Next-gen Yotaphone unveiled: Dual-screen phone now has dual-touch

In a smartphone business that has become a little staid of late, the original Yotaphone stood out with its dual-display design – a front-facing LCD screen plus an eReader-style mono eINK display on the rear. Now there’s a new version, which adds touch to the rear display so you can interact with it without powering on the main screen.

The advantages of that rear display go well beyond having a high-contrast screen for easier reading of text. eINK screens continue to display information without any electrical drain, so the rear screen, updating say every few minutes, would always show up-to-date notifications without you having to unlock the phone and fire up the LCD. This would enable the handset’s battery to last far longer.

The new design adds touch to the rear display, so you can open, reply and dismiss notifications once you’ve seen them. It also adds a backlight to the eINK display for reading in the dark, plus its grown to 4.7in and has a higher resolution, not disclosed. On the other side is a 5in OLED display for typical smartphone use.

Inside it’s no slouch either with the excellent Snapdragon 800 chipset being used. There’s also NFC built-in. The handset is apparently slimmer and more rounded than the original, though inevitably with two screens it’s never going to be super-slim.

The original handset was never officially launched in the UK, but we’re hoping that this one will make it to our shores, though it’s not scheduled for launch until Q4 2014. It looks fantastic in these new pics and we’re hoping to get our hands on it at MWC in the next couple of days.