Presentation of YOTA Phone 2

Introducing the unique Smartphone with 2 screens.
An Amoled screen on the front of the device, and an e-ink screen on the back.So let's start from the beginning ..

Yota 2 came to us through DHL in 3 days from the order, very satisfactory time,
but be careful as if it comes from a warehouse in China (Asia) and not from a European warehouse, then it is certain that you will also have customs clearance costs. Its packaging is very good, in an imposing black color, and very good - quality materials, giving from the first moment, a Premium look.
The packaging is very careful, and in various parts of it, you will find beautifully packaged everything that comes with your device.

 

So in the package, except of course the YOTA 2 itself, we will find the following…

 

1 pair of black headphones with flat cable and many spare earbuds, so you can find exactly what suits your ear.
1 extractor for the Sim Card tray
1 power supply for your device with the necessary European power adapter
1 flat black USB cable
1 liter manual

So we can say that the package is complete, as in it you will also find the headphones for your device.

But let's leave the packaging, and let's move on…

The first YotaPhone caused a stir with its radical design and dual screen. Well, the Russian company presented the YOTA 2, which improves several features from the first device. The YotaPhone 2, if you look at it from the front, looks like a simple and cheap SmartPhone like many others on the market today.
But when you turn it from the back, then we immediately understand that we are dealing with a special device, which is still unique in its kind.
The rear e-ink screen is covered by a 3D curved matte finish with Gorilla glass, and is stunning giving a truly unique premium feel.
Not only does it provide the necessary grip for proper grip of the device, but also, due to the mat finish, it does not fill with fingerprints. 

Given that the device has two screens, it is very impressive that the device is still equally slim and light. It is exactly 8,9 mm thick and weighs just 145 grams.
It is similar in size to the Google Nexus 5.

Overall the design is quite simplistic. I like her fleeting, minimalist look.
Of course the device is not waterproof.

On the front is a pretty good quality 5 ″ AMOLED screen, with Full HD resolution. On the back of the device, you will find the qHD 4.7 ″ (540 x 960) e-ink screen.

 

This second screen is not just for reading e-books. This screen can display your alerts, messages and other important information.
In fact, you can do whatever you want at the back of the screen, but of course it is not suitable for everything.
The e-ink screen is full touch, and of course you can unlock it just like you would with a regular front screen.
YotaPhone 2 recognizes how you hold the device, so it will not unlock the wrong screen.

With the device YotaHub software, you can manage how you use the rear screen.
The screen displays a lockscreen with whatever wallpaper you choose, and has a collection of beautiful images to choose from, as well as four Shortcuts icons in phone applications such as messages, emails, and notifications.

There is a default setting for the displayed wallpapers, but you can customize them completely. change the layout, and select a large number of widgets that you want to display, including calendars, clocks, weather, music playback control, RSS feeds, and more.

Once you have completed the rear screen setup, you are sure to make much less use of the main AMOLED screen, and of course this will lead to longer battery life, which is one of the biggest drawbacks of all modern smartphones. Since the e-ink screen is always active, but only consumes power when the image changes, the phone can last much longer in standby.

This all sounds amazing, but there are some drawbacks to the e-ink screen.

Its response is justifiably much worse than a normal AMOLED display. Touch unlock is very difficult and the page refreshes quite slowly because the refresh rate of the screen is very slow.
While there are plenty of features available, there are a number of things you will not want to do at the back of the screen. You can, in theory, respond to a message, but typing on this screen is frustratingly slow. Although you can use the dialer to make calls, you can not access the full list of your contacts and you will have to flip the phone to use the normal front screen.

Using the e-ink screen for reading is an obvious advantage, but be prepared to experience screen ghosting - and in fact, it is the worst ghosting we have seen on any e-ink screen.
Scrolling from page to page you will find that the Lag is too big.

YOTA Mirror is a feature that allows you to reflect everything you do on the main AMOLED screen, on the back. When you want to move a screen from the front to the back screen.
This sounds like a lot of fun, but do not forget that the use will be laggy compared to the normal screen.
You will not be able to watch videos or play any intense action games at the back of the screen. In YOTA 2 there are some pre-installed games that can be easily played on the e-ink screen, such as chess, checkers, sodoku and 2048.

So, there are pros and cons to dual screen, but let's go back to battery life.
One of the main reasons an e-ink screen has a device is to save energy, and you may know that eReaders last for weeks or even months when it comes to battery life.

It is impossible to say how many extra hours or days the autonomy of the device lasts by using only the e-ink screen, because it depends on how you use your smartphone.
If you watch a lot of videos or play games, then you probably will not make much difference, as you will need to use the AMOLED screen. However, if you read a lot of eBooks and use the e-ink screen to check notifications and see basic information like time and weather, then battery life will actually be much longer.

Energy Saving in YOTA 2 is not only done using the rear screen, but there is one widget which appreciates the time left, and has a toggle switch that can be customized to your needs.

With the 2500 mAh battery that the device has, we will have a full day of use as autonomy if you use only the front screen. However, if you make a lot of use of the e-ink screen, then according to the company, you can have up to 4 days of autonomy with a single charge.

Do not forget that you can charge the YotaPhone 2 easily because it supports wireless charging. Other features supported by the device include 11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, NFC and support for 4G LTE networks.

The device of course is not the best in performance as it wears a snapdragon 801 chipset at 2.3GHz Quad-Core CPU, with Andreno 330 GPU and 2GB RAM.

  

The device has 32GB of internal storage and does not support microSD to expand the space, so things are quite limited in this area.
Although the back of the phone has its own screen, the YOTA 2 has managed to fit an 8 MP camera with LED flash, while on the front we have a 2MP camera for Selfies and Video Chat. The rear camera takes decent photos and supports HDR, however it takes pictures in 4: 3 format and that's a problem… Although it is a pretty good camera, do not expect much from its performance as surely other Smartphones have much better performance in this area.

 

 

YOTA 2 comes with Android 4.4 Kitkat with a completely Vanilla version, and will someday get an upgrade to Android 5.0 Lollipop (we have not found any upgrade yet).

The company has added its own software, which are related to the second screen,
but it's definitely frustrating not to have an upgrade to Android 5.0 at least available so far.

There are several things that we like about YotaPhone 2 and we applaud the company that has presented something different.
The design is great and if you want a dual screen smartphone, then this is the one for you. Despite the fact that the rear screen works quite well and there is a possibility for long battery life,
but there are some discounts. We are mainly frustrated by her slow nature, and awful ghosting.Thanks again to GearBest for providing the device.

Price: € 108.67

Purchase the device HERE