New smartphones have been hard to find at CES, and the ones we have seen are short on innovative new features and long on incremental spec boosts. To find something truly different, I had to venture off the show floor for a private meeting with Yota Devices, the Russian company behind the upcoming YotaPhone. The YotaPhone’s main attraction is a 4.3-inch E-Ink display that sits on the phone’s curved backside. The E-Ink screen allows users to keep certain types of information in view, such as the time, notifications or a photo, without draining battery life. I was a bit skeptical of the YotaPhone when it was announced last month. The E-Ink display is unique on paper, but I wondered if it would seem too gimmicky in the real world. After seeing the YotaPhone up close, I’m starting to understand how the secondary display could be a really useful feature. For one thing, Yota Devices sees the E-Ink display as a way to save us from our phones, as Microsoft once put it. If YotaPhone users can get accustomed to leaving their phones on a table or desk, with the E-Ink display facing up, they’ll be able to keep an eye on notifications without having to pick up the phone and fiddle with it. “We believe strongly that with our phone we will bring people back to real life,” said Vladislov Martynov, CEO of Yota Devices. Jared Newman / TIME.com Martynov brought up some other interesting possibilities: Because the phone can take a screenshot of anything on its main display and send it to the E-Ink screen, users could “print” boarding passes, so they’re out and ready when they get to the airport. That’d be more convenient than Passbook on Apple‘s iPhone, which requires users to keep their screens powered on and focused on the boarding passes. On a related note, Yota imagines that users could load their loyalty cards onto the phone so they’re ready to scan in E-Ink form. The YotaPhone has a sense of humor as well. When![]()
