By 
David Blaine and Sprint just unveiled the Kyocera Echo, a dual-screened Android Device that sounds rather awesome based on initial details. Sprint just issued a press release providing more information, so let’s dig into some of the meat- just what is the Kyocera Echo all about?
Here is the general concept:
- The Kyocera Echo has 2-screens, each screen being 3.5-inches and 800 x 480 pixel resolution
- When closed, the Echo appears to be a regular phone
- Unhinge/swivel the echo and can see BOTH screens at the SAME TIME
- You can either run different applications on each screen (single screen mode) or you can “combine” the screens and run one application on both with an effective 4.7-inch screen size
I can picture a pretty enjoyable experience of watching YouTube on the top screen while browsing videos on the bottom, perhaps pressing a full-screen button to make the video expand across both screens:
I can think of a lot of great uses for the Echo’s dual-screen display, and to be honest, I’m surprised we haven’t seen something similar already. I’ve been suggesting this in articles and podcasts for the better half of two years.
Now I know you’ve probably got two key questions:
- Is the processor powerful enough to run two screens at once?
- Even if it can, will the battery last more than 27 minutes?
The Kyocera Echo runs on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor which isn’t dual-core but is pretty darn good, so we’re optimistic it can/will hold up. Kyocera realizes battery life could be a concern, so they’ve packaged in an external battery charger and a secondary battery- very smart move.
Kyocera has optimized several dual-screen experiences that include:
- VueQue – YouTube where video is in the top screen and browsing videos is in the bottom
- E-Mail Messaging – View/Compose messages in the top and type in the Full QWERTY on the bottom!
- Browser: view 2 websites simultaneously
- Gallery: picture on top, thumbnails for browsing on bottom
Some other key specs you’ll want to keep in mind:
- Android 2.2
- 5-megapixel camera with flash, autofocus and digital zoom
- 720p HD camcorder
- 3.5mm headset jack
- Wi-Fi with hot-spot feature
- Exchange ActiveSynce, POP & IMAP e-mail
- Stereo Bluetooth 2.1 (+ EDR)
- 1GHz Snapdragon processor
- 1GB internal memory
- MicroSD slot with 8GB microSD pre-packaged
- 1340 mAh spare battery
Wondering if the device is big and bulky? It’s not – only .67 inches thick. The original Droid and iPhone are about half-an-inch thick so it does have a bit extra heft, but that’s to be expected.
My once concern is regarding how the Echo will play with Android apps on the market. Will it have compatability issues? Sprint has already opened a developer program for the device that will include an SDK allowing devs to optimize their apps and games for the dual screen interface, but how about those who haven’t optimized… will there be any complications or problems? Let’s hope not because the Echo is a cool idea.
Kyocera has a mini-site open at EchoByKyocera.com where you can see more details including a video.
As does Sprint, with their portal being located at Now.Sprint.com/Echo/:
But if you’re looking for more info… why not head over to the Kyocera Echo Forum at AndroidForums? Got a great idea for a dual-screen integration? Share it!
Seriously, Sprint. Bring us a dual core Android with Gingerbread. Quit playing around with the fadphones. This isn’t the next big thing, it doesn’t change the game, and it’s not magical. 3G? Single core? Still gonna cost an extra $10 a month? Really? Who was the crack addicted marketing exec who convinced you people that this was in any way shape or form a good idea?
Battery Life
Performance
Vanilla OS
These are the things you should be aiming for. Not this conjoined abortion of a phone.
Fail.
Correction: “My once concern” needs to be changed to “My one concern.”
Anyway, I think its a great idea, but they need to come with a way to block out the hinge so you can see everything continuously, and not a little part blocked by a hinge.
Meh, I’ll wait for the HTC offering this spring
It doesn’t look bad physically, minus the ugly silver logo at the top and bottom, but hardware-wise it is ugly and last-gen tech
Massive fail the battery life on that is going to suck big time and its not dual core
All I can say is hmmmm
I personally owned a kyocera palm pilot phone, which I still own… I’ve kept all my phones from my initial bag phone, my startac and bookseller up to my g1 and fender… waiting on my call from the smithsonian…. anywayz, my kyocera flip palm pilot was a Cadillac of phones which performed flawlessly in its time… i doubt that much has changed… we’ll see after we can roll it around in our hands…. so once again…… hmmmmmmm
LOL @ at watching anything in portrait mode.
Anyways I don’t think I should have to carry a spare battery to get a full day out of my phone.
Will wait for the new HTC EVO 2 4G to be announced at CTIA IN MARCH 2011…. THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS RIGHT NOW IN EVO OWNERS WORLDS.. Tmobile will be announcing there HTC DUALCORE DEVICE in may and the new htc droid incredible 2 as we as the Droid X 2 all are coming VERY SOON… TRUST ME ALL THE DEVICES THAT RULED 2010 WILL RETURN BIGGER AND BETTER IN 2011… Sprint rules android
so so very underwhelmed by this
I hope there is something else out there for all the Evo owners that are due for an upgrade in a few months. ONE silly phone is their big announcement? Disappointment is barely able to describe how I feel. Cool phone, yes. Awe-inspiring phone that will make other carriers jealous, NO.
Did I mention how disappointed I am!?
Yup im gonna wait till june to see if they roll out a new evo.
^^Someone get that guy a CR-48 so he doesn’t have CAPS LOCK.
Also, what was Kyocera thinking..two screens and a battery that has below average capacity?
That guy being Richard.
After this sprint announcement, i put my evo on craigslist, paying cancellation fees on 2 lines and going to verizon with a thunderbolt and a iphone 4, goodbye sprint! Hello Verizon!
Eh
David Blaine and Sprint just unveiled the Kyocera Echo, a dual-screened Android Device that sounds rather AWEFUL based on initial details.
There we go, fixed it.
What a let-down this event was. Nobody in their right mind is actually excited for this news.
Meh. Not that impressed. Not worth the hype.
It doesn’t seem that bad, but the half moon silver things.. is there a function to them ?
Dang and I actually thought it would be something worth waiting for.
Is that all for the event? honestly, this wouyld intrigue me if i wasnt already in a 2 year contract. i was looking for some minor things to benefit me like the new Sense for evo, along with gingerbread, and maybe even drop (or lower) the WiFi hotspot charge, drop the $10 “premium data” charge…Noah is dissa point. >:(
Nice, too bad, I’m a Verizon customer.
Damn, my Hero is really close to dying. The USB port is flakey, have to wiggle cords to get it to charge, the SD slot spring broke, so the phone keeps thinking it’s been removed, the battery cover doesn’t lock into place, the touch screen frequently has phantom fingers on it, so things go haywire when I try to touch it…
Sprint comes out with two phones this year that really drive no interest to me. I guess the EVO is still the best phone to get? I’d hate to buy one now and then EVO2 come out 31 days afterward…
Devs, raise your hand if you are excited about supporting one more device with specific hardware that requires its own SDK? *crickets chirping* Haha, now in addition to all of the Samsung people bitching, Galaxy Tab owners leave helpful comments like ‘doesn’t work’ in the market when it works great in the emulator, there is now another device likely to cause a lot of display quirks…
Hopes – dashed….
Expectations for the future – low…
Contract expiration – not soon enough :(
Damn good looking phone! Too bad its on Sprint. Why are people so pessimistic? This is an awesome design which puts the overused iPhone design to rest. You guys should get lives and stop being so greedy and dissing every phone model. Evolution sucks now. You guys are starting to look like those Apple iRetards!
Disappointed… Sprint has only a couple of weeks to convince me to not go elsewhere. EVERY OTHER carrier has sweet android phones coming, sprint led the way in 2010 with Evo and Epic, but those devices just dont hold up any more.
Can I flip it to have the screens facing outwards & play Battleship with a friend?
Nintendo DS?
Comment #22 *Evo
Fail.
The Evo and its 1 GHz Snapdragon processor were outclassed and outdated within weeks of its release last June, and was a sore heel for Sprint, especially for gaming compared to competing products. And now they’re releasing another similarly spec’d device a year later!? Snapdragons were impressive back in 2009 – it’s now 2011…
How is it that sprint markets being the first 4g carrier out ther like crazy and than has a limited supply of current and future phones that are actually capable of 4g? Didn’t Verizon just introduce 7 new models at CES that will support 4g, and Sprint only has 3, with no other confirmed future models? Boggles my mind that you spend god knows how much money to host an event like this in NYC, introduce a phone that does not excite me in the least bit, and it does not support 4g! Somebody help me, what am I missing here? Been patiently waiting on an iphone for Sprint for the past 4 years, and while an Evo has helped curbed my appetite, I am losing patience.
@Nexus Eddie – The EVO is still one of the strongest phones available on the market. Try finding another price of hardware that can hold their ground for 8 months in this industry. The EVO was a groundbreaker….this, this is just …fail
The Judgement is “This is a total FAIL” much hyped for disappointment! Hopefully the Dan Hess sees the utter disappointment in everyones face!
I really don’t like how the screens are separated by part of the casing. The black stripe is really annoying IMO especially when you’re looking at something fullscreen (stretched across both).
Updates will probably take a while b/c of all of the custom APIs too.
Cool concept though…
sprint is f’ing up
I can’t believe they wasted so much time and money
To announce a shit- Fuck phone like this!!!lol
@Nelson
Nexus one held its ground for longer
Cool concept…but no. This will not sell.
I’m all for choice but the only though that come to my head is some buying this phone because of its two screen and returning it because of the software lag, battery shortage and so on personally this is a will not do any good phone
This is the exact thing that plays into Apple’s hand. Like everything Apple, someone else comes out with a new design or product, it has a weak showing, takes all the hits for whatever it’s flaws are. Then Apple will come with a sleek looking dual screen iPhone down the road and Jobs will be called a genius.
Man, i bet Nintendo’s lawyer’s are already getting their paperwork together to sue Kyocera and Sprint, I’ve held out on upgrading until this event was over and man am i totally pissed, I wouldn’t get this phone, i didn’t hear one word about it receiving an update to 2.3 or 2.4 for that matter when it gets released in April.
This site has more grammatical errors than most other sites existing on the internet…not a big deal, yeah, but after a while you’d expect a site such as this one to have a better grasp of the English language…
G-Y! Say no more
I love comment #25, first thing I thought of.
I’m not really sure though if I’d rather have a dual screen phone, or 2 phones taped together.
What a complete and total disappointment! This was some out of touch suits idea of a “cool phone” and I hate to say it, I would take an iPhone over this any day. If we don’t see a true successor to the Evo soon I will be jumping ship for an Atrix.
This has a nice design. Why is everyone so negative all the time. People whine about how all phones have the same form factor, and someone tries something different, people are all “suuucks” “faaaaail”.
I’ve seen a lot worse. And fyi, until htc gets its act together and stops shipping out low power batteries, a phone like the echo shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to android users when its battery sucks.
This is awful. It looks like an env touch
“This has a nice design. Why is everyone so negative all the time. People whine about how all phones have the same form factor, and someone tries something different, people are all “suuucks” “faaaaail”.”
If they wanted to get people excited … they should have unveiled a counter to the xoom then. Or the atrix. Not something that runs on the same hardware that the evo 4g runs on … aka the exact same phone i already have in my hand just with a Nintendo DS form factor. That’s their big announcement? The compatibility issues alone (as mentioned early) make this a destined to fail phone (the phone hacking community is going to stay far far away form this one).
Sprint needed a dual core super phone … or a tablet with honeycomb … not a bunch of blech.
i cant believe that sprint wasted so much money and time to announce a shit-fuck
phone like this!lol…it sucks!
Okay device not worth the.hype of this announcement. I’m all Evo so I’ll wait for the Evo 2 hopefully coming soon!!!
i cant wait for the HTC EVO 2 bitches!!!!!!
Come on Hess! Seriously! Your going backwards. The HTC Evo has been your only success. Why would you hype your crowd up only to give them a sub-par device. I thought that by bringing in David Blaine you were going to pull an ace out of the pocket. What a let down…Bring me a device that wows the crowd.Like dual core..8MP..2MP front facing..Super Amoled..a battery that can last 12+ hours..Three way calling on Qik…Web and talk at the same time..Maybe a galaxy tab 2 that can be used as a phone..the xoom…Galaxy S2…Something to that nature. My ten plus years with Sprint and all I have to show for it is an EVO (best phone ever).
no FFC = “why bother?” this would have been a contender back when the only other options were the hero and the moment.
Yuck. I’ll wait to see if they’re gonna have anything from HTC in the spring. If not…My contract with Sprint will be up around the same time. (lucky me). Might have to jump to Tmo or Verizon.
Wow, this event was totally not worth the hype. As SwampFox mentioned earlier, nobody is going to develop for this dual-screen SDK so the only apps that’ll ever take advantage of it are the ones that came with the phone. I’m dying to upgrade my hero, but I want current tech, not a novelty phone with outdated specs.
Am I reading that right? 1gb internal memory and an 8gb sd card? Bad. Bad, bad.
For the people who don’t think this is such a terrible tease of an announcement. Here is a list of reasons why I am still hoping to GOD sprint has another trick or two up their sleeve this spring. (pretty sure they do)Sprint will take forever to update this to newer versions of Android
private developers will never support this well due to such small market share
1GHZ Hummingbird is a year old and has to push 2 times the pixels!?!?
Battery life WILL be bad and they obviously know it
3.5 inch screen is still smaller than 4.3 inch evo and the landscape view is only 4.7 with large line in the middle? (aspect ratio will be way awkward in either mode)
screens will be scratched exposed (it is the opposite of clamshell design)
No FFC
Guys, The HTC Evo 2 is obviously not ready.
My Epic that has been out for months now and it will still outperform newly released phones like the Verizon iPhone 4 and the HTC Thunderbolt that is basically the MyTouch 4G, but with an Evo form factor. Hell T-Mobile got a second chance to get the Galaxy S right, and they still messed up by not having camera flash.
The adreno 205 is weak sauce, and it just shows that my hummingbird + Power VR SGX 540 powered phone /w Super AMOLED, and slide out keyboard will hold up to newly released phones until the Epic 2 gets released, and thanks to Sprint,I get a phone upgrade at the full subsidized price every year instead of every two.
Both the Evo and Epic 4G was ahead if it’s time, and if I was an Evo fan, I’d be upset if the new Evo 2 was to be speced like the Thunderbolt. All the other carriers are playing catchup to Sprint’s current line up, so I’ll let Sprint quietly work with getting us real successors to our current phones and not minor upgrades.
Yes, I know that Tegra phones are coming, but Android doesn’t fully support dual cores yet, so I’ll worry about that when it does. When that happens new and better dual core chips will be ready.
I agree with Destardi, every time HTC comes out with a phone i read the comments discussing how ppl are tired of the same HTC look yet this is something really different for phones and it is an issue lol.
Sprint technically did stay true their word about a “First” so it’s not like they lied lol…It’s just so many people expected an Evo2 that they are upset haha. Seeing how we didn’t hear about the Evo until like March last year, i am not surprised it’s not an evo like device.
Too bad Sprint didn’t get with Nintendo, this would have been a great competitor to the upcoming PSP phone
By the way Sprint, I notice your new commercials don’t say $69.00 unlimited anymore, it’s now starts at $69.00. Wow!
All the hype for that. You blew it sprint.
I don’t think Sprint blew it per-say. Look at it this way, they got our attention. That’s good marketing. This just isn’t our type of device. Move on folks, nothing to see here unless this is your dream phone. AT&T has come up with some really lame stuff in the past too. I am hanging in there with my GB Hero until something else hits later this year. I agree with #61, a Nintendo partnership would have been a good move. Meh, disappointing maybe, but life goes on. Cheer up Sprint customers. :)
this is an absolutely terrible idea for an phone sprint should’ve have done better. In case they havent’t notice most phones are coming with dual core now, THE ONLY POSITIVE THING I CAN THINK THAT WILL COME FROM A DEVICE LIKE THIS IS NGBA AND DESUME…the ds emulators
Thats totally photoshopped, how do I know? I am Dan Hammond, and that is my girlfriend on the lower screen in the picture. Who would ever actually make a phone that looks like this? I mean come on guys, dont you get it? David Blaine, magic, Sprint just tricked you into thinking they would actually be stupid enough to try and sell this phone………………………
wait, hold on a minute.
I am being told this is real by a “reliable source”
We’re Fucked.
No 4g, no rear camera, no 3d, no dual core…..no thanks!!
A nintendo ds looking phone?? Flat out horrible!! How does one go from such genius(Evo 4G) to such stupidity(Echo)?
For all those very dissappointed in the release of the echo we have hope. im sure most of you have seen or heard but the htc evo 3d is releasing most likely in june. i work for sprint and this device will be what we are all waiting for. especially if you are an evo 4g user. its a 3d, dual core, 4g device that will crap on the echo.
That’s Exactally what They need A DS Looking Phone with better graphics!!!! Now just a DS EMULATOR!!!!! NOT IMPOSIBLE! Have you Ladies ever played a DS? FUDGING GOOD TIME!!!! Also with Andorid 2.2 and the SWEET Mutitasking SKILLS!!! There’s a shizz LOAD of things you can do with this thing!! I’m sorry that Santa didn’t give you your Evo 2 this time but I don’t care about you. Think of the custom ROMS for this thing!!!