The other day Yota Devices has announced the release of the next, third model of their high – tech miracle- YotaPhone. The gadget is expected to debut just in time for the release of iPhone 8 – the anniversary of “Apple” smartphone. Explorer Pln-pskov has shared his experience with the Russian wonder-gadget and speculate on the prospects of the third YotaPhone to overshadow the September new Apple.
To withdraw completely from the political unlikely – far too many copies have been broken around this smartphone. In fact, YotaPhone fortunate to be one of the symbols of the “Crimean spring”. The second version, in General, little-known model in 2014 unexpectedly turned out to be a hit. It is understandable that the inhabitants of the vast country wanted to believe the best, that finally began the long-awaited national recovery. And now we have learned to make not only the “Armata” and “Protons” inherited from the Union to the drawings, but also different comfortable high-tech toys for the mass market. Not casually Vladimir Putin gave the Russian the phone to his Chinese counterpart saying, also do not bast soup slurp. The Internets opinions are divided into two typical camps. Some happily declared that we finally “made” Apple and Samsung, others habitually turned up his nose and snorted in the sense that all that is derived from Russia is the definition of trash, scrap, and cut money.
Here, of course, the question remains about how all of this phone can be considered Russian. Production and components of the Chinese, operating system from Google, the design and development of specialized software engineers engaged in from the former Nokia. About the last fact, incidentally, not without pride, told themselves managers of the Corporation. However, the firm has created a Russian businessman Denis Sverdlov, top management is also Russian, some shares owned rostec may pop some defensive technologies. In General, if you take the organization and idea, and not to quibble over the details, the phone kind of like Russian. Well, what are the Chinese so it is a modern international business works, nothing personal. Plants “Yabloko” also, tea, do not smoke in Detroit.
Needless to say that 99.9% of the admires and critics no YotaPhone in the hands not kept, and pasted labels exclusively from their political preferences. As for yours truly, I became a happy owner of this gadget at the peak of the strange consumer demand in 2014. In December, the Regulator had done with the unfortunate ruble things that did not dare to do the Marquis de Sade with Paris courtesans. And looking at it, many citizens suffered the remains of the not yet completely burnt blood in the coming showrooms and appliance stores. That’s when many Russian families appeared on three spare TV, a couple of backup washing machines or four extra speakers. On the background of General consumer madness the idea is to replace the Nokia phone advertised to the heavens YotaPhone the second model did not seem a bit strange.
The order was issued through Ozon – with a decent margin, however, it is at that time was the only network where the device could buy cod. Others asked for the money up front, what to do not like. The price tag was something around 35 000, despite the fact that other flagships cost much more. The latter model iPhone pulled 60 000 and Samsung Galaxy at fifty dollars a penny. It is clear that by and large, one does not need neither the first nor the second, nor the third, especially for the money. We are talking about a luxury item for the poor, to which the criteria are peculiar. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
So, that immediately pleased, is a packaging and design. Jokes aside. We live in a time of war, the meanings and symbols, when properly advertised brand like a bitten Apple costs more than a system of pipelines, not giving to freeze the whole of Europe. So the design and art of a salesman means a lot. Box-transformer was performed at 6 points on a scale, color scheme, fonts and design giving to understand that it represents something very valuable and high-tech.
The technological parameters of the apparatus at that time, not much stood out among the counterparts. YotaPhone supported communication standards GSM/EGPRS, WCDMA, LTE. The 32 GB memory that is enough for the eyes and the ears. Screen 1920 x 1080, pleased glass “Gorilla glass 3.0” — not sapphire, but is also steadily against scratches and cracks. The presence of such binding today things like geolocation GPS and GLONASS, Wi—Fi, Bluetooth, Accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, proximity sensor, light sensor. The flashlight is still there, where the same without him.
The bad – all the critics criticize and do it fairly, simple the camera at 8 megapixels. Also not very pleased with the YotaPhone brain — such was stunted Snapdragon-801 2.2 GHz. As the OS is, as already mentioned, the developers have put a regular Android, with the “okay Google” and all the built-in and is quite Intrusive services from the software giant. At the time of purchase it was “Android 4.4 KitKat”.
It is clear that the main feature of YotaPhone was always on the second screen. He is black and white, with the same e—ink technology as conventional e-books. Here he was indeed an extremely unusual thing that was not so easy to get used to. The second screen has two modes of application – first, to install the widgets from the model library (this may be weather, clock, current SMS messages or even RSS feed, so many options). Mode interesting – for example, you can put the phone “muzzle” on the table and watch, as hour after hour changing news feed. Also no need to touch the screen to check the time or view – called someone or didn’t call. For aesthetes – you can connect your phone to, for example, the instagram and every day to get a new picture for the design. In General, we have to admit that if this came up in the same “Apple”, his fans would write boiled water from delight. The second mode of the second screen – mirror. It is possible to display all the same as in the normal state is displayed on the main screen. There are two advantages – reduced energy consumption through e—ink technology and the screen does not glare. It may be easily seen on a bright Sunny day without any problems. Yes, and most importantly, what pushed the company – a second screen is also active.
The biggest drawback was the ridiculous pursuit of the trend to reduce the thickness. From the point of view of the consumer hyperfine sverhkrupnyh means, nothing more. No need to rack your brain to understand what in the end it was decided to save. That’s right – it’s battery! 2500 mA*h is about corresponds to the main competitors, but this is very, very little. Constantly carry the phone, fearing him once again to breathe – it is not too comfortable. Moreover, YotaPhone this problem becomes especially acute – it is even the case any not pick up, because then closed the second screen for which has horodinca whole garden.
In the end, claimed the battery had to put a bolt with a metric thread. In fact when used in normal mode, that is, as true smotrelka mail, phone confidently lived two days. Add to this the geolocation, Wi-Fi and other heavy loads, like streaming video, the machine with difficulty kept 24 hours. There was, however, another option that is associated with the specifics of the phone — namely, to enable power saving mode and use only black and white screen. In this mode, the camera survived without charging (used only for calls, which was a lot) for almost two weeks. However, particularly convenient is the use of the phone call.
If that was all, it would be possible to congratulate the Russian company with a glorious effort – well done guys, came up with an interesting phone, although a little expensive. Bring needle files and in a good way! However, unexpectedly it turned out that the developers of “Yota Devices” decided to experiment on the living. Phone with enviable regularity began to communicate on the network with the head office constantly deflating their servers any patches, according to the explanation only improves the performance and technical characteristics. Of course, this process could block, but it was just interesting that conditional domestic manufacturer will come up with next.
And he came up with the bad. First, the YotaPhone one fine day I updated the OS to 5-th version of Android. And if earlier a weak processor, in General, coped fine, but now when performing any tasks the phone froze up and warmed so that it is time to fry an egg. Then started to fall off the driver for the second screen. No, he himself worked as it should, but the contrast was getting worse and worse. Instead of black-and-white screen began to light gray to dark gray. And then I decreased the refresh rate, so that the picture was a surreal amount from multiple frames.
My not too helpful questions to tech support came prompt, discreet and completely useless answers. They say that your comments are passed to the technical Department, wait for the next patch that will fix it. To fix lotionive nothing happened, but both the bag of plenty was showered with applications that were clearly designed to monetize the product – the program for integration with any payment system, ticket booking service, quotations aphorisms from the magazine “Esquire” and the like. In the end the machine was updated to Android 6.0, which, fortunately, was not too heavier than the previous version and not much harm.
In General, it is bad, my friends. Ugly somehow to sell the phone for 35 thousand, and then do buyers Guinea pigs for the launch of the new model. So it is possible by banal greed to ruin an interesting and promising idea.
As for the third model, it is, according to sources, anything highly innovative will not eliminate oshibki the second version, put the battery in more powerful, adding a second slot for SIM cards and normal camera. Well, the price tag promise to have a more or less acceptable from 23 to 26 thousand. Too expensive, of course. But who knows, maybe again, the Central Bank will help?
