Yota Devices Plans To Release A Dual-Screen Smartphone Next Year

Today's smartphones have pixel-packed screens ideal for watching movies and playing games. But with their battery consumption, they are no match for E Ink displays when it comes to reading ebooks on your phone. You can't have the best of both worlds — but this might change next year: A Russian company, Yota Devices, is readying a dual-screen smartphone. It has an LCD on the front and an E Ink display at the back.

According to Engadget.com, the company has developed a functional prototype. Called the YotaPhone, it's powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset, and has a 12 mp camera. Some reports say it will run Android 4.2. Here are some detailed specs of the YotaPhone:

• Front 4.3" LCD screen with 720x1280 pixels.
• 4.3" 200 dpi E Ink rear display.
• Gorilla Glass protection on both sides.
• 12 mp main snapper, 720p front camera.
• Dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 2 GB of RAM.
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC.
• 32 GB of internal storage, No MicroSD card slot.
• 2100 mAh battery.
• LTE support.

The E Ink display will not only be useful for reading books, it will also be utilised for displaying notifications. With this, Yota Devices claims to improve battery performance by around 50%. The YotaPhone is scheduled to launch in Russia in the second half of 2013. There's no information yet regarding pricing and global availability