SimplyTRUE

From the front it looks like yet another plain smartphone — dark, nondescript, and maybe a little like an iPhone 4 that’s had its right-most extent sliced off. Pick it up, though, and you realize this little thing isn’t so nondescript. In fact, it feels oddly substantial, with a strange bevel cutting around the edge and a curious amount of heft. And then you flip it open. Suddenly it’s a little tablet, two screens forming one 6-inch slate bisected by a few millimeters of bezel. Shades of the Echo? Sure, but this is actually a very different device to hold, and a very different device to use. The software customizations built over Android 2.3, the bezel gestures, the proper multitasking, all make this into a unique device that feels incredibly familiar yet altogether different. It’s a prototype device from Imerj and Frog (formerly known as Frog Design) something that’s months away from production and hasn’t even been blessed with a model designation more specific than “2-in-1 smartpad.” So, is this poncho-clad Phone with No Name a legitimate threat to the established families of devices that own our little wireless San Miguel? Or, will it ride straight off into a sunset of obscurity when it launches? Read on to find out.

When you get a glimpse of the Imerj prototype from across the room, as we first did, it’s hard not to think “Oh, it’s another Kyocera Echo.” It is, after all, a dual-screened smartphone with a hinge down the middle that brings two disparate displays together into one. However, Kyocera comparisons do this device a strong disservice. First impression is one of heft and solidity. Each half of the device feels firm, dense, and the simple hinge in the middle doesn’t click or give any sort of protestations at all as you fold or unfold the thing. When doubled over the two halves subtly pop together thanks to the wonders of magnets, but other than that it’s a smooth trip out to fully extended. There’s no mechanical assistance here. Read more at www.engadget.com