Kyocera Echo: a dual-screen Android gaming phone with two launch games
by Andrew Yoon 
on Feb 7th 2011 8:20PM
Nintendo may not be making a smartphone, but if it did, it might look a bit like the
Kyocera Echo. Coming to Sprint later this year, it's being touted as the world's first "dual-touchscreen smartphone." At a preview event today, we got to see the phone running
The Sims 3, optimized to take advantage of both screens. Unsurprisingly, it looked a lot like the DS version, albeit with higher-resolution graphics. The phone is set to launch with
one other game, although a Sprint representative wouldn't reveal what it was.
Running on a custom Kyocera-skinned version of Android 2.2, the Echo augments the growing "fragmentation" problem that Google's mobile OS faces. Games must use
Sprint's SDK to take advantage of both of the screens offered by the Echo. But, how many developers will flock to create games for a single device available on a single carrier? We're going to guess: not many. At least the phone will be able to play other Android games -- maybe even
PlayStation Suite games, if the specs are up to snuff.
