It’s the sort of concept that seemed too adventurous to ever make it to market, but this dual-screened YotaPhone is now available. At least it is if you live in Russia, Germany, France, Austria or Spain.
The YotaPhone, priced at €499 ($750), runs Android and combines a standard 4.3-inch 720p LCD touchcreen up front with a 4.3-inch E-Ink screen around the back. A 1.7GHz dual-core processor, backed by 2GB of RAM, powers the handset.
The idea is that the low-powered E-Ink screen can be left on at all times, only updating when new notifications come in, allowing you to take a glance at incoming messages without chewing through power reserves. It will also be a fair bit more comfortable for lengthy reading sessions, while the fact that e-ink screens retain the last image pushed to them even when out of juice could be useful for when the handset’s battery does eventually completely conk out.
Sadly, it remains unclear when it will make it out of Europe, but we suspect it’s just a matter of time. [TechRadar]
Gizmodo UK is gobbling up the news in a different timezone — so check them out if you need another Giz fix.