Sprint's event from yesterday promised an "industry first." Well, they didn't disappoint with the Kyocera Echo, a new Android smartphone packing dual touchscreen displays for simultaneously using two apps at the same time.
Multi-tasking on Android is a much-lauded feature. The fact that you'll have to hide one screen to use another, however, makes it just a little less functional compared to PC multi-tasking. That changes now (well, somewhat).
The Kyocera Echo has a clamshell form factor that hides two 3.5-inch screens (480 x 800 resolution) under the lid. When unhinged, you can use the dual screens for separate apps or as a single 4.7-inch 960 x 800 surface. As a single screen, it literally splits up the display in two halves, which shouldn’t be an issue for most apps, but could be a headache for watching videos. The two-screen "Simul-Task Mode," on the other hand, is only available for the seven core features, namely messaging, e-mail, web browsing, phone, gallery, contacts and VueQue (a custom YouTube app with a split screen -- videos on top and a queue at the bottom).
Other details of the phone include a 5.0 megapixel camera (with 720p video recording), a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, stereo Bluetooth, 3G with HSPA, WiFi (with mobile hotspot capability), 1GB of onboard storage and microSD card expansion (8GB preloaded). Aside from the built-in battery, they threw in a spare 1,370 mAh, which hints how much of a power hog they expect this two-screen smartphone to be. It comes with Android 2.2 preloaded.
Sprint will release the Kyocera Echo this spring, priced at $199.99 on a two-year agreement.
[via Dvice]
