Yota Devices has announced that it’s third smartphone will be available in the first quarter of 2016, and the company is partnering with Chinese device maker ZTE to build the phone.
Yota is a Russian company that’s made a bit of a splash by selling phones with dual screens: a color display on one side of the phone and a greyscale E Ink screen on the other.
The company hasn’t provided any details about the upcoming Yotaphone 3 yet, but in an announcement, Yota says production costs should be about 30 percent lower than for earlier models, thanks to the partnership with ZTE.
Hopefully that means the retail price for the Yotaphone 2 will be lower than the price for the Yotaphone 2, which sells for about €599 in Europe. The company had hoped to sell the dual-screen phone in the US for about $600, but Yota canceled the crowdfunding campaign for a US version of the phone.
The international version of the Yotaphone 2 will work with AT&T or T-Mobile in the United States, but it won’t support 4G LTE speeds on either network.
Part of the reason Yota canceled its crowdfunding campaign was because production delays meant a US version of the Yotaphone 2 might not be able to ship before the Yotaphone 3 was launched… so it’s likely that the company does have plans to sell its third-generation phone in the US.
via Juggly
I wonder if this would he possible with Google project Ara, you could swap your led screen for an E ink one.
If it ever comes out to the public, hopefully it will be out middle of next year?
Isn’t the refresh rate on e-ink too slow to be use as the primary screen.
Depends on what your ‘primary’ use is. If you want to make calls, send emails, texts or other communications, it’s perfectly doable. Especially if you want to do those things for longer. But the reason for wondering if you can swap screens is so you can do other stuff, tv, games, whatever on an LCD.
A better solution to swapping might be a single screen module with a sort of clamshell and slide hinge that had eink on one side and lcd on the other. It’d be more handy. Though with the market pilot originally scheduled for this summer pushed to next year and an endo redesign, I wouldn’t lay odds on a public release next summer.
The possibilities are endless with Ara.
I wonder how long battery would last using only E ink screen.
Ara is so versatile.
You could use it as a dumb phone and just for calling and texting or you can make it into a flagship smartphone.
Or use it as a medical device to take blood sugar or….
As I said possibilities are endless!
So I guess it will be a test run next year?