14 DAY TRIAL // Starting today, mobile phone users in the UK can purchase a new Android-based smartphone in their country, in the form of YotaPhone from Yota Devices.
The handset was made official last year with two 4.3-inch screens, namely an LCD one on the front and an e-paper display on the back, and it has already arrived in various markets out there.
Today, it was released in the UK as well, with a £419 ($695/€499) price tag attached to it, available exclusively through Yota Devices' website.
The company is selling the new mobile phone SIM-free and unlocked, which means that users will be able to enjoy its capabilities on the network of any wireless carrier in the country.
YotaPhone might not be the sharpest tool in the box, despite its high price tag, but it does arrive on shelves with a series of features that other smartphones out there do not have.
The most important of them is the e-ink screen on the back, which is always on, and which allows users to see updates, read news, and the like, all without consuming battery.
The company is touting this display as capable of offering 7 to 10 times more usage time when compared to the main display.
"The typical user picks up and activates their smartphone more than 150 times a day," Vlad Martynov, CEO of Yota Devices, said, a recent article on pocket-lint reads.
"Why? Because users worry that messages or information they need or want are hidden behind their phone’s black screen. This is a huge distraction and can impede meaningful interaction with our friends, families and colleagues."
The smartphone also comes with a 1.7GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor inside, as well as with 2GB of RAM, which should deliver pretty decent performance levels to all users.
On the downside, the e-ink screen cannot be used as the main display, which means that users won’t be able to run Android apps on it. However, developers can build software that would take advantage of this screen, and Yota Devices has made available an SDK for that.
One thing that users might also want to know is that the company came to the Mobile World Congress last month with a second-generation YotaPhone in its pocket and that it plans on making it available in the fourth quarter of the year.
The new handset will sport higher hardware specifications inside, along with a brand new design, which includes more rounded corners and edges, just as can be seen in the photo below.
