Sprint promised to introduce a cell phone which will be the first of its type in the market and it surely kept the promise by launching the phone named Echo by Kyocera. Itâs the first dual-screen Android phone in the market. The striking feature of this cell phone is that both the screens can be used as one for various tasks like web browsing, playing games etc. The screen can be folded and be used as a normal phone or folded to be used as a laptop. Kyocera has filed various patents for this new technology being introduced in this cell phone.
Features:
1. The phone is powered with the latest Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread update which includes pinch to zoom in Browser, Gallery and Maps.
2. It has 1 GHz Snapdragon processor ensuring smooth working of the phone.
3. The phone comes with a eco mode which conserves battery power when the battery on the device is running low. Eco mode when selected manually changes various settings of the phone like lowering the screen brightness to save energy.
4. The cell phone has Dual-3.5” WVGA Touchscreen which together make it a 4.7” display.
5. 5MP camera with flash and auto-focus capable of recording 720p videos with built-in camcorder.
6. WiFi, WiFi hot spot, Bluetooth v2.1 with EDR
7. 3G enabled
8. Micro SD memory card slot (extendable upto 32GB)
9. Various Google enabled applications like GMail, Google Maps, GTalk, YouTube, etc.
10. 1370 mAh Lithium ion battery which gives a talktime backup of 7 hours.
High Points:
1. The dual screen that the phone has is a great advantage. The feature of using both the screens as one is what makes it unique. You can watch YouTube videos on one screen while the second screen shows the current playlist. This makes efficient utilization of the screen. Sprint calls it as Tablet Mode.
2. One more feature which makes this phone to look out for is you can run two apps simultaneously on two different displays. GHz snapdragon processor gives the device the strong base to run number of applications and 1GB of internal memory ensures that the device works smoothly without slowing down.
3. There is not much talk about the battery provided but Echo comes with a extra battery and charging case which will make sure you will never run outta current.
Low Points:
1. The mobile phone not being a 4G phone is a big let down because Sprint has been advertising its much hyped 4G WiMax network, so the phone should have been 4G enabled.
2. A dual-core processor would have been perfect to go with this kinda high range phone but still a GHz processor does the work.
3. One quite odd limitation which we saw in the phone was that even though we have two optimized applications running on both the screens, we canât use them simultaneously i.e., you canât write a document while watching a video on the other screen.
4. One more let down is that there is no front facing camera in the phone and it only has a 5 megapixel rear camera.
Price:
The phone is first of its kind in the Android range of phones and with some very unique features itâs surely an eye catcher. The launch price has been known to be $199 (after $100 rebate). Even though itâs not the best Android phone but still it will create hype for it among mobile users when it is launched.
