Gadgetory

the world of mobile technology is one of the fiercest competitive markets ever in the quest to stand out from the pack some companies make bold moves and succeed brilliantly others are more meek and fade into the unexceptional background still others fill the space between innovating once and then endlessly iterating over and over again then there are those that just screw it all up thanks to choices that are either too bold too meek or just plain old absolutely insane these are the products that fall flat on their face they're not to be mocked but the lessons they teach should certainly be remembered and that's what we're here for I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is episode one of worst gadgets ever so back in February of 2011 Sprint announced an industry-first event that they were really trying to make a big deal out of when journalists got to the event they found David Blaine in a tank of water on stage sitting underwater holding his breath for something like almost eight minutes and coughing up goldfish and lighting cigars underwater and yeah sprint was setting the stage for a magical unveiling and they threw a lot of weight behind it and what we ended up getting was the Kyocera echo as a refresher let's take a brief hardware tour in it's closed position the echo looks like a well there's no real way of getting around at the echo looks like a complete dumpster fire an offset LCD panel in front here is flanked by two metal inlays top and bottom below which sits three capacitive buttons for the Froyo build of Android that was already a bit dated at the time of release taking a spin around the sides and back here you can see that the industrial design is absent Kyocera has never had the best eye for design if you ask me in the echo is the finest example that this thing is brutal with the sharp corners and seams galore cheap buttons on the side and it's it's a heavy heavy brick part of the reason for that added thickness and weight of course if the echoes headline feature weren't obvious enough popping the unit open reveals first off that it's a very cumbersome unit to open but eventually the hinge locks into place and your bulky cumbersome oversized phone becomes a bulky cumbersome under sized tablet sort of speaking that hinge this isn't broken or anything this is how the hinge sits in its deployed position it makes putting the echo down on a desk or a table frankly a ridiculous experience akin to a busted seesaw it even feels wrong in its pseudo laptop half deployed position like this Kyocera made a big deal at the announcement about how many patents they had on this ridiculously over engineered super copper alloy hinge 6 if you care it was clearly the high point of their design prowess and it's just so so awkward I mean it feels durable but it's definitely not the finest example of engineering I've ever seen in all the hardware on the echo is a great example of how not all bold design choices are good design choices that's lesson number one for the day but that's only half the story here the echos big software advantage was supposed to be this ability to simultaniously righted term which key acero is pushing as this new powerful way to multitask within Android now back in the day in the pre ICS time period when Android multitasking was not as visually elegant this seemed poised to be quite a big value add of course it didn't turn out that way as with most specialized software builds the echos custom software head of limitations only certain apps could accessed by tapping both screens at the same time in stock configuration the simultaneity messaging phone and Kia's Hera's custom cue view or view cue app which lets you watch videos while browsing other videos running to apps side by side doesn't sound like rocket science today with samsung's new Galaxy Note 10.1 offering side by side app running ability and windows snap features starting to bleed into tablets but this was early 2011 and the echo was trying to address a gap in the market that really needed addressing outside of webOS the lack of elegant multitasking and smart phones was a real problem that needed solving the problem it wasn't elegant the dual tap to open of the multi-tasking menu meant multi-touch was enabled in some apps and it was disabled in some other apps some crucial apps in tablet mode like the gallery sure you could watch videos while you were taking care of other business but the pitiful number of apps which supported the feature meant you couldn't say check your email with the Gmail app while doing anything else you had to use the stock built-in app not a great experience and the simulcast content that this phone wasn't really going anywhere really how could it with a bezel thin but still there bisecting the displays and in so-called tablet mode even normal usage without simultaneity lonely yielded a 4.7 inch diagonal screen area more square sure and okay for the time but much smaller than the more utilitarian phablet screens that started showing up in devices like the Galaxy Note and while we can't ding the device too hard for its lack of responsiveness and this was the era of Froyo after all it needs to be said the echo was a laggy laggy phone frame drops and skips and general sluggishness pervade the OS also there was never much pretty about Froyo and the echos hardware and custom skin don't do it any favors if you're going to try to build next generation hardware don't saddle it with half-baked software that's lesson number two in all it's hard to demolish the Kyocera echo not because it's a bad device I mean this thing is a train wreck but because I hate coming down on companies that try something new there's so little that's new and exciting in smartphone hardware these days we've written about it countless times at pocket now everything's a variation on the same dull slate with a big display so it's always nice to see a company really strive to do something different fun and interesting and on paper the echo was all of that a phone with a hinge that carried six pending patents dual screens that transformed into a tablet when you wanted it to it sounded like every geeks dream come true unfortunately where it stumbled was in execution and those stumbles were bad enough and big enough that the obituaries were being written almost as soon as the echo launched unfortunately in the world of mobile technology as elsewhere it's not just about what looks good on paper it's about what actually works well in the real world the Kyocera echo didn't folks I'm Michael Fisher from pocketnow.com that's going to do it for episode one of worst gadgets ever thanks for watching throw a thumbs up here on youtube if you liked what you saw if you have a comment or a suggestion on another device we should cover we are going to be doing more episodes in this series please leave us a comment on the post at pocketnow.com not here on YouTube we don't check them very often or you 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