How do you make a smartphone smarter? The answer, according to Russian developer Yota Devices, is to give it a second screen.
One face of the YotaPhone is an an LCD touch-screen, appearing much like every other Android smartphone you've jabbed with your thumbs. Flip the phone over and you find its party piece - an always-on electric-paper display.
The advantage of the low-energy electric-paper screen is that information can be displayed at all times without putting a burden on the phone's battery. Tweets, emails, messages, maps and photos can be displayed in grayscale (like a Kindle), only using energy when the screen changes the information it's displaying. This will also allow the phone to keep displaying the last piece of information once the battery has died - useful if you're needing to remember what time the last bus home is.
There's no word on how long the YotaPhone's battery can last, but we're expecting seriously impressive numbers. YotaDevices face a tough task of competing with the likes of Apple and Samsung, but we admire them for producing a smartphone that's actually different - not just a little bit shiner or covered in gold.
Launching in Russia, Austria, France, Germany and Spain this year, we won't be able to put it through its paces until it arrives in the UK in 2014.
(Images: Yota Devices)
