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Kyocera Echo Review:
There's no arguing that Sprint has a soft spot for Sanyo / Kyocera. In the carrier's eyes, Sanyo-built phones have shown to be both durable and reliable in the utterly unpredictable hands of end-users, and fewer RMAs mean fewer FOFs in Overland Park. During a sit-down with the operator, we were told that the Echo is a project that has been in motion for over a year now, and that oodles of pivoting mechanisms were tested before the (now patent-pending) tilting / locking hinge was settled upon. Naturally, we spent a lot of time opening and closing this thing just to get a feel for its sturdiness, and while a week in the city is hardly a year in the R&D lab, we're just as confident in its ability to open / close now as the day we first touched it.
It's also impossible to ignore the Echo's girth. Without qualification, this is one of the thicker modern-day smartphones on the market, but it's easy to excuse when you realize that you're effectively getting two phones in one. From a display standpoint, anyway. We said it back in February, and we'll say it again — the Echo's no looker, but what it lacks in aesthetics it more than makes up for in raw utility. If you're looking for a phone that oozes style, there's hardly a need to give this guy even a second of consideration, but if you're willing to overlook a somewhat unsightly exterior for one of the most unique phone experiences on the market, we think you'll find a lot to like underneath.
While feeling solid (as a rock, even), the Echo wasn't burdensome from a weight standpoint. In fact, we found that it slipped into our pockets even easier than most other phones due to how skinny it was from a width perspective. The volume rocker and microSD card slots were both positioned perfectly, and thoughtful packers will be elated to know that no proprietary charging cable is needed — micro-USB does the trick. The pair of panels are decidedly glossy, but equally crisp and bright in use. We didn't manage a single scuff or scratch during our testing, despite a barrage of unadvised attempts.
The hinge itself is a rather simple affair, only having a lock / unlock setting, a lie-flat setting, and a single tilt setting (for use in the aforementioned laptop mode). Once locked into place, the phone practically demands both hands to use, but at least multitouch is in full effect and works shockingly well with one finger on one screen and one on the other. It's quick to open, easy to adjust, and difficult to knock out of place without obvious intent. There's also a healthy and unmistakable "click" with each and every movement, ushering in a level of confidence with each movement. It became abundantly clear to us that Kyocera put an awful lot of work into the hinge; it's one of the more solid pieces we've seen in recent memory, and there's precisely no wobble to be found anywhere. Frankly, only a robust and rigid hinge would lead to an experience worthy of laud, and that's exactly what we found after a week of abusing it.
As with any other smartphone, it's truly the software that makes or shatters the experience. Nothing could be closer to the truth with the Echo. Kyocera had no choice but to equip the Echo with Froyo (Android 2.2), given that it took months upon months to figure out a satisfactory solution to using the OS on a pair of panels. The upside here is that it's 2.2, rather than 2.1. While Gingerbread would've certainly been nice, the heavy-hitters of 2.x are all included with Froyo: Flash support, Mobile Hotspot / tethering, Move to SD and a vastly improved V8 browser engine. We were told that updates are definitely in the pipeline for the Echo, but got the impression that the v2.3 update would happen closer to the fall than the summer — it takes awhile to retool a significantly tweaked version of Android, you know.
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THE EARTH OR MOON HAVE TILTED!! Video & Photo PROOF!!by YodadogProductions87,901 views
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