[YotaPhone] manmikey:
My Yotaphone 2 Review

I've had the Yotaphone 2 for a few weeks now so I thought its time to offer an opinion and review

I chose the Yotaphone 2 as my two year contract was coming to an end and I wanted something different. My first smartphone was an iPhone 3G and I loved it but quickly tired of Apple and its walled garden and in particular its cliff like drop off for software, performance and support for devices over 2 years old, after that, my first Android, a Samsung Galaxy S2 followed 2 years later by the HTC One (M7). The HTC one is a sublime device that has got better with Sence 6, KitKat and more recently Lollipop upgrade, to be honest sense 6 is brilliant and I miss it on the Yotaphone.

So why not another HTC One M9? the simple answer is despite it being faster, bigger, better etc its basically a very similar device that does very similar things to my M7. All Android devices seem to be converging with little to choose, the O/S are all getting stripped down more and more to basic Android.

I looked at the Yota 1 but it wasn't flagship enough for me, poor specs and reviews seem to push it into a very niche device. However the Yotaphone 2 got great reviews from the tech industry and users alike and it offers something unique and different and a real possibility to end battery anxiety! . So I took the plunge.

The first thing you notice is the lovely OLED front display, it is sharp, colours are vibrant without being over saturated, and every thing moves round with buttery smoothness, it is a joy to use. The hardware can drive this display without any slowdown or stutter which is why it doesn't matter that the CPU is "last years" . Then as I set it up I started to find things missing that I was used to on HTC Sense so its taken me a while to adapt to the stripped back experience the Google Now launcher presents, for instance in the app draw there are no search, sorting or folder options- really? I hope stuff like this is included in the Google Now version of Lollipop and I really, really miss Blinkfeed. I tried side loading the HTC sense launcher but its too flaky to use as a daily driver.

But im getting used to it.

EDIT 24/03/15 .... I now have the HTC Sense Launcher working on my Yotaphone 2, it took a bit of tinkering but finally I have Blinkfeed again which is awesome for me as I really missed it and the Sense launcher looks good on the Yota too and the App drawer is much, much better.. All credit to XPERT for his tireless work on this :)

see http://xdaforums.com/android/apps-games/htc-blinkfeed-plugins-devices-08-03-2015-t3049438

So as an Android device to be honest it is good at what it does but nothing special, however this is not just any Android device because of what's on the other side. So flip it over and everything changes, this phone gives you choices, set up your Yota Panels and you need not use the OLED at all! From the rear Electronic Paper Display (EPD) you can check mail, phone calls, SMS messages, open any app from a shortcut, check you calendar, dial contacts, control music, play games, read books, look at PDFs etc etc. All this while preserving battery life. Third party support is beginning to appear on the Play store to so hopefully over the coming months there will be more and more apps to play with.

You need to "get" the point of this EPD and have a reason to use it, some reviewers don't "get" it and find it too much of a chore, flipping the screen over, the slow response of the screen update and touch inputs etc, fair enough this device is not for them. The point for me and why I'm prepared to put up with those operational compromises is two fold. Firstly, I want something different and secondly I want an end to battery anxiety.

Firstly -Something different I covered in my opening paragraph but I'm finding endless ways that the EPD is useful such as having my Costa card QR code saved as a Yotasnap and Google maps whilst wandering round an unfamiliar place. Plus the brighter the sunshine the more this EPD display rocks! OLED bleached out? mirror your home screen, flip it over and you're away, I love that! (But in dim conditions the opposite is true)

Secondly - An end to battery anxiety. Like any new Android device you should get a day out of light to medium use using the OLED. I have killed the battery with 2-3 hours screen on time in half a day that's normal for any mobile phone whoever makes it. But with this device I have choice, if I put the effort in to using the EPD for nearly everything I have had the device last 3 days off charge - Off charge Friday morning till Sunday night with 20% battery remaining. This was doing all the usual messaging, notifications, calls, checking weather, twitter etc from the EPD an only occasional using the front. So if I choose to I can!

What normally happens tho is dependant on my plans for the day, if I'm at home I don't tend to use the EPD that much as I can top up the charge at any time, when I'm out and about I tend to use the EPD much more but the point is I can forget about battery worries but bare in mind physics still apply! its up you you to get the best out of the battery.

Three further points on battery life. The built in Yota energy app is very good and is fully customisable, it really can stretch the battery life for both normal and EPD use, you can use it all the while or set it to come on at a battery percentage. Secondly the phone has Qualcomm Quickcharge 2 technology built in, with the supplied charger (or any compatible charger) the phone charges really quickly. you can get up from 20% to 80% in less than an hour. Thirdly QI charging support is built in but it is really quite useless on the 3 chargers Ive tried, the charge comes and goes unless its exactly on the sweet spot. I've just ordered a 3 coil charger so maybe that will be better.

Edit... I have now tried a three coil charger and it is equally as useless as the single coils, the charging comes and goes at random and I would not trust it to be left for a few hours and expect the phone to be charged.

There are some negatives,

1. The phone is a little quirky, sometimes it wont unlock without two presses of the button. They keyboard can be tricky especially with swipe turned on.

2. it is very slippery and I have to use the bumper supplied to prevent dropping it.

3. The biggest weakness for me Is the way it handles notifications on the back screen, Calls, SMS and Email are great but any other notification comes under one icon and handling those notifications is clumsy as it just makes flip over the device and do it on the front screen.

This really needs to be enhanced to a proper notification centre where you can white or blacklist apps to feed notifications of your choosing and while youre at it give us a customisable notification yotapanel so I can have (for instance ) whataspp that displays a notification count that will open whatsapp on the EPD when I select it. Really Yota please sort this out sooner rather than later.

4. It really needs lollipop, Google now launcher is very basic and anyone coming from Samsung, HTC etc will find it stripped of many basic and useful features, Lollipop adds some of these these features in.

5. Support for me has been poor, I've found their support agents a little defensive and have never called back when they said they would. I had a problem requiring an RMA and replacement device, Yota raised a support request but I was left to contact their support partner and sent the device at my own expense, I've since had no contact or customer care from Yota at all. With aspirations to become a big player this needs to be a lot better.

Overall I'm really enjoying getting to know this phone and get the best out of its two displays, I would say to anyone thinking over buying one to think hard about why you may want one, if you just want any easy experience and a "great battery life" then this is probably not for you. If you like to get into your devices and think you "get" this one and what is required to use it then it will more than reward your efforts in return.