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With the market for a dual-touchscreen phone with a QWERTY keyboard lacking, LG has announced the bizarre experiment known as the LG DoublePlay. Calling the phone the “ultimate multitasking handset,” the DoublePlay features a clamshell design withsplit QWERTY keyboard. a secondary touchscreen 2.0-inch display comes nestled between the two halves. The main display measures in at 3.5-inches.
For all its duality, the DoublePlay sports a single-core 1GHz CPU. It also gets a 5MP camera with LED flash and 720p video recording. Both release date and price remain unannounced at this time, though you can expect this one-of-a-kind device sometime this holiday season. And it is one-of-a-kind indeed, though Android is no stranger to unique (to put it nicely) form factors. This is the OS that made the Motorola Backflip possible, after all.
NEW LG DOUBLEPLAY, EXCLUSIVELY OFFERED BY T-MOBILE, RAISES THE STAKES AT THE 2011 LG U.S. NATIONAL TEXTING CHAMPIONSHIP
LG and T-Mobile USA Announce the LG DoublePlay™, with Unique Dual Touch Screens, Delivering Twice the Texting and Social Networking Capabilities
Thirteen Contestants Compete for Chance to Become Part of Texting History, a $50,000 Grand Prize and Named the Fastest Texter in the U.S.
SAN DIEGO and BELLEVUE, Wash. ¾ October 17, 2011 ¾ LG Mobile is once again challenging the fastest thumbs in the nation to the ultimate text messaging challenge ¾ the fifth annual LG U.S. National Texting Championship, featuring the new LG DoublePlayTM. Announced today, the LG DoublePlay is the ultimate multitasking handset, featuring a split QWERTY keyboard and dual capacitive touch screens, making simultaneous mobile activities easier than ever. During this year’s competition, 13 contestants will use the LG DoublePlay, which is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon® processor, to compete in the ultimate texting showdown for the chance to win a $50,000 cash prize and a once-in-a-lifetime spot in texting history.
Equipped with dual customizable touch screens ¾ a 3.5-inch main display and 2.0-inch sub display ¾ that operate independently or in tandem, as well as a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard and Swype® for easy text input, the LG DoublePlay allows users to perform multiple tasks at once such as updating their Facebook pages while simultaneously surfing the Web, texting or checking email.
“The evolving nature of texting trends and mobile technology has brought LG and T-Mobile together to create a device that celebrates multi-tasking beyond a powerful processor,” said Carl Brown, director of trade marketing for LG Mobile. “With its split keyboard and dual screens, LG DoublePlay’s impressive hardware made it the obvious choice for the official mobile phone of the 2011 National Texting Championship. LG is proud to be leading the charge in the next generation of mobile messaging devices while continuing its legacy as a leading manufacturer in QWERTY keyboard devices.”
“Whether sending texts or emails, checking in on social media sites, or browsing the Web, consumers are looking for fun and easy ways to stay connected to the people and things that matter most to them,” said Kim Swanson, director, product management, T-Mobile USA. “With the introduction of the LG DoublePlay and its unique dual-screen design, we are bringing the ultimate multitasking tool to our customers.”
The LG DoublePlay comes with a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recorder, allowing users to capture and share pictures and videos via messaging, email or Facebook. The device also offers multiple messaging options, including Cloud Text™ and Group Text™, giving users the ability to send and receive texts from a PC or tablet or create group chats on-the-go for faster, more efficient content sharing. LG DoublePlay features Android™ 2.3 (Gingerbread) with access to Android Market™ and delivers complete user customization with seven home screens and up to nine touchscreen shortcuts for one-touch navigation.
This “multitasking” phone wont be much help with just a 1Ghz single core processor. =/
Great original idea, though. ^^
You can say that, but plenty of well-developed single-core phones do just as well as all the dual-cores. The G2/DesireZ multi-tasks just fine coming stock at 800MHz and can be over-clocked to 2GHz given the right model, but safely to about 1.7GHz on any of them. It’s what you do with what you have, and whether you’re relying on all-around good hardware or just throwing a dual-core CPU in it to market it as an “improvement.” RAM and such play a large part.
However, it certainly wouldn’t be enough for DS/3DS emulation, nor would I really want to do that with a 2″ screen; and that keyboard looks absolutely awful. If we’re going a dual-screen route, fun but impractical, you might as well abandon a hardware keyboard altogether, put in a full-sized second screen, and devote the bottom one to your keyboard app and quick-launch panes while giving extra options to other apps and your homescreen. And put in a dual/quad-core chip with some decent RAM and a dedicated GPU. Then we’d see some response and likely fantastic dev’ing.
I’m aware of some single core phones being as powerful as some dual core (such as the HTC Sensation XE which is hard to believe is single core) but dual screen phones like Sprint’s Kyocera Echo are rather sluggish or so I’ve heard.
I see one good thing about this form factor, Nintendo DS emulation. Too bad it doesn’t have power.
enough LG already
I’d really like to see such a phone having specs of a SGS II (display size and so on).
Is there any way to take advantage of this second display as android developer?
It would be really interesting, for example, to use this screen in games, rendering an in-game chat or the inventory of a champion on the second screen.
If customization is possible, there soon might be plenty of new features targeting such devices in the future.
@Kevin: I hear this phone excels at Spellchecking.
Utterly useless concept. A phone with a keyboard does NOT need a second screen just for shortcuts. It has keyboard shortcuts. I already have the browser set to Search + B, SMS on Search + S, google talk on Search + T, Tumblr on Search + U, etc..
It may work on a keyboardless phone, but not on one that has a keyboard. Waste of effort, resources, money, and time from LG.
Haha. I LOVED LG’s enV series (I’m still rocking the enV Touch). I’ve talked with many people that had a phone from that series and loved it too. They were the best of the feature phone dynasty right before feature phones became outdated – the end of an era. Unfortunately they were the beginning of LG’s decline as well… If I was looking for an affordable, funky, mid-range Android phone (I’m not), I might give this a try.
Phandroid:
Are you sure this is a clamshell phone? It sure looks like a slider to me…
The press release doesn’t offer indication either way.
I see potential here. if you can fully utilize the 2nd screen to..lets say.. open up another instance of your browser — or use it to play a music video while you use the other screen to look up background info on the band or even chat to a friend/scroll facebook.
the qwerty keyboard could actually make this work.. and make it workwell.
This should have been the new Sidekick.