Dual-screen Yota3 is official with a sharper E Ink screen

Posted on 20/09/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

Well, the wait is finally over. After a teaser back in June, the third-gen dual-screen YotaPhone -- now simply dubbed Yota3 -- was unveiled in China yesterday. Pretty much all the main specs are identical to the leak Engadget received earlier, but th...

‘YotaPhone 3’ isn’t the dual-screen powerhouse you were expecting

Posted on 18/06/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

If you're one of the few people who are still waiting for the next dual-screen YotaPhone, listen up: we finally have an update for you. During Harbin's China-Russia Expo over the weekend, Baoli Yota -- the joint venture formed by investor Baoli (form...

Yota aims for mass-market success after buyout

Posted on 23/10/2015 by Aaron Souppouris

It's fair to say that the global launch of Yota Device's last E-Ink smartphone didn't quite go to plan. Despite positive reviews and a successful crowdfunding campaign, the Russian startup was forced to scale back its US plans significantly followi...

Yotaphone 2 Makes a Case for Dual Screen Smartphones

Posted on 04/03/2014 by Stephen Colbert

For some people, one smartphone screen just isn’t enough. Yotaphone put an E-Ink display on the back of their phone and it was at Mobile World Congress.

One issue at the forefront of Smartphone design—both software and physical—is notification presentation and management. The Yotaphone 2 had its debut at CES and continues to push a niche handset in a direction that many mainstream phones might want to find a way to emulate.

Notification LEDs are older than smartphones, as are second screens. Both were initially ways to make important notifications easier to access, but neither translated well to smartphones. Obviously most smartphones have notification LEDs, but with so many apps trying to get your attention, it makes a single blinking light pretty inadequate at communicating anything other than “turn on the screen,” which—let’s be honest—is something we all do every 30 seconds anyway.

The problem is, anything more drastic than a blinking LED is a major battery drain. Samsung and Motorola have both made huge jumps forward on this front with the creative use of their AMOLED displays, which allow them to light up individual pixels without the need of a full backlight, allowing for minimal screen usage to deliver live (and specific) notifications without a need for the phone to even be touched.

Yotaphone goes the extra mile and makes the entire backside of their Android phone an E-Ink display. This allows for the presentation of full text messages and other notifications without even putting as much strain on the battery as Motorola’s Active Display notifications.

The Yotaphone itself doesn’t offer much as the handset is not very impressive outside of this individual feature, but it does serve as an amazing proof of concept phone. The use of an E-Ink display to show not just text message and social media notifications, but live stock quotes, weather, and a plethora of other bits of data that many people will check multiple times an hour will go a long way towards improving multi-tasking and saving battery life simultaneously.

Maybe Yotaphone will evolve to this place on its own, or maybe it will take another company to come along and innovate on their concept, but Yotaphone has proven that there are still more ideas to be explored in mobile tech.

Source: TechAdvisor

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter

The YotaPhone Has Two Screens And That’s A Good Thing

Posted on 25/02/2014 by David Ponce

yotaphone2-lead

Of course, the screens are not identical, that would be stupid. Instead, the YotaPhone allegedly will have a regular 5-inch, 1080p, AMOLED screen on the one side, and a low power 4.7 inch e-ink display on the other. The idea is that you can use the e-ink side for things that don’t really require a bright colourful display, like reading emails or texts. This will help with battery life, while flipping the phone to the other side will let you use it normally, with a proper refresh rate and colours and all. On the inside you have a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor running Android and while we don’t have other prospective specs, the essential feature here really is the dual screen. The company is planning to release an open SDK so that other developers may build applications like e-book readers, and if all goes well the device should sell for around $675.

VIA [ Engadget ]

YotaPhone inks manufacturing deal, plans to launch in the second half of 2013

Posted on 20/02/2013 by Daniel Cooper

Did you think that Russia's YotaPhone was consigned to the island of misfit concept devices? The company has just inked a production deal with Singapore-based OEM Hi-P international, with YotaPhone planning to launch the handset globally in the second half of 2013. While Hi-P isn't a name you should be familiar with, a cursory search reveals that it's previously produced hardware for Apple, ~~RIM~~ BlackBerry and, most notably, Amazon's E-Reader division. At the same time, the Russian business is opening up an R&D center in Singapore to help research "subsequent generations of YotaPhone," so it looks like Janus devices could be here to stay.

Show full PR text

YOTA DEVICES SELECTS SINGAPORE Hi-P AS ODM PARTNER

YotaPhone to be Ready for Market in H2 2013

Moscow, Russia and Singapore, 20 February 2013 - Yota Devices today announced it has selected Singapore Hi-P as its ODM partner for YotaPhone, the first dual-screen Android phone with a liquid crystal display on one side and an electronic paper display on the other.

Hi-P is one of the fastest growing Tier 1 contract manufacturers in Asia, specializing in wireless telecommunications and consumer electronics. Their clients include significant brand owners in the mobile, lifestyle and consumer electronics industries.

"Bringing a unique product like YotaPhone to the market requires an experienced manufacturing partner with both qualitative and quantitative engineering skills and Hi-P excels in both,"said Vlad Martynov, CEO, Yota Devices. "Hi-P has a proven track-record in high volume production of mobile devices with sophisticated design and advanced technology."

Yota Devices also announced that it is establishing an R&D and Asian sales office in Singapore. The Singapore R&D center, along with the company's development teams in Russia, the U.S. and Finland, will work with Hi-P to perfect the technology in production of the first and subsequent generations of YotaPhone.

"YotaPhone is a real differentiator in the smartphone space, and Hi-P is pleased to be workingwith Yota Devices to bring this one-of-a-kind product to market," said C.T. Yao, Executive Chairman and CEO of Hi-P. "Hi-P understands that speed and flexibility are keys to success in this rapidly changing market and we are committed to deliver on-time results of the highestquality for Yota Devices."

YotaPhone, which was unveiled in December 2012, is expected to be ready for sale first in
Russia and then globally in the second half of 2013.

###

About Yota Devices.

Yota Devices is a private company dedicated to mobile communications and connectivity
devices based in Moscow, Russia. Yota Devices' international team of software and hardware
engineers and experts come from Russia, the U.S. and Finland. The company's business
philosophy is based first on innovating the user experience and then on applying the best

emerging technologies to deliver on this promise. Yota Devices is bringing the company's
knowledge and obsession with the user experience to the new YotaPhone based on the
company's successful connectivity devices business. Yota Devices has already sold more
than 3 million fast, reliable and attractive modems, routers and other connectivity devices.
The company's share of the LTE modems market is 6%. For more information visit http://
www.yotadevices.com and www.yotaphone.com.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

YotaPhone Android prototype with dual LCD and E Ink displays hands-on (video)

Posted on 13/12/2012 by Sharif Sakr

Yesterday we brought you the announcement, and today we bring you the hands-on reality -- although bear in mind that this dual-screen YotaPhone is still very much a prototype. It certainly works -- pretty well, in fact -- but it's understandably rough around the edges and Yota Devices have plenty of work to do before the handset launches towards the end of next year. By way of a quick refresher: from the front this is a regular Android Jelly Bean phone with decent specs, including a 720 x 1,280 LCD display, dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 12-megapixel main camera. Turn it around, however, and you reveal its double identity: a 200 dpi E Ink display which can hold a range of information -- calendar appointments, ebooks, tweets and whatever else you'd like -- without draining the battery. The good new is that the YotaPhone actually makes an even better first impression than we'd hoped, while the bad news is merely what's to be expected given the early stage of development. Click past the break for our hands-on video and impressions and all will become clear.

Gallery: YotaPhone prototype hands-on

Continue reading YotaPhone Android prototype with dual LCD and E Ink displays hands-on (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Russian YotaPhone promises dual 4.3-inch LCD and E Ink displays in Q3 of next year

Posted on 12/12/2012 by Sharif Sakr

Cast your mind back to IFA and you might just recall the appearance of a dual-screen mash-up device with no proper branding or launch date. Well, it so happens we've been in touch with the mystery phone's maker, Yota Devices -- a spin-off from the more established Russian telecoms company of the same name -- and we're assured that this is much more than a whimsical concept. The Android-based handset has now reached fully working prototype stage and bears a Gorilla Glass 4.3-inch 720 x 1,280 LCD display on the front, a 200dpi E Ink rear display of the same size and toughness, and a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor with 2GB of RAM and at least 32GB of non-expandable storage. There's even LTE, a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 720p front-facer to round things off, all housed in a 140 gram body that is less than 10mm thick. If things go to plan, the YotaPhone should arrive on Russian networks in Q3 of next year for an untold sum of money, and Yota says it's "in talks" with certain US and European carriers too. Read on for more.

Gallery: YotaPhone publicity shots