Two and a half years have passed since the YotaPhone 2 made its official debut, before going on sale in early 2015. The handset had a flagship-class Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB of storage, and plenty of other high-end specs - but like its predecessor, the most distinctive feature of the YotaPhone 2 was the fact that it had two displays: a 5-inch full-color Full HD AMOLED on the front, and a slightly smaller, lower-resolution, monochromatic e-ink display on the rear.
Now, the company is preparing to launch the next generation of the device - but it won"t be the mighty flagship that many will have been hoping for.
Baoli Yota - a joint venture between Baoli and Coolpad - teased the upcoming launch of the new "Yota3" handset over the weekend, promising that it will be a "revolutionary product". According to Russia"s RBC, it will arrive later this year with 64GB or 128GB of storage, and as previously reported, it"s expected to have a much lower price tag than the last model, perhaps starting from just $350.
But Engadget has got its hands on a spec sheet for the Yota3, which reveals that the new smartphone will have some pretty ordinary specs that - on paper, at least - suggest that the device will be far less revolutionary than the company claims. Its specs are said to include:
- Primary 5.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen with Full HD (1920x1080px) resolution
- Secondary (rear) 5.2-inch e-ink touchscreen with HD (1280x720px) resolution
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor
- 4GB RAM
- 12MP rear camera with dual-LED flash
- 13MP front-facing camera
- USB Type-C port (with no dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack)
- Dual-SIM support
- Android 7.0 Nougat
Assuming those specs are accurate, they indicate that the Yota3 will be little more than a modest evolution of the previous model, at a lower price. Perhaps the most surprising detail on the spec sheet is that the handset won"t have a flagship-class processor, and will instead ship with Qualcomm"s upper-mid-range Snapdragon 625 chipset, which was announced 16 months ago.
Since then, manufacturers have shipped devices with the Snapdragon 626, 650, 652 and 653 systems-on-a-chip, and Qualcomm recently announced its new Snapdragon 630 and 660 SoCs for upper-mid-range handsets. By the time the Yota3 launches - in October or November, according to Engadget - it will appear far from cutting-edge alongside more modern smartphone rivals.