YOTAPHONE 2 reviewer guide
UNDER EMBARGO FOR EXTERNAL PUBLICATION
UNTIL 6PM GMT, DECEMBER 3, 2014
(Confidential)
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Introduction
Thanks for your interest in YOTAPHONE 2. We hope you enjoy getting to know all of its features and functions better as part of your review. This guide has been designed to help you through the review process for this specific handset and hopefully answer any questions that you may have. It includes:
• Information about YOTAPHONE 2 and unique features – Pages 2-3 • Technical information about the hardware and software – Pages 4-5 • FAQs – Pages 6-8
While you are reviewing the handset, if there is anything that is not clear or you would like more information about, please contact us on:
Cassie Clarke: +44 (0) 207 802 2626 or [email protected] Sharif Sakr: +44 (0) 7477 968835 [email protected]
About YOTAPHONE 2
• YOTAPHONE 2 is a new type of mobile device. The world’s first two fronts smartphone • YOTAPHONE 2 offers up to five days of e-book reading in one charge, the most power- efficient smartphone in the world • YOTAPHONE 2 is easy to read • YOTAPHONE 2’s second screen gives you all of your important information at a glance without touching the phone
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Unique features of YOTAPHONE 2
• YotaEnergy: It’s possible to turn off the energy-draining colour display and still have all key functions available on the Yota Always On Display. This gives significantly longer battery life e.g. when travelling. 15% battery life left is equal to 8.5hrs operation time when in YotaEnergy mode vs. 1.8hrs when YotaEnergy is switched off. Users can read books, web articles, shopping lists, music playlists, PDF and office documents on the Yota Always On Display and have significantly longer reading time than with a normal smartphone
• Yota Always On Display: The world's only smartphone Electronic Paper Display offers an "at-a-glance" view of what's happening in your personal world, removing the need to constantly pick up, turn on and navigate to your emails, social networks, text messages and other notifications. Just like a wristwatch, all you have to do is look and everything you need is available at first glance. It also offers almost 180 degree viewing angles and excellent readability even in direct sunlight, making it easy to see and use any Android app while you're outdoors
• YotaPanels: These offer at-a-glance widgets and shortcuts to contacts and apps that are all rendered in power-saving E Ink. YotaPanels are in principle very similar to Android home screens, which also contain widgets and shortcuts, but our panels are specifically designed to work well and look good on the special rear display
• YotaMirror: This allows you to use any application on the Yota Always On Display such as an e-reader or other app for better battery life and readability. This gives longer operation time and you can quickly mirror normal Android OS to the rear screen, in order to run any app (i.e., even one not tailored for the EPD display), such as Amazon Kindle, WhatsApp or Spotify
• YotaCover: Make your Yota Always On Display private with a single tap. YotaCovers are photos and notifications that bring beauty and personalisation to your device without giving anything away to onlookers
• YotaSnap and "Life after death": Grab a crucial bit of information from the colour display -- such as a map, or meeting location, or the QR code from a travel ticket -- and preserve it on your Yota Always On display. What's more, you can hold this information on the screen even if your battery dies completely
• Yota Social Networks Reader: This provides always-on Twitter feeds so users can see what is happening in life at a glance, without touching the phone
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About the hardware
Display
YOTAPHONE 2 delivers a unique dual-screen experience, so the design revolves around the need to deliver two excellent displays without compromising on cost, thickness or weight.
The front display is 5-inch 1080p (442ppi) AMOLED panel with 16 million colours and full capacitive touch.
The back display is 4.7-inch Electronic Paper Display (EPD) with 960 x 540 resolution, offering 235ppi with 16 levels of greyscale.
Materials
The device has a magnesium chassis with a glass fibre-reinforced plastic outer surface. This keeps the weight down 145 grams.
Corning Gorilla Glass 3 offers maximum protection to both panels. The glass protecting the EPD is curved to make the device feel thinner in the hand.
A rubber bumper is also available which protects the seams, improves grip, and reduces contact between glass and any surface the phone is resting on.
The nano SIM slot is built into the volume rocker.
The YOTAPHONE 2’s resulting dimensions are: 8.95mm thick (at its thickest point) x 144.9mm tall and x 69.4mm wide.
Battery and performance
The YOTAPHONE 2 runs on a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 SoC, with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage.
Camera, sensors and connectivity
The device has an 8MP AF rear camera with LED flash, plus a 2.1MP front-facing camera. Using YotaMirror, it’s very easy to take a self-portrait using the main camera, offering the full benefit of the greater resolution and flash.
The camera supports Full HD video recording at 30fps in the H.263, H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 SP and VP8 codecs. Supported video file formats are: .3gp, .mp4, .ts, .webm and .mkv.
Sensors include an accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, as well as sensors for proximity ambient light.
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Network support consists of:
• GSM/EGPRS 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz • WCDMA, DC HSDPA (rel. 8, cat. 24), HSUPA (rel. 7, cat. 7), bands 1 (diversity), 2, 5 and 8 • LTE (rel. 9, cat. 4) bands 3, 7 and 20, with VoLTE support.
Further connectivity options consist of: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (VHT20, MSC 8), MicroUSB 2.0 with SlimPort media output, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, A-GPS + GLONASS, 3.5mm AV connector, FM radio.
About the software
Android 4.4 (KitKat). We’ll support Android 5.0 at a later date.
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FAQs
• How do I turn my rear display on or off?
You can't, because it's an always-on display. Only the front screen turns on/off (and this is done using the power button on the side). If the device is turned around, so that the rear screen is facing upwards, then the power button will work as a 'lock' button instead.
• My rear screen is locked, so how do I unlock it?
You'll see a padlock symbol at the bottom. *Slowly* swipe up from this symbol, and don't stop swiping until you're at least a third of the way up the device. When you've swiped far enough, a vibration will notify that you've unlocked the device, and the full rear display will become touch sensitive. (There's more on how to lock and PIN-protect your device in a separate, more advanced section below.)
• How do I check basic notifications?
Out of the box, your YOTAPHONE 2 comes with basic notifications preset showing missed calls and texts. If you want to check email, RSS or Twitter, you should create a new Panel (using the YotaHub app) and add these widgets to it.
• How do I check calendar appointments?
Go to the YotaHub app, add a new Panel or change an existing Panel to include either a Calendar widget or an Agenda widget.
• How do I read my Kindle, Google Play or Nook ebooks?
Launch any eReader app you like on the front screen, then tap and hold the Android home button. While still holding, swipe to the left-hand 'mirror' icon and then let go. This will engage YotaMirror, sending your eBook to the rear screen where you can tap or swipe through the pages as usual.
If you regularly use one particular e-reading app, create an App Shortcut widget on your rear screen using YotaHub, and select your app. This will place an icon directly on your rear screen, so that you can enter your current eBook with a single tap.
• How do I get the best possible reading experience?
Reading apps work pretty well in YotaMirror, but our own native reading apps offer better contrast and cleaner text.
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• How do I maximise battery life?
By using the back screen as much as possible. It takes time for habits to adjust, but after a week or so you might find that you are using the panels much more, and using the AMOLED less. Conversely, don't try to use the rear screen for tasks that require constant, rapid refreshing -- such activity actually uses more energy than on the AMOLED side.
It's also good to use YotaEnergy, which by default cuts non-essential services like WiFi, BT and cellular data in order to prioritise phone functions and low-power functions like reading or YotaSnap (see below). YotaEnergy is accessed via a toggle switch on the YotaEnergy panel, and you can customise the power saving profile in Settings.
• How do I preserve a key bit of information on my rear screen?
When you're using your front screen, and you see a crucial bit of info that you want to store on your rear screen (a QR code, boarding pass, address etc), tap and hold the Android home button and move your finger to the right to select our YotaSnap function. This will take a screen grab and send it to your rear display. It'll stay there until you're done with it - even if you carry on some other activity on the front screen.
If you regularly use this feature, add a YotaSnap widget to your rear display in order to gain quick access to all of your screengrabs.
• How do I stop people seeing my rear screen panels?
Tap the central YotaCover toggle button to replace your panels with images. If you have set up any images to act as covers, these will appear as an automatic carousel.
• How do I set a different image (or set of images) as a YotaCover?
In the YotaHub app, choose to edit YotaCovers. Tap the red button in the bottom right corner to choose your image source: e.g. it could be Facebook or local ("On device") images. You can only have one source at a time.
Once you've chosen a source, you'll be taken to an image selection screen. Long-press an album to use all of its images as YotaCovers, or tap to enter an album and choose individual images. To choose multiple individual images from inside the album, hold-down as many images as you want - they'll go 'red' to indicate that they're selected -- then tap the tick button in the top right corner. Any images you select will be added to a special album called "Cover images."
To crop and adjust an image to make it fit better on the E Ink screen, tap a single image and drag the white handles that appear, before pressing the 'tick' button in the top right corner when you're done.
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• What if I don't like an image that appears as a YotaCover, or I'm bored of it?
Swipe the image left or right to manually move the carousel along - this will get rid of the picture in the short term.
If you never want to see the image again, go to the YotaHub app, choose YotaCover, tap your Cover, select 'Settings', tap into your "Cover images" album, long-press any images you want to delete and then tap the 'delete' button in the top right corner.
You can add entire albums that are either on your phone or on Facebook, so you can have a really big carousel of different covers that never get boring.
• How do I lock my YOTAPHONE 2?
You can use the power button to lock the phone without losing the Panel or Cover that's currently on the display. Or, if you want to obscure data shown on a Panel, you can engage YotaCover - this will also act as lock on your phone.
If you don't have a PIN setup, then locking only protects your phone from accidental touch inputs. But if you do have a PIN setup (through Android's normal Security settings), then this same PIN will protect the rear screen too. You will be asked for this PIN the next time you either lift the Cover or try to enter a widget on a Panel.
• How do I read RSS feeds?
The best way to use the RSS widget is to have a Feedly account -- this is one of the most popular RSS services.
Set up your account at Feedly, then open up the YotaRSS app on the front screen (or equally tap the 'Settings' button on the RSS widget in the YotaHub app) and log in with this account. If you later want to change or add subscriptions, or adjust other settings such as sync frequency, the YotaRSS app makes this very simple.
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