The Yotaphone first caught our attention last year, with its seemingly crazy combination of 4.3-inch front-mounted LCD and 4.3-inch E Ink display around the back. At Mobile World Congress 2014, the Russian team from Yota Devices is back, with a redesigned and reinvigorated Yotaphone boasting larger displays and some seriously powerful hardware.
The new Yotaphone 2 has a 5-inch, 1080p AMOLED panel as its primary screen, and the electronic paper display on the back has been bumped up to 4.7 inches with an appreciably higher 960×540 pixel resolution. Processing comes courtesy of a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and 2GB of memory; 32GB of onboard storage makes for plenty of media storage. LTE support and 802.11ac Wi-Fi means the Yotaphone 2 should be speedy over wireless networks, and a 2550mAh battery should provide enough capacity for all-day usage, especially if you’re using the e-paper display in preference to the LCD.
If you use your phone for a lot of reading, an E Ink display makes a lot of sense; they have significantly lower power consumption than LCDs, as well as reduced eye strain. It’s really a smarter choice to go for one or the other, though — the increase in production cost doesn’t seem worth the effort to us. We definitely applaud the Yotaphone team for their continued innovation, though — and we’re keen to test the Yotaphone 2 as soon as possible.