YotaPhone 2

Innovation is exciting, and when the YotaPhone 2 first came out, it was positioned as a high-end smartphone that had a little something extra to compete with the big boys. Now that it’s finally reached America, it’s a mid-range device with a cool...

5.0" 16M-color 1080p AMOLED touchscreen, 442ppi ; Always-on 4.7" 16-level grayscale e-Ink display (540 x 960 px, 235ppi) ; Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on both screens ; Android OS v4.4.3 KitKat with Yota Apps ; Quad-core Krait 400 CPU at 2.3GHz, 2GB of...

No high-end video recording (either 4K @ 30fps or FullHD @ 60fps) ; No microSD card slot or higher storage capacity option available ; Always resting on a screen regardless how you put it down and double the chance of breaking a screen if you drop it

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...

Dual-screened engineering marvel ; E Ink screen is legitimately useful ; Gorgeous primary AMOLED display ; Top-tier performance ; Cool points aplenty

Very expensive ; Limited mainstream appeal ; Mediocre camera ; Yota's software still needs work ; Uncomfortable to hold the 'other' way around

Great AMOLED front screen ; Ergonomic design ; Clever battery-saving features

Rear screen not backlit ; Slow camera ; Pricey

Two small speaker grilles flank the micro-USB port at the bottom of the YotaPhone 2. The speakers are both loud and clear enough to make them useful for watching the odd movie without the need of using the 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the phone....

Innovative second touchscreen ; Potential for long battery life ; Decent colour display

Expensive ; Still a work in progress ; Average camera

The Yotaphone 2 is a huge leap forward from the original and it's certainly a product which can appeal to a wider consumer base, but ultimately it still feels like a work in progress.

It's an e-reader spliced with a phone and it works ; Frictionless personalization ; Growing library of truly useful E Ink apps

Lackluster performance ; Unimpressive OLED display ; Average camera

A solid phone with a unique second e-paper screen. Battery life is way beyond every expectation. Reading books, documents and even social media messages on the electronic paper display leaves the eyes less fatigued. It’s like a mini Kindle, or like...

The “YotaPanels” and some of their options are tricky to manage. Camera isn’t great. Software is still buggy: reading a notification from the e-paper display doesn’t always clear it from the main notification bar. Traces of previous images stay...