Initially, I wanted to arrange this article in the form of 'ten facts', and then decided that it would be easier for me to tell about this device as it is, without trying to find the missing facts.
Eldar Murtazin wrote about YotaPhone 2, wrote in some detail, with a video review and detailed conclusions. However, you always want to get acquainted with such an unusual device yourself and draw your own conclusions. Therefore, I asked Eldar for YotaPhone 2 for a month. It was at the end of December, so it's time to take stock of the usage. You will not see technical characteristics and numbers in this article, I just focus on a few facts and features that I liked or, on the contrary, annoyed.
First impressions
When I first took the YotaPhone 2 in my hands, at first impressions it reminded me of … Samsung Galaxy Nexus! The same smooth edges, hull shape and clean Android on board. By the way, about this. Yota Devices pre-installed the Google Now launcher and practically did not make any changes to the interface, which, in my opinion, is a significant plus of the device.
I searched for a long time where the SIM card slot was hidden, and was surprised to find that it is combined with a volume rocker! Why this was done is completely incomprehensible. Apparently, because of this, the rocker itself is loose.
I really liked the tactile sensations of the back cover, which is also an E-Ink display. It is smooth and pleasant to the touch (which is unusual, because, as a rule, they are tactilely slightly rough in E-Ink displays, judging by the Kindle Paperwhite). However, this impression quickly disappeared and was replaced by irritation, because it is very inconvenient to hold the YotaPhone 2 in your hands, it just strives to slip out of your fingers.
Main screen
As we all know, Samsung leaves the best AMOLED matrices for its flagships, while other manufacturers get castoffs from the master's shoulder. That is why I believe that third-party manufacturers should not install AMOLED – displays, because of them they will always be one step behind.
If you remember, early AMOLED matrices had a too saturated color gamut, far from real colors. Someone liked it, but some annoyed. Starting with the Galaxy S3, the company began adding color temperature adjustments to achieve both rich colors and natural color reproduction. However, none of the third-party vendors use such add-ons, so users have no choice. Also, in each next generation Samsung is hiding the presence of PenTile better, while in YotaPhone 2 everything is not very good with this, red halos in small print are very clearly visible (despite the FHD resolution).
And the last thing: the colors on this screen seemed to me … dirty, or something. It feels like they took a color palette and dropped a drop of black and brown into each of the primary colors.
Do not misunderstand me, the screen in the YotaPhone is quite good, however, it is important to understand that it is inferior to modern flagships, and if you have used at least one of them, you will immediately notice this difference.
E-Ink display
The pride of Yota Devices. The main feature that made this smartphone famous all over the world. At one time, all Western media were impressed by this display, demonstrated back in the first Yota Phone. I also really liked the idea of a second screen, it was really fresh and unusual. It's obvious to me that the main purpose of such a display is to read books and use the device with a low battery charge.
And so I try to read from this screen and I understand that small fonts look grainy on it. And even increasing them to 16 point size, I still see this grain in the letters. But this is not so bad. Attempts to read on the subway ended in failure due to poor lighting. It's amazing how quickly you get used to the backlight in an E-Ink display.
The bottom line is just a 'cool trick' in front of us. Yes, it has a 'wow effect' and that's it. You can brag to your friends, but in terms of readability, this display is not very good. On the other hand, Yota Devices has done a great job on the responsiveness of the second screen, so that it can be used for navigation, for example.
Performance
The device uses Qualcomm 800, which, in principle, gives an excellent level of performance, this is one of the top solutions even now. However, apparently, the company did not carry out proper optimization, as the device is constantly heating up. So you went to Twitter, listened to some music and already feel that the smartphone is warming up. From what? Unclear.
Conclusion
I will not comment on the quality of the shots and the battery life. The first does not play a big role for me (and Eldar spoke in detail about the camera in the review), and there is nothing special to say about autonomy. The smartphone lasts one day, like most of its competitors. Yes, at 15% the energy-saving mode turns on, but I did not notice much benefit from it.
Now let's move on to the most important thing – the price. At the start of sales, they asked for 33,000 rubles for this device, now it costs 40,000 rubles. This is a very high price inherent in flagships from A-brands. However, Yota Devices has neither the popularity / reputation of such brands, nor the latest generation components (again, old AMOLED displays). Yes, this device has an E-Ink display, a really interesting feature, but this is just a feature, even though it cost the company a lot and significantly increased the cost of the device. For the end consumer of E-Ink, the display should become the icing on the cake, a cake in which the rest of the ingredients should also be on par. I remember the cost of the Vibe Z2 Pro at the start of sales (23,000 rubles) and understand that this smartphone should have cost at least the same then. In order, other things being equal, to have an interesting feature, the same E-Ink display, thanks to which the user will vote for it.
In the next generation of YotaPhone, I expect the E-Ink display to have a backlight, as well as an increase in its resolution to HD. These two parameters will make it really convenient to use. Well, the price, you need to do something with the price, otherwise the consumer will just buy something from Lenovo, and take an e-book for change.