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Maybe I’m just a tech nerd, but I’ve always liked the idea of dual-screen smartphones. We’ve seen a few attempts by manufacturers in the past — the Kyocera Echo and the NEC Medias — but now ZTE is taking a stab at it with the newly announced ZTE Axon M.
Officially unveiled this morning at an event in New York, the ZTE Axon M is an extremely interesting flip phone with displays on the front and back. Unfolding the phone brings the two screens together for a sort of split screen mode that can run two apps at the same time (even two instances of the same app) or combines the screen together to form one giant display (like a mini tablet mode).
Although this may sound a bit gimmicky, there are some worthwhile use cases. For instance, watching a movie or TV show while browsing Reddit, playing Pokemon GO and leaving it running while texting your friends, or even streaming 2 sports games at the same time.
It’s basically Android’s split screen mode taken to the next level. Although these are all things you could technically do on a standard smartphone using Android’s split view feature, a single display just isn’t big enough to multitask properly, not without things getting cramped.
As for the rest of the hardware, we’re looking at relatively modest specs paired with last year’s flagship processor. Here’s the gist:
ZTE Axon M specs
- 5.2-inch 1080p display x2
- Snapdragon 821 processor
- 4GB RAM
- 20MP camera (acts as front and rear facing)
- 3,180mAh battery
- Headphone jack
- 12.1mm thick, 230g
The ZTE Axon M will be sold exclusively at AT&T in the US and NT Docomo in Japan. There’s no solid release date, but ZTE says it will be available sometime later this year. Pricing is about the same range as other high-end, premium Android handsets retailing for $725 outright, or 30 monthly installments of $24.17.
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