YotaPhone 2

“We approached the YotaPhone 2 as the niche device we thought it was. By the time we reached the end of this review, we were ready to rethink. It's an odd-ball of a device by all means, but its second screen opens the door to a whole new world of possibilities.The YotaPhone 2 is closer to the current crop of flagships than to the midrange market segment. The overall performance is Nexus 5/Galaxy S5 grade or similar - fast, fluid and capable of handling pretty much everything.The 5 AMOLED is another great asset, with excellent pixel density, great contrast, solid color reproduction and good sunlight legibility. The 8MP rear cam turned out really nice, while the vanilla Android KitKat runs smooth as silk. YotaPhone 2 is supposed to get Lollipop sooner rather than later. We are certainly starting to like how Yota goes about its business.The rear e-Ink display turned out not as sharp as other conventional e-reader screens. But it does offer the hassle-free and eye-soothing reading experience right out of your pocket. Plus, it indeed makes the YotaPhone 2 look fresh and new every day, with those awesome wallpapers that look like printed on the curved Gorilla Glass 3 over at the back.And there is more. The rear widgets and apps let you access the phone's basic features: calls, messages, and email with the main screen off, which means lower battery consumption. There are games and apps that look darn good on the e-paper screen. And you can even run the Android homescreen on it, if you want.Honestly, there isn't a single YotaPhone 2 feature that didn't strike our fancy. The lack of a 4K video recording or microSD slot is certainly not something to fuss over.”

“The YotaPhone 2 is the only smartphone in the market that features a second e-paper display. That largely prevents any usage restrictions even on sunny summer days, and always ensures good legibility. However, the EP display does not make an absolutely sophisticated impression. Although it has been improved considerably compared with the precursor, the displayed content could be sharper. Besides that, we would wish for a backlight that can be enabled optionally.Otherwise, Yota Devices delivers a good total package with its handheld. The battery life is very good, the build is great, and decent cameras have found their way into the device. Furthermore, the smartphone can boast with low specific absorption rates.Despite that, we miss the option of expanding the storage and, in view of the high price, a stronger processor as well as speedier LTE. It is too bad that the maker did not manage to properly control the CPU's waste heat, and the speaker remains to be an area needing improvement.”

“To be honest, the YotaPhone 2 is a good device but I can’t help but think that it would be nothing without the e-ink panel. The phone itself is basic and doesn’t offer anything new or relatively interesting. So, you may find yourself using the e-ink display on the back and will be quite happy with what this technology can offer, but the rest of the phone needs to be just as good, if not better, so that both feature-sets can provide an attractive package.The e-ink display works well and with the 16 levels of greyscale, static pictures and texts, look great. It’s just awesome having a screen that is always on and uses very little battery. That said, the software controlling all of this is more restrictive that I initially thought. Small touches as being able to remove the standard 4 icons on the Yotacover would be a start. The potential here is rather large and I hope the SDK gets utilized as more apps and customization would help greatly.The phone has some noticeable bugs, too. It’s not as intuitive as it should be. The refresh rate and latency was never really going to work when using it like a normal phone – it requires a different form of usage. That and the previous niggles I mentioned earlier, I hope, will be solved by future software updates from Yota.But hey, at the end of the day, it’s all down to just what you’re looking for and if these features excite you, and you can live with some of the idiosyncrasies, then you’ll really enjoy the Yotaphone 2. We just find it rather hard to recommend at its current price point.”

“The YotaPhone 2 seems uniquely suited to a very specific customer: the tech-savvy reader who only wants to tote around one device every day. It can replace a Kindle. The e-paper screen acts as an ebook reader and something of a smartwatch, thanks to the notifications and clock displayed on the always-on screen.|”