HD front screen, e-ink rear screen lets you read books without straining the battery, decent camera, powerful processor
Some ghosting issues on e-ink screen, no expandable memory, not cheap
The original YotaPhone hit on an intriguing idea with its e-ink screen added to the rear of a midrange smartphone, and now we've got the new and improved YotaPhone 2. It's still a good idea, but is it worth the inflated asking price?
This is the Russian firm's second tilt at the dual screen thing.
The last one suffered from a general lack of quality and supporting software but this one has seen quite a few changes and it's ready to give it another go.
Screen & Chassis At first glance it's standard smartphone fare, with nicely curved edges and Gorilla Glass covering the whole of the front. The 5in full HD AMOLED screen delivers a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (442ppi) and looks terrific, with bright, vivid colours and sharpness where you need it.
But its the back screen that sets it apart. The 4.7in e-ink display offers a resolution of 960x540 pixels (235ppi), which isn't bad at all, and gives you a choice of lock screens showing various alerts and updates (time, battery level, messages, weather and more) in a variety of configurations, as well as a rendering of your home screen.
All well and good if you have trouble turning your phone over, but more usefully, it gives you the opportunity to read e-books without putting the strain on your battery that would normally result from using your hi-res colour screen. There's no backlighting (which helps with the battery) but text appears clear and legible and you can adjust the text size as well as marking your place, just like a standard e-book. You can use it with Kindle, Kobo or Google Books, so it's easy to make it your standard reader, or use it as a more easily portable addition to your full-size e-reader. You can also take a snapshot of the screen and display it on the back -- and this will keep displaying even after your battery runs down.
Unfortunately though, there's some ghosting where you can see the faint outline of other text around what you're actually trying to read. It's not prominent enough to get in the way, but it is irritating. And while there's a grippy strip of rubberised plastic around the sides, the slick feel of the fibre-reinforced plastic rear screen takes a little getting used to, and we often found the phone slipping uncomfortably in our hand as we tried to use the front screen.
Software & Processor The quad-core processor is clocked at 2.2GHz and backed by 2GB RAM, which looks pretty good on paper. But while it's certainly not slow, it lacks the whizz of some equivalently specced devices and occasionally takes its time when switching between apps. The e-ink screen doesn't appear to react any quicker than standard devices either, so is considerably slower than the front screen.
Photography
The 8-megapixel camera comes with autofocus, LED flash and HDR but it's not blessed with many extras to play with. Despite this, photo quality proved to be pretty good, with a decent level of detail and realistic colours.
There's 32GB of memory on board and that's your lot, since there's no option to add more via microSD card.
In general use the battery put in a standard performance, delivering a bit over a day of regular use -- calling, texting, browsing and a bit of gaming. However, if you use it regularly as an e-reader, or get into the habit of using the rear screen for more functions (checking texts and emails, some quick browsing) you'll be able to stretch the battery life without compromising on your usage.
Conclusion The YotaPhone 2 is an intriguingly different offering, and one that's bound to have appeal. If you've already made the move to e-readers it can be frustrating to carry two devices wherever you go, and reading off your phone undoubtedly burns battery while also putting undue strain on your eyes. But the YotaPhone 2's price puts it a bit above its otherwise midrange specs, putting it in competition with serious high-end devices and limiting its appeal.
Price: £550
Software: Google Android 4.4.4 KitKat
Processor: Quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
Memory slot: Yes
Display: 5in AMOLED, 1920x1080 pixels; 4.7in greyscale electronic paper 960x540 pixels
Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports: microUSB, 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera: 8 megapixel with autofocus, LED flash; 2.1 megapixel front-facing camera
Video playback: H.263, H.264 AVCMPEG-4 SP, VP8
Audio playback: AAC LC, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced AAC+), AAC ELD, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, FLAC, MP3, MIDI, Vorbis, PCM/WAVE
Radio: Yes
Battery: 2500mAh
Size: 145x69x9mm
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
