but can interect [with it]. You can respond to email or SMS messages; you can do a lot of things”.
“You don’t need to activate the phone and make a few clicks to get your data, but if you want to immediately respond you can do that with one touch [directly from the rear display].”
The new YotaPhone will be powered by Android 4.4 KitKat, 5-inch 1080p AMOLED display framing as compared to the previous version which sported a 4.3-inch screen and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
The updated YotaPhone will be powered by a quad-core 2.3 GHz Qualcomm processor and will feature an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel front-facing snapper for stills or video calling, wireless charging, NFC, 4G LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.
Additionally, the device will also have a Smart Power Mode allowing users to switch off the front display entirely and just use the back display to perform basic call making and text sending functions.
Yota Devices has announced it is planning to launch the next-gen device in around 20 markets in EMEA by the end of 2014, but hasn’t detailed the pricing yet.
