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ZTE Launches Axon M, a Foldable, Dual-Screened Smartphone (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the two-is-better-than-one dept.

ZTE's new Axon M is a full-featured smartphone with a hinge that connects two full-size displays, making the Axon M a flip phone of sorts. "Its front screen is a 5.2-inch, 1080p panel, it has last year's Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 20-megapixel camera," reports The Verge. "But flip the phone over and there's an identical 5.2-inch display on the back, making the Axon M anything but run-of-the-mill." From the report: The M's hinge allows the rear screen to flip forward and slot right next to the main display, creating an almost tablet sized canvas. You can stretch the home screen and apps across the two displays for a larger working area, or you can run two different apps at the same time, one on each screen. You can also "tent" the phone, and mirror the displays so two people can see the same content at the same time. ZTE says that it is utilizing Android's default split-screen features to enable many of the dual-screen functions, and it has made sure the "top 100" Android apps work on the phone. In the "extended" mode, which stretches a single app across both screens, the tablet version of the app is presented (provided there is one, which isn't always a guarantee with Android apps). It's even possible to stream video on both screens at the same time and switch the audio between them on the fly, which might be useful if you want to watch a sports game and YouTube at the same time, I guess.

7 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder... by jenningsthecat · · Score: 2

    Can it be rooted? Can the baked-in spyware be shut down?

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  2. Innovative by jimprdx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not sure I'd want one, but at least they're making a decent effort to be innovative. For the last 10 years all phone companies have been doing is trying to make a "better iPhone" (as in the 2007 original).

    1. Re:Innovative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not sure I'd want one, but at least they're making a decent effort to be innovative

      I don't know about you, but I'd find a 6000 mAH battery more useful than a second small screen on my phone.

      There are a few crappy phones out there with huge batteries, but most won't run on US frequencies.

      I'll just keep waiting for that innovation I guess.

    2. Re:Innovative by Powercntrl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For the last 10 years all phone companies have been doing is trying to make a "better iPhone" (as in the 2007 original).

      I'm actually pretty disappointed in what passes for improvements on current-gen Android smartphones: Curved glass (because fuck perfect display geometry, I guess), rounded display edges (CRT nostalgia?), no headphone jack, on-screen navigation buttons (because some designer decided physical buttons are ugly), and all screen sizes below 5.2" are reserved for bargain-bin prepaid crap phones.

      My top-loader washing machine doesn't look much different from the ones sold back in the 70s. I probably wouldn't have bought it if it had all sorts of superfluous features and embellishments, from 4 decades of "innovation". My current laptop doesn't look significantly different from the nearly 11-year-old laptop it replaced. Perhaps one day the smartphone industry will stop trying to shoot for the moon with "innovative" new designs, and just stick to improving performance, camera quality, and battery life.

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    3. Re:Innovative by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      This, "I NEED someone to build a monstrous internal battery phone" that very few people will actually buy comes from people with rigid mentalities that refuse to adapt.

      He's not asking for a monstrous internal battery phone, he's asking for a battery life of longer than one day, which used to be standard and would be incredibly easy to implement.

      He doesn't have a way to "adapt" because your half baked "solution" isn't available for 99% of phones.

      He's also asking for something that huge numbers of people ask for, indicating that there is a market, it's just inertia from the mobile device manufacturers who refuse to believe anyone would want anything other than a thin phone. The fact that the first thing anyone does after getting a thin phone is to buy a fat case for it should tell the manufacturers that, actually, virtually nobody buys a phone because it's thin, but unfortunately you're taking about an entire industry that's disappeared up it's own rectum.

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  3. Re:Goddamnit! by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    What , the Android and iOS keyboards aren’t hard enough?

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  4. An answer to a question nobody asked by DrXym · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The screen is the biggest battery sapper in a phone. And now you've got two of them. And twice the breakable surfaces and a fragile hinge. And more component expense. And few apps (if any) which split nicely across the two displays. And a CPU burdened with running two foreground apps at once. And a compromised design that makes the bezel freakishly large at the top and bottom edges.

    What was the point again?