The YotaPhone 2 - the second iteration of the smartphone with an epaper screen - goes on sale in the UK today. The device is one of the most innovative handsets on the market. On the front, it has a regular AMOLED display, and on the rear it has an always-on epaper screen showing notifications, a clock and other information.
The phone is designed to solve one of the biggest bugbears of modern life: the vanishing battery bar on smartphones. The epaper display requires only a fraction of the energy of the conventional AMOLED screen, meaning owners can check the time or their Twitter notifications without having to constantly switch the battery-sapping screen on and off. The company claims that, if used purely in "reader mode", the YotaPhone's battery will last five days.
Reader mode isn't entirely passive, either. That epaper screen can be used to reply to SMS messages , answer phone calls, accept calendar invitations or post to social networks, amongst other tasks.
Expert Reviews first saw the YotaPhone 2 back in February at Mobile World Congress , and we were very impressed with the revamped design of the handset. Our man on the ground, Tom Morgan, admired the pebble-like design, writing that the " sculpted shape is smooth, comfortable to hold and very easy on the eye".
"It's a world apart from the blocky yet serviceable oblong that was the original phone," Tom added.
It's not only the aesthetics that have changed. As with almost every flagship smartphone on the market, the new YotaPhone is bigger than its predecessor, bumping the screen size from 4.7in to 5in. That front colour display is Full HD.
Inside the handset, there's a Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 2,500mAh battery - a fairly standard specification for a premium smartphone. There's an 8-megapixel camera on the rear of the device.
The device will be priced at 699 Euros, with a UK price of £555 SIM-free, which puts it in the same bracket as devices such as the HTC One M8 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 . Check back later tonight for our full review.
