Remember the YotaPhone and the YotaPhone 2? They were those crazy phones from Russian manufacturer Yota that had a regular screen on one side and an e-ink display on the other. The first one pretty much sucked but the second version was not completely terrible, though it never made it to the U.S. as promised. Well, there's going to be a third model.
You can flip to the ePaper panel in direct sunlight and laugh at the mere mortals who cower in the shade to check their phones — Russell Holly
Lilliputing tells us that Yota Devices has announced the YotaPhone 3 at the China-Russia Expo in Harbin. They didn't share very many details but we do know that the 64GB model will retail around $350 and the 128GB model costs $450. Both will feature the dual-display combo, with a full-color display (no word on exact display type or features was given) on the front and an e-ink display on the back, just like the previous models.
Russian site Vedomosti also says that the YotaPhone 3 will ship in China this coming September and pre-orders in Russia will start at the same time. Considering the company's track record, we don't expect to see sales of this uber-niche device expanding too far outside its home range. But hey, it never hurts to hope.
Now we have official specs of the phone thanks to Russian retailer VK.com:
| Category | Spec |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Android 7.1.1 Nougat with Yota OS 3.0 |
| Display | 5.5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED, 5.2-inch 720p e-Ink Carta |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core |
| GPU | Adreno 506 |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB or 128GB |
| Expandable | N/A |
| Battery | 3,300mAh |
| Charging | USB-C |
| Water resistance | N/A |
| Rear Camera 1 | 13MP (1.4µm pixels) color sensordual-tone LED flash |
| Front Camera | 12MP |
| Connectivity | 300 mbps LTE (X9 baseband)802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-bandBluetooth 4.1 |
| SIM | Dual Nano-SIM slot |
| Colors | Black |
Our own Russell Holly loved the last one, so if any inkling of a broader release with network support for North America gets kicked around, we'll let you know.
Update, August 24: This article was updated with the YotaPhone's newly-announced specs.
