
Anybody who answered ‘No’, is about to be stunned by what is
to come. To you, I say, have faith! For the noble YOTAPHONE has a successor.
Excalibur has been passed on and the dual-sided Android phone’s legacy
continues. The Yotaphone 2, in all its black and white glory (at least on one
side) has the ability to mirror your screen onto the rear panel on the back of
the device – making your battery last longer and preventing you from being
plugged into a wall all the time.
Hardware wise, the specs people will truly be looking at are
the lovely 4.5” AMOLED touchscreen display, which displayed the most beautiful
colours of any phone I’ve seen so far – including the Samsung Galaxy S5 with
its colour oriented filter. Being AMOLED, all the pixels of the display are
self-lighting, meaning that to display the colour black, the pixel can simply
not be turned on, allowing for a reduced power consumption. In fact, this
impressed me so much that I set my wallpaper as a black block of colour to
truly get the full effect.
The camera on the
back of the device is 8MP, which is the same as the iPhone 6 plus, however the
YOTAPHONE 2 does not have optical image stabilisation and uses a fairly stock
Android camera software, which can definitely be improved. The front-facing
sensor was an unimpressive and fairly dull piece of hardware, which is a
problem overcome by the most interesting piece of hardware – screen number 2.
The device has large bezels to the top and bottom of the
screen and average bezels either side, making the 4.5” display phone seem a lot
larger in the hand. The device features a nice curved body and feels good to
hold, even if the rear screen can occasionally be activated by your hand whilst
using the front panel.
Which brings me onto the rear-facing E-Ink display. At 4”
and displaying a full range of greyscale colours (from white to
kind-of-black-grey) very similar to E-Readers. This technology means that in
order to show an image, the device need not use any power. Unless the rear
screen display changes, the pixels do not use any power whatsoever and so save
you from charging the device all day. The YOTAPHONE 2 allows you to have a
customisable panel (Called YOTAPANEL) which has slots for different software
icons, for example, a row of notifications, or an analogue clock, or it allows
you to have a stationary image called YOTACOVER which is customisable from
their collection, all of which are free of charge. The rear side can also be
used as if it were the original display, showing you the same as the regular
screen should be, but without that screen being on at all – saving battery and
your eyes from eye-strain.
I must mention that reading with the YOTAPHONE 2’s rear
cover was a brilliant experience – perhaps it was a little too small for most
people’s tastes, but instead of carrying an E-Reader around as well as a phone,
I much preferred to read on the 4” display.
The second screen has a few really useful features as well.
Instead of having to use the front facing camera to take your selfies (if
that’s your thing) you can simply activate the camera on YOTAMIRROR and turn
the device around. This will allow you to see your photo in all 8 Megapixel
glory as you snap away – don’t worry, your photos will be in full colour when
you turn the device around again.
Unfortunately the E-ink side does not appear to be as high
quality as that of a Kindle, in that it suffers from some fairly severe
ghosting issues, meaning moving images were blurred and difficult to follow on
the rear side. However a Kindle doesn’t feature a stunning 4.5” full colour
AMOLED touchscreen as well as its E-Ink display.
Overall what you would be getting when buying this hardware
is an excellent Android phone, with no obvious shortcomings, and a nifty, if
not a little gimmicky, feature that is unique to this device. If you are
looking for a bit of innovation, read a lot or just want to be noticed wherever
you pull out your phone, look no further. However, for those who are on a
budget, perhaps this device is not for you. The YOTAPHONE 2 currently costs
£555 off contract and you’d be hard pushed to find it on contract at the moment
– plus with the release of Android 5.0 and no suggestion of a release date for
this device, perhaps waiting for 2015’s range of devices might be a good idea?
So what do you think? Are you going to be buying the YOTAPHONE 2? Is it an interesting idea? Let us know in the comments below!
So what do you think? Are you going to be buying the YOTAPHONE 2? Is it an interesting idea? Let us know in the comments below!
If you’re an innovator, or have fallen in love with the
device at first review, the Yotaphone can be purchased from Yotaphone directly
at www.yotaphone.com
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