No one can call this one an iPhone clone. Sprint Nextel just rolled out a new smartphone from Kyocera that sports two touchscreens.
Dubbed the Kyocera Echo, Sprint is boasting an exclusive on the Android-powered device with its two high-resolution 3.5-inch WVGA touchscreen displays and the patent-pending pivot hinge that lets them work independently, either side-by-side or combined to form an oversized 4.7-inch display.
“Today’s busy schedules often demand that we do at least two things at once,” said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. “Kyocera Echo is the first device that allows us to do a different task on each of two screens while also providing a tablet-like, larger screen experience that easily fits in a pocket when closed.”
A New Take on Multitasking
Sprint offered some practical examples of what consumers might do with the dual screens, such as sending e-mail on one screen while surfing the web on the other, or watching a video on one screen while texting on another. Consumers could even comparison shop online with one web site on each screen.
In its closed position, Kyocera Echo is a pocket-friendly, single-display smartphone. That’s important, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner.
“Kyocera clearly put a lot of thought into this. They designed it so it would fit in your pocket even with the two screens, otherwise it wouldn’t be much good as a phone,” Gartenberg said. “And there’s great visual differentiation. Clearly, there’s nothing like this on the market. So it’s going to stand out for Sprint.”
Gimmick or Useful?
The phone runs in three modes. In Simul-Task mode, consumers can use two of the phone’s seven core apps running concurrently but independently on the dual displays. Optimized mode lets both displays support a single, optimized app. And Tablet mode lets consumers spread one application across both displays.
The Echo offers customized apps…