Yesterday, December 12, our customer, Yota, announced a new phone coming in 2013 that features an E Ink display.

While E Ink has been included in cell phones before, with the Motofone F3, the Samsung Alias 2 and the Sony Ericsson Urbano Affare, the E Ink display had been a small supplemental display, or a keypad. The Yota product marks the first time E Ink will be a large secondary display on a smartphone.

Yet this phone is not significantly heavier or using significantly more power. How is this possible?

Yota is utilizing one of our new display technologies – flexible TFTs. Why did they chose this type of display as opposed to one of displays with a glass TFT, like many of our eReader displays?

Over the last 15 years E Ink scientists and engineers have been busy developing and refining flexible display technology and a complementing eco-system of technology partners. E Ink’s flexible display solution is specifically designed to address the technical challenges of adding a smart surface to the unused areas of smartphone devices.

Our flexible displays utilize an ultra-thin plastic-based TFT, which is then laminated onto hardened glass; this ensures that the displays are ultra-tough, while taking little more space or weight than a standard phone back-wall. Unlike LCDs, these displays do not need to be square and flat. Since E Ink flexible displays leverage a thin-film plastic backplane, they are some of the thinnest and lightest active matrix displays on the market.

In addition to the innovations mentioned above, E Ink flexible displays still offer the same core benefits seen in E Ink’s reader based products – readability under a variety of lighting conditions, wide viewing angle and low power consumption. And power savings will be a key enabling feature – Yota will be leveraging the fact that our displays are image-stable, meaning they consume power only when information is changed, allowing Yota to integrate a second screen without sacrificing battery life. A user can view maps, emails, lists and itineraries, or display static information such as a boarding pass or a “skin” design, for extended period of time, with minimal impact on battery life.

Yota is projected to release their phone in Q3 2013. You can read more about their product here:
YotaPhone website
Read the press release
Wall Street Journal Moscow Article
Engadget review

Let us know! What do you think of the upcoming Yota phone?