Phones with e-ink displays seem to more popular than we think. First there was the YotaPhone and now the YotaPhone 2 that is scheduled to get a release later this year, which we learned about at Mobile World Congress. The YotaPhone and YotaPhone 2 for those that are unaware are the dual screen devices that have an e-ink display on one side and than an LCD display on the other. It may seem a bit weird because we’re not used to devices with those types of displays, and perhaps it is just a tad bit out of the ordinary, but there are definite benefits to having something with an e-ink display, like battery life.
Such is the case with this newest phone with an e-ink display called the InkPhone that is being developed by a company called Onyx. It’s one simple 4.3-inch e-ink display which, if for nothing else, promises to give its users great battery life. How much you might ask? Upwards of two weeks on a single charge, with a mere 1,800 mAh battery. If you think you couldn’t live without some of the apps and capabilities of the smartphones we use now a days, sit back and ask yourself if a two week battery would serve a purpose for you. The InkPhone is fairly limited out of the box when compared to other smartphones, it doesn’t have many of the uses that a smartphone today has like the Google Play Store or a camera, but that’s all the better if you’re going to keep this thing running for extended periods of time. The InkPhone serves as a solution for individuals that are looking for not much more than an e-reader with the capability to make phone calls, or those people that mind having a low res display for minimal use of apps and such. The InkPhone does have other capabilities like a web browsing and email, and you can also sideload apk files onto the phone if you so choose to have the use of other apps since it still runs Android Gingerbread, you just can’t download them from the Play Store.
Inside of the InkPhone you’re looking at some fairly tame internal hardware. There’s reportedly a very low amount of RAM,(we don’t know how much as it wasn’t specified), and only 4GB of storage space. It’s also using a low power Rockchip CPU, but that’s to be expected for the limited uses one would have with such a device. The InkPhone might just be what some people are looking for, and it’ll end up getting released sometime next month says Onyx. Amazon will be the place to go and obtain your very own InkPhone if you live outside the phone’s launch regions, which are Germany and Poland. Price wise, it looks like it barely beats the low cost to consumer pricing of the Moto G, and will set you back about $195 through Amazon, or €140 if you live in the countries where this will hit retail stores.