Meet the Sprint Kyocera Echo: Android on Two Screens

It’s not quite the three screen phone of our fantasies, but two 3.5” screens is a hell of a good start. Sprint’s “industry first” event on Monday revealed the Kyocera Echo, a dual-screen Android 2.2 phone launching this spring that says “Forget multitasking. We’re all about the simultasking.” The two screen can run a select handful of optimized apps like email, messaging and browsing independently on each display, but the real kicker is the way the handset switches shapes thanks to a fancy hinge.

too annoying, but we can see it being a pain in some circumstances. There is a price to be paid for the innovative design: the Echo is a bit thick and heavy, measuring .67” and 6.8 ounces. For reference, the EVO 4G with its 4.3” screen weight 6 ounces, while the iPhone 4 weighs 4.8 ounces.

On the hardware side, there’s nothing really wowing: the phone runs on a 1GHz QSD 8650 Snapdragon processor, the same one we’ve seen in phones like the EVO and Droid Incredible since last year. There’s a gig of RAM and 512MB of ROM inside, an 8GB microSD card, 5MP rear-facing cam and a 1370 mAh battery. Sprint is reporting 5 hours of talk time on the battery, but just to be generous they’re shipping the phone with two batteries, so you can always have a spare on you to pop in when needed.

The camera can shoot 720p video, but unfortunately there’s no front-facing webcam or 4G support. Sorry, WiMAX users. Perhaps this video will make you forget 4G download speeds and fall in love with that dual display.

Digging the design? The Kyocera Echo will launch this spring at $200 on-contract. The phone could be a smashing success, or end up feeling like a bit of a gimmick, but no doubt other smart phones will follow in its wake with a pair of screens for fold-out simultasking goodness.

Image credit: Kyocera, Laptopmag