Sprint Kyocera Echo - the first dual-touchscreen smartphone with Android OS, gives you a full 4.7-inch screen!

Kyocera and Sprint have announced the first dual-touchscreen Android smartphone, Kyocera Echo, exclusively from Sprint. This Android-powered device features two high-resolution 3.5-inch WVGA touchscreen displays connected by a patent-pending “pivot hinge” that enables the two displays to operate independently, side-by-side or combined to form an oversized 4.7-inch (diagonally) integrated display.

Quoted from the press release,

Until now, a single screen on a smartphone could only be used to complete one task at a time, even with limited multitasking capabilities available on some smartphones. Kyocera Echo’s second screen provides the ability to do two things at the same time and get more done – send an email on one screen while surfing the web on the other, watch a video on one screen while texting on the other, comparison shop online with one web site on each screen and so much more.

Sprint Kyocera Echo has 4 different modes :
+ Single-Screen Mode with all the functionality of a single-display touchscreen smartphone
+ Simul-Task Mode with two of the phone’s seven core apps running concurrently but independently on the device’s dual displays
+ Optimized Mode with both displays supporting a single, optimized app with complementary functionality and enhanced usability
+ Tablet Mode with one application spread across both screens for a full 4.7-inch viewing area

Beyond the dual touchscreen innovation, Kyocera Echo Features include:
+ Android 2.2 with access to more than 100,000 apps in Android Market
+ Dual 3.5-inch LCD WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) capacitive touchscreens (4.7 inches diagonally and 800 x 960 pixels when opened)
+ 1GHz Snapdragon processor (QSD 8650 Android)
+ 5MP camera with flash, autofocus and 2x digital zoom and 720p HD camcorder
+ Wi-Fi hotspot capability , which supports wireless connections for up to 5 devices
+ 1 gigabyte (GB) of onboard memory and an 8GB microSD card for the external memory card slot supporting cards up to 32GB
+ 1GB/512MB memory , 8GB microSD included
+ Media player with a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack

Kyocera Echo comes packaged with a spare battery (1370 mAh) and a low-profile charging cradle. Along with charging the spare battery independently of the phone, the charging cradle also can tether the spare to Kyocera Echo as an external power supply.

Kyocera Echo will be available this spring for $199.99 with a new two-year service agreement or eligible upgrade and after a $100 mail-in rebate in all Sprint retail channels, including the Web (www.sprint.com) and Telesales (1-800-Sprint1). Pricing excludes surcharges and taxes.