The extended 960 x 800 screen resolution isn't too far off from the 1024 x 600 found on the Galaxy Tab (or the 1024 x 768 on the iPad), so you definitely encroach "tablet" territory when viewing these programs across two panes.

Simul-Task and user experience





Camera

There's honestly not much to say when it comes to the rear-facing camera. It's a 5 megapixel affair with flash, autofocus and a 2x digital zoom, and it'll also capture video in 720p should you ask it to. Does it work? Sure, and it actually fires off quicker than a lot of the Android phones we've toyed with lately. But there's no excusing the quality; a 5 megapixel sensor doesn't go far these days, and the quality on our test shots were average at best. Naturally, the outdoor images were markedly superior to those taken inside on a beautifully sunny day, but the flash at least makes things "usable" while in poor lighting. Would we suggest the Echo as a point-and-shoot replacement? Hardly, but it'll at least capture the moment in some regard when called upon. Have a look at the samples below to get a better idea of what you can expect.

Why digress into specifications? Simple. We'd like to point out just how fluidly Froyo cruises along on the Echo, regardless of how many applications we've opened or how many times we've forced it to change orientation. In fact, we were consistently amazed by how well the Echo managed to handle our orientation-altering abuse, not to mention the daily chores of hopping in and out of our email, gaming and handling an influx of TweetDeck updates. If we're being candid (and really, why wouldn't we?), the Echo felt snappier than our Nexus One (with Android 2.3) in all instances, be it in single- or dual-screen use.We've voiced our concerns recently that overhauls of Android could be leading to poor(er) user experiences, and we're no doubt enthused by Sprint and Kyocera's decision to leave the Echo fairly untouched. At a glance, this is stock Froyo through and through, with only a faint trace of Sprint's pre-installed software; you'll find Sprint Football Live, Sprint Radio (free with a Simply Everything plan), Sprint TV & Movies (likewise) and Sprint Zone (a Sprint account portal), but that's the extent of it. We fell instantly in love with Football Live and TV & Movies, but there's one troubling issue that we just can't overlook. For whatever reason, Sprint won't allow you to enjoy these services over WiFi, instead forcing you to rely on whatever 3G signal you can manage to grab.This is illogical on a number of fronts. For one, whySprint encourage users to offload data usage onto a WiFi network? Secondly, does Sprint not realize that the user experience is apt to be superior if allowed to stream this content in over a faster connection? We're guessing this protocol is in place due to licensing issues (i.e. a cellular connection is needed to establish that you're streaming on a qualified account), but this is a serious problem in our mind. The phone literally instructs us to disable WiFi to enjoy these apps, which seems unacceptable regardless of how you spin it. We don't get the greatest Sprint coverage at Engadget HQ, and having the ability to enjoy the differentiating services over WiFi would be a huge boon. For those thatget solid Sprint signal, we still maintain that having live access to ESPN (amongst other channels) is a great reason to choose The Now Network over rivals -- if it's something you're into, of course.As for other specialized apps that you'll find only on the Echo? Web shortcuts to "Echo Top Apps," "Get Namco Games," and "HD Games," as well as the all-important Tablet Mode Extension app. Kyocera made quite a fuss about its dedicated SDK, and the folks from Namco have loaded Pac-Man and Pool Pro 3 Online here in order to give you a taste of what dual-screen gaming can offer. We're told that the Top Apps portal should begin to populate with even more dedicated dual-screen apps in due time, and that you'll need to head there (read: not the Android Market) to get your fix. These particular titles are custom written to support the full 960 x 800 resolution pane, and particularly with the billiards game, it honestly adds quite a bit to the experience. Just as an example, you're given two different viewpoints and double the amount of touch controls, and a quick shift to playing in single-screen mode has it feeling cramped in no time flat. We also managed to lose ourselves for a bit within The Sims 3, a feat that'd be nigh impossible on a conventional smartphone.Thankfully, it's not just the specially designed apps that take advantage of the newly realized real estate. The aforementioned Tablet Mode Extension app allows pretty muchto span both screens, and honestly, we were shocked at just how intelligently it handled the myriad applications we threw at it.Angry Birds Rio spanned beautifully, and given that the points of importance sit on the left and right side of the screen, the obvious line in the center has no real impact on gameplay.Our own Engadget app adapted beautifully, providing two to three more articles beneath the Top 5 than on a standard smartphone, and both TweetDeck and Facebook became infinitely more usable (and enjoyable) with the additional screen space. Truth be told, the extended 960 x 800 screen resolution isn't too far off from the 1024 x 600 found on the Galaxy Tab (or the 1024 x 768 on the iPad), so you definitely encroach "tablet" territory when viewing these programs across two panes. To say it's a refreshing new look would be understating it; after a week of use, peeking TweetCaster on our Nexus One felt like a true step back from a visibility standpoint. This was felt even more drastically when using Google Maps Navigation; having3.5-inch panels worth of streets at our disposal definitely gave us a better look at our surroundings.Without Kyocera's Simul-Task app (and arguably the Tablet Mode Extension), you'd never actually get to enjoy the spoils of using Android across two screens. One of the bigger selling points here is the inclusion of the former, a custom tweak that allows a two-finger tap to pull up an app drawer on both panels. From there, a single tap switches the panes, and a couple of 'em can pull one of seven predetermined programs into either of the displays. Therein lies the problem. As elegant as this solution is (it actually works swimmingly), the fact that only seven applications are supported is a huge downer. To add insult to injury, the lackluster "Email" app is one of the seven,Google's own Gmail app.All told, you'll find Browser, Contacts, Email, Gallery, Messaging, Phone and VueQue. That final one is a custom-built YouTube viewer, which enables the playback of one video while you sift through others on the side. It's actually quite intuitive, but we're still never going to get over the omission of Gmail. We should also point out that while it's theoretically possible to stream a YouTube video on one screen while pecking out an email on the other, the virtual keyboard covers up said video if you try and do it. The audio continues, mind you, but it's far from a perfect experience. In practice, Simul-Task performs admirably, and we only managed to crash it once; too many changes in too short a windows of time, we surmise.In short, Simul-Task is a well executed program, but it falls flat in terms of utility. Rather than only being able to have the Browser open in one window, we'd prefer two "tabs" -- one on the left pane, one on the right. We'd also love a certain level of customization. We know that's easier said than done, but it's somewhat painful to think that these seven apps will only blossom into more if Kyocera deems it doable in a software update. We're holding out hope that said updates come; in our discussions with Sprint, they seemed to think that more apps would be enabled down the road, but as these things tend to go , it's more of a guessing game than anything else.