Gadgetory

II ink and ePaper have been synonymous with e-readers for a long time but the latest from yota devices aspires to be much more than just a Kindle bolted to a smartphone so let's see if it succeeds i'm michael fisher with pocket now's video review of the yotaphone 2 the yotaphone 2 is a very comfortable smartphone it's just under 9 millimeters thick smooth like an old pencil case and it is choose modern edginess in favor of a soothing rounded design that reminds me of the old Nexus S it's tall but it's also narrow making it very easy to use with one hand branding is tastefully confined to a small lower back tattoo and casing penetrations are limited and logically grouped with the speaker's sharing a bay with the USB port and the volume rocker doubling as a SIM tray smart topping it all off beneath a single sheet of Gorilla Glass 3 the 5 inch AMOLED screen is plenty vibrant and at full HD also plenty sharp to see what really sets the new Yoda phone apart you've got to turn to the back except there is no back there's just another front this is Gorilla Glass 3 as well except here it bears a matte finish and protects an ePaper display or EPD that's both smaller and lower res than the front panel and offers 16 shades of grey instead of 16 million colors it doesn't have a backlight and like most ePaper screens it also has a fairly low refresh rate but in exchange for these sacrifices yota says it offers up to 7 times more power efficiency than the main display good for 18 hours of using maps or 100 hours of reading and it's approximately 4 zillion times better than the AMOLED screen for reading and bright sunlight citation needed that's all well and good but what can you do on the backside besides reading well pretty much anything you can do on the front side really just swipe up to enable mirroring flip the phone over and voila you're using Android on the EPD naturally it's a much rougher experience than on the frontside I kept looking for ways to boost the contrast or somehow speed up the experience but no such luck fortunately yota thought of this and provided software specifically designed for the epd yota panel offers simplified widgets for simple functions like telling the time or checking the weather and the beauty of ePaper is that it only uses power when it changing state so a panel like this with very few moving elements is extremely energy-efficient the only thing more frugal is a screen that's entirely static and that's where Yoda cover comes into play you can throw any graphic you want on the EPD to decorate it as you see fit with no power penalty whatsoever notifications are displayed in a variety of eye catching animations and you can also send screenshots immediately from the front screen to the back with a simple swipe handy for movie tickets among other things Yodas use of its extra canvas here is very creative and in a field that can so often seem stagnant it's also very refreshing even in the most conventional and predictable ePaper application reading books it excels I devoured an entire novel on the yotaphone zpd in a single day on a single charge and it was the best reading experience I've ever had on a smartphone . that's not to say there aren't rough spots the custom software isn't the most intuitive and it's also kind of inconsistent several times I've used the yotaphone for extended periods without realizing that an old web page or calendar reminder is still stuck on the EPD telling everyone around me that I'm late for my and Bo Jitsu match or whatever it seems to flicker when refreshing notifications which makes for an annoying desktop companion at times and all the custom software is bound to slow down the Android update process as you can see we're still stuck on KitKat here with no firm timetable for a lollipop update the camera isn't bad but unless you count the alternately funny and creepy EPD decorations that accompany it it's also nothing really special you're shooting with the stock Google camera app which is fine bright indoor lighting and daytime photos are also fine they're fairly authentic and sharp enough assuming you can get proper focus low-light shots are prone to significant noise and color accuracy problems but for what it's worth I have seen worse one bright point selfies are awesome because you can use the EPD as a viewfinder which means you can use the primary camera and its LED flash if you more camera samples in our full review at pocket now for all its innovation the yotaphone 2 is kind of uneven when it comes to the basics the Snapdragon 800 processor is plenty capable of running 3d games and delivering a slick stock Android experience but there's a pretty bad keyboard lag that makes fast typing very frustrating and that delay persists even if you install an alternate keyboard like Swift key and even if you opt to use the EPD over the main display voice quality is also just ok I tested the yotaphone 2 on AT&T over six days in Greater Boston and I almost always wanted the earpiece to be louder same goes for the speakerphone and the included earbuds but kudos to Yoda for tossing those in the box at any rate LTE support is confined to bands 3 7 & 24 now so I was stuck on 3G for this review the high point in performance comes in battery life assuming you use the epd to its full effect if you totally ignore the backside and just use it as a typical Android smartphone you can expect about 4 hours of screen on time with moderate use a bit more if you use yoda energy make the most of the ePaper though and you can expect a lot more after I switched my browsing tweeting and reading to the backside I hit almost 8 hours of screen on time after 15 hours off the charger and I still had 20% battery left that's the day I read the whole novel on the phone and then I recharged wirelessly because of course this phone features qi inductive charging it's too cool not to is it cool enough though to justify its price tag at press time US carrier release details were still muddy so for now with an import price of 555 pound sterling that makes this an eight hundred forty five dollar smartphone yeah the battery life can be awesome but you make a lot of sacrifices to get it and other smartphones offer similar power savings without as much compromise so the yotaphone - isn't for most people or even for every hardcore geek there are just too many cheaper options that are both more practical and more consistent for someone bored of the conventional or looking for a clever way to save on battery life it'll be a cool if extravagant trinket but the real market here is someone who loves reading someone who's always juggling their smartphone with their Kindle Nook or Cobo for that person the yotaphone 2 is the best combo since Percy and Mary Shelley that's a narrow category of consumer probably narrower than Yoda is gunning for but it's the only one that I think is likely to make the most of this very special device at least in this incarnation at least at this price point we've got more in-depth Yoda phone coverage here on YouTube and at pocketnow.com stay tuned also for a look at how the ePaper display on the back of the phone works in an e-ink lesson next week till next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you that only gadgets should be two-faced we'll see you next time