The back of your phone is useless. there. I said it. Sure, the cameras are back, but what about all that empty real estate monopolizing 90% of the roof space? Honestly, he should start pulling his weight here. However, a fully functional screen is not the answer. This means more battery drain, a thicker design, and a much higher price – why exactly?
The idea of a secondary e-ink screen is not a new one. The Yota Phone has been doing this for years. But eventually, the company declared bankruptcy in 2019, four years after launching its second device. By then, foldable devices had already been on the market for a few years, making the innovation little more than a passing novelty.
The Infinix E-Color Shift improves on the Yota phone somewhat, by adding color to the mix. However, it's not the full low-power secondary display that the previous device promised. Instead, it's a fun, aesthetic addition to the part of your device that's almost always covered by a case, your hand, or some other way on the table.
Image credits: Brian Heater
The surface is not proper E-Ink, and certainly not a big “E” E-Ink. The company describes this technology as follows: “By applying different voltages, the electric field changes within the microstructure, causing the corresponding color molecules to move and display the desired colors. This innovative approach allows the phone's body to change its 'surfaces' at will, keeping the display Without consuming energy.”
This technology debuted at CES last month, but I've been sick in bed with Covid, so I'm telling you about my experience with E-Color Shift here at MWC in Barcelona. After playing around with it a bit, I should mention that this is the prototype of the prototypes. Not only are we talking about an actual product here, but the technology that Infinix was demonstrating required the dummy unit to be connected to an external battery pack.
However, like e-ink, the back panel has the advantage of maintaining a stable image even when the battery is not running.
It remains to be seen whether this has been licensed by a third party or will simply appear on an Infinix device. I think the Hong Kong company is hoping for the latter, as it's hard to imagine too many people buying a smartphone based on this technology alone. For one thing, it doesn't really do much.
For another reason, as mentioned above, it'll probably be covered in some form 99% of the time, except for those rare occasions when you want to show your friend the weird thing your phone does.
