Next-gen YotaPhone officially announced, U.S. release by end of 2014

Just as expected, Yota Devices is here at MWC 2014, and has officially announced its next-gen YotaPhone. This time around, the YotaPhone has a much sleeker design and an e-ink display that features an all-touch design.

The e-ink display is also larger in the next-gen YotaPhone at 4.7-inches, and ups the resolution to 960×540, over the 4.3-inch 640×360 e-ink display found on the first-gen model. As for the front display, you now get a much more capable 5-inch 1080p AMOLED.

While the first-gen YotaPhone had a dual-core S4 Pro CPU, the latest model will sport a 2.3 GHZ quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 with 2GB of RAM. Other specs include an 8MP camera with LED flash on the rear, 2MP front cam, 32GB storage, 2500 mAh battery, NFC, wireless charging, LTE support and Android 4.4 KitKat. All of these great specs are wrapped up in a body that’s 69.5mm wide and 8.9mm thick, with a weight of 140 grams.

As you can plainly see, the hardware is massively upgraded this time around, but Yota isn’t stopping there. The company promises some pretty useful new software features as well, including a fitness tracker that can display info onto the e-ink display, a power-saving mode that turns off the AMOLED an keeps the e-ink display going, a new Sportcaster dashboard for the EPD, amd much more.

They also are working to get on a software development kit for developers interested in making apps compatible with the e-ink display.

Expected pricing and availability

While the YotaPhone (2nd gen) looks relatively impressive, it will all come down to two factors: pricing and how long it takes for Yota to get this handset out to the market.

Unfortunately, Yota Devices has little information about pricing or a release date, though it does say it will sell the handset in Russia, Europe and Middle East first. It also says that a version of the device will hit the U.S. and China by the end of 2014. Hopefully this means that the handset will at least ship to the initial European/Middle Eastern markets by the summer.

We might not have details on pricing, but Yota Devices says its goal is to keep costs about 10% lower than other premium Android devices, which could mean the next-gen YotaPhone will fall somewhere in the $500 – $550 range.

What do you think of the YotaPhone (2nd gen) based on what we know so far, impressed with their latest model or not?