Enterprise Mobility: Sprint Dual-Screen Echo Android Phone to Tackle Apple iPhone 4

Sprint's upcoming Kyocera Echo smartphone features dual touch-screens and a 1GHz processor, and runs Android 2.2. Will that be enough for the carrier and manufacturer to combat the iPhone 4, which just moved onto Verizon, along with other high-end Android devices such as Motorola's Droid franchise? That remains to be seen, but Sprint is arguing that Echo users will be able to leverage those two screens for hyper-efficient multi-tasking, game-playing and movie-watching. The Echo's hinge can be adjusted to fit multiple functions: tilted at a 30-degree angle, one screen can act as a virtual keyboard for the other screen's Facebook or e-mail program. Tilted flat, the smartphone's two screens act as one large 4.7-inch screen for movie watching. In a Feb. 8 conversation with eWEEK, Sprint and Kyocera executives were careful to avoid outright comparisons with a tablet, but they did allow that the Echo offers "tablet-like" functionality. "It's a phone first," David Owens, Sprint's vice president of consumer acquisition, said—albeit a smartphone that lets users run either a single application split across both screens, or reserve each screen for separate functions within a single application. The device will arrive sometime in the spring, and retail for $199 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.??í