Sprint announced the Kyocera Echo, the world’s first dual-screen Android smartphone. It was an interesting concept: a phone that could unfold into a tablet-like device and back. The Echo was coming with Android 2.2 under the hood and priced at $199.99 with a two-year contract, set to launch in Spring 2011.
Specs included a 5-megapixel camera with flash, autofocus and digital zoom; 720p HD video recording; a 1GHz Snapdragon QSD 8650 processor; 1GB of on-board memory; and an 8GB microSD card with support for up to 32GB.
Sprint highlighted four usage modes:
- Single-Screen Mode — standard single-display smartphone operation
- Simul-Task Mode — two of seven core apps running concurrently on separate displays simultaneously
- Optimized Mode — both displays supporting a single app with complementary functionality, such as composing email on one screen with a keyboard on the other
- Tablet Mode — one application spread across both displays for a full 4.7-inch viewing area
Unanswered questions at launch included battery life for a dual-screen device, with more details expected as the release date approached.
