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YotaPhone 3 Confirmed on Instagram

By 10 Comments

The Yotaphone has had two different iterations and their claim to fame was merging an e-ink screen on one side and a full color LCD on the other. It never really gained any traction in the smartphone industry because of the high price and the lacklustre specs. The E-ink screen never did screen mirroring, which meant that only specific apps were able to be run. Since 2014 YotaDevices have been quiet, but the companies Instagram account has just confirmed that a 3rd generation model is under development.

YotaDevices is a Russian company and they released two different phones over the years. They tried expanding into the United Kingdom with a dedicated team, but most of the people working there have all quit. The Yotaphone 2 had a crowdfunding campaign in 2015 where it tried to enter the lucrative North American market, but failed to gain significant interest.

Since the last YotaPhone was developed the smartphone industry has radically changed. Users have high expectations when it comes to hardware specs and companies like Apple, Google and Samsung are paving the way. It remains to be seen if Yota can be relevant in 2017 or if people have moved on from an e Ink gimmick.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.

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  • “It never really gained any traction in the smartphone industry because of the high price and the lacklustre specs.” – YotaPhone 2 is not expensive now anymore. You can buy it for about 130 USD in some Chinese shops. So I was able to test it, and could say it’s still nice device for reading. You can find my test here: http://cyfranek.booklikes.com/post/1514701/yotaphone-2-recenzja-ekranu-e-ink-w-smartfonie

  • Yeah, i mean years later it is cheap as hell, when it first came out it was like 900.00

  • Nemo

    What I want, and I’m probably not alone, is a Yota with only the e-ink screen. I want a battery that lasts several days, and that’s it. A back to basics phone like the Nokia 3310, with a better screen for reading.

  • dondukov

    I bought the cheap fragile chinese lollipop Y2. It is very good for reading with tts on, for playing background YouTube videos and as car navigation. It is too grey and too slow for gaming and apps. All apps are actually mirrored on the second eink screen.

  • androooooo

    I’m actually really excited to see I’f they make this gen 3 i heard about this phone today and i want one if only they could make it water proof so u can read in the pool

  • John

    Don’t expect too much here. First, they keep delaying that phone. First it was scheduled for Q1 2016. Secondly, it is made by ZTE (Chinese company), which bought a part of the Yota phone company. As far as I know, ZTE does not make high quality phone.

    We will see…

  • John

    Updated news. Launch is postponed

    I’ve just read on Russian official news that this phone is postponed as there is not enough money to continue. Chinese shareholders refuse to allocated more money for this.

    source: http://www.interfax.ru/business/553469

  • The best phone I ever got! The EPD is great, I can have my books collection with me and read for hours, and the battery barely drains, it’s almost like reading a real book, the only difference is that you don’t have the smell of the paper and you can change font size and type ;p, just wish they release the Android Marshmallowm because right now the latest Android OS is Lollipop and that was the worst Android version ever. The front OLED Screen is very good quality and so is the speaker quality, the internal 32GB is enough. The Camera is 8MP only but very decent. I never understood why Amazon didn’t launch a phone like this, after all they also sell ebooks with the Kindle, but better Yota, as I can have all kind of books in free epub format! 😀 (Keep WiFi OFF and Location Service OFF when not needed, that’s the biggest Android battery drain)

  • Chenicus

    “The E-ink screen never did screen mirroring, which meant that only specific apps were able to be run”.

    This is utter bullshit lie. I own a Yotaphone 2 and you can project anything you see on the normal LCD screen to the back using a feature called YotaMirror. The quality is excellent even for videos. No more need for Kindles. This site is fake news who wants to prevent established brands like Kindle from losing monopoly. Who much did they pay you?

  • JV

    I also like to refer to the Yotaphone as the phone Amazon should’ve made….instead of the Fire Phone.

    I would love one of these….I can’t even find a Yotaphone 2 in stock anywhere now.