YotaPhone dual-screen smartphone 'to launch before Christmas'

YotaPhone, the dual-screen mobile device that made a splash at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, will reportedly launch internationally before Christmas.

The YotaPhone has an 4.3-inch HD LCD display on the front and an e-ink display on the back. The idea is that you can use the colour LCD display like a normal Android phone, and receive notifications, read news or send maps to the rear e-paper display to save battery.
The YotaPhone is made by Russian smartphone manufacturer Yota, which also provides mobile broadband services in the country. The YotaPhone won the CNET Best of CES Award for 'Hottest Mobile Device' at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show.
At the time, the device featured 4G LTE, Android 4.1, a 4.3-inch 1280p HD display, a 12-megapixel camera, and a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus (MSM8960) chip. However, it is likely that at least some of these specs will be updated ahead of the launch, which TechCrunch reports will be before Christmas.
The YotaPhone is not the first dual-screen smartphone – earlier this year Samsung launched ‘the Hennessy’, a dual-screen flip phone with a touch-screen on both the outer and inner surfaces. However, it is the first to combine an LCD screen with an e-ink display.
Yota Devices chief executive Vlad Martynov claims that the YotaPhone represents "a whole new archetype in smartphones". As well as saving battery, the e-ink display also provides a more comfortable reading experience and lets users view notifications without having to activate their phone.
Reports in the Russian press suggest that the YotaPhone will ship with a price tag of 20,000 rubles (roughly £380), but the company has so far made no announcements on pricing.

 Product 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, special YotaPhone gestures and Put2Back applications for the back screen


Source : The Telegraph