Are 2 Touch Screens Better Than One?

This Sunday, April 17th, a new kind of touch-screen phone will be available for purchase through Sprint. This touch-screen phone is out of the ordinary. Not only does it have a touch-screen, it features a second touch-screen that can be used side-by-side.

The Kyocera Echo looks like a normal Android phone at first glance, although a little thicker than usual. First thoughts is that it has some kind of fancy slide-out keyboard -- but no, it doesn't! Under the first touch-screen, is another touch-screen. A special hinge design allows the top touch-screen to slide up and be positioned directly next to the lower screen for side-by-side use. Use of the two screens can be very useful and productive side-by-side. You are able to use one app on both screens, or even split the screens and have two different apps open at once for use. Turn the Echo sideways, and you are able to view the Web on a combined total of a 4.7 inch screen.

At a 6.8 ounce phone, the Kyocera Echo is noticably heavier than the other competing phones; such as the iPhone 4 at 4.8-ounces, the Blackberry Bold 9700 at 4.3-ounces, etc. From sources able to have a preview of the phone, when in a phone call, the 0.68-inch thick phone seemed bulky; although, the calls sounded fine.

At this point, users are worried about battery life with the two seperate touch-screens. Sprint estimates the total talk time to be up to 7 hours. The phone does come with a spare battery that can be swapped with the original, or even act as a power source with the right accessories.

The $200 phone (with 2-year contract) must be used with one of Sprint's Everything Data plans that start at $70 a month, plus a $10 premium data charge each month. Like other smart phones, the Echo is hot-spot enabled to host up to 5 devices for an extra $30 each month.

[original article found on The Wall Street Journal]

Google Instant Previews Now Mobile!

I have an iPhone and I noticed the last day or two that there was this weird 'magnifier glass' that popped up next to some of the search results. I had no idea what it was until I came across the Official Google Blog, which explained a little bit about what it was and how it worked.



Credit: Google Official Blog

Basically, when you search for something and the 'magnifier glass' shows up next to the results, if you tap on one of those magnifying glasses, it'll show you a 'preview' of the websites that were a result of your search. Google stated in their blog:

"...you can visually compare search results from web page snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see."

I tried this out for the first time and decided to make a simple search for "blogspot". Right away, I noticed that almost every website that came back as a result of the search had a magnifying glass next to it. So that part of it seemed to work just fine. I could easily tell which websites had the preview, and which ones didn't. So I took it one step further and tried the Instant Preview feature from my iPhone. First of all, I noticed that it took a good amount of time to download all of the previews of the websites. I'm talking time that I could have looked at least two, maybe three, websites and actually be able to read what was on the website. It was cool that, after all of the preview results were loaded, I could do a side-by-side comparison of what each site was like. But even with the preview, I wasn't able to tell what each website actually had on it and how much of it was relevant to my search. Using the preview feature, I was able to ditch a couple of the results because I could tell, from titles that I could read and the few pictures that it showed, that they didn't really want what I was looking for. I think that this feature is just not perfected for mobile use. Even on my iPhone, I think that the view of the site is too small. It might be easier for those you that are HTC Evolution users, but that's not a guarantee.

I don't think that this feature is a complete and total waste of time, if it is improved upon by Google. Since it is so new, I'm sure Google knows that it does have room improvement. And I'm sure that they knew that not everybody would like it when it first came out. It just needs time to grow.