We always look up to the fastest processors and highest resolution displays with every new smartphone, and with that we tend to miss out some great ideas that can be implemented on smartphones other than specs sheet. The Yotaphone is here to change that perception, it doesn’t have the most powerful hardware, but its dual screen design concept is the thing that makes smartphones look interesting once again.
Yotaphone Unboxing & First Look Video
First Impressions
The Yotaphone is one of the most interesting Android smartphones after so many years, the phone doesn’t have a body but rather a thick and comfortable contour form factor that makes it feel good on hand. The Yotaphone is no metal phone but it employs a soft and smooth plastic material, some users might feel the phone slippery so make sure you hold it properly.
The phone’s hardware power isn’t going to blow you away and you shouldn’t expect too much as the phone got released last year, it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.7GHz Dual Core processor with 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory with no MicroSD expansion, dual 4.3-inch IPS HD (1280 x 720) with Corning Gorilla Glass and electronic paper (640 x 360) display, a 13 Megpaixel auto focus main camera and a front facing 1 Megapixel camera, an 1800mAh battery. The Yotaphone supports LTE Cat 3, WiFi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 LE.
The first thing you’ll notice is that there are no physical or capacitive buttons on the phone, it basically operates with a touch zone area which the user will interact with the phone using swipe gestures, it really is a unique experience and we actually fell in love after getting the hang of it. One benefit here is that you won’t accidentally press on the menu buttons when you are using the phone in landscape, which usually happens on phones with capacitive buttons and doing stuffs such as gaming.
Having two displays employed on a single block of hardware is an impressive piece of tech, the IPS display demonstrated great brightness and can be seen properly under strong sunlight while the electronic paper display a.k.a E-Ink display shows you information as clear as a paper. In our first impressions, the E-Ink display looks more like a back cover, printed sticker or whatever you call it, you will be left in awe when you realize that it is actually a screen – it feels magical.
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ships with the Yotaphone and there are no updates to the phone, so don’t even think of getting Android Lollipop in the near future. However, you will be happy to know that Yota hasn’t included a lot of bloat and has kept the user interface stock, therefore performance on the Yotaphone isn’t an issue on our first impressions.
Camera Samples
The phone’s main camera is located at the lower left on the back, we aren’t satisfied with it as our hand blocks the camera’s way when we are taking a portrait shot. While imaging performance isn’t the best out there, the camera still performs reasonably well and we love it, check out the samples down below.
