The world of mobile technology is one of the fiercest competitive markets ever.
In the quest to stand out from the pack, some companies make bold moves and succeed brilliantly.
Others are more meek and fade into the unexceptional background.
Still others fill the space between, innovating once, then endlessly iterating over and over
again.
Then there are those that just screw it all up.
Thanks to choices that are either too bold, too meek, or just plain-old absolutely insane,
these are the products that fall flat on their face.
They're not to be mocked, but the lessons they teach should certainly be remembered.
And that's what we're here for.
I'm Michael Fisher, this is Pocketnow, and this is Episode 1 of "Worst Gadgets Ever."
So, back in February of 2011, Sprint announced an "Industry First" event that they were making
a big deal out of.
They had the magician, David Blaine, in a tank of water on stage, and he sat there and
held his breath for 8 minutes while coughing up goldfish and lighting cigars and ? yeah.
Sprint was setting the stage for a "magical" unveiling, and they threw a lot of weight
behind it.
What we ended up getting out of all this was the Kyocera Echo.
As a refresher, let's take a brief hardware tour: In its closed position, the Echo looks
like a - well, there's no real way of getting around it - the Echo looks like a complete
dumpster fire.
An offset LCD panel is flanked by two metal inlays top and bottom, below which sits three
capacitive buttons for the Froyo build that was already a bit dated at the time of release.
Taking a spin around the sides and back here, you can see that the industrial design is
? absent.
Kyocera has never had the best eye for design, if you ask me, and the Echo is the finest
example of that.
This thing is brutal, with sharp corners, seams galore, cheap buttons ? and it's a heavy,
heavy brick.
Part of the reason for that added thickness and weight, of course ? if the Echo's headline
feature: popping the unit open reveals - first off, that it's a very cumbersome unit to open
- but eventually, this hinge locks into place and your bulky cumbersome oversized phone
becomes a bulky cumbersome undersized tablet.
Of sorts.
Speaking of that hinge: this isn't broken, or anything - that's how the hinge sits in
its deployed position.
It makes putting the Echo down on a desk or table a ridiculous experience, akin to a busted
see-saw.
It even feels wrong in its pseudo-laptop half-deployed position.
Kyocera made a big deal at the announcement about how many patents they had on this ridiculously
over engineered Super Copper Alloy hinge - six, if you care - it was clearly the high point
of their design prowess.
And it's just so, so awkward.
In all, the hardware on the Echo is a great example of how not all bold design choices
are good design choices.
That's Lesson #1.
But that's only half the story here.
The Echo's big software advantage was supposed to be the ability to "Simul-Task" - and yes,
that's a copyrighted term - which Kyocera was pushing as this new, powerful way of multitasking
within Android.
In the pre-ICS days, when Android multitasking was still not as visually elegant, this seemed
like quite a value add.
Of course ? it didn't turn out that way.
As with most specialized software builds the Echo's custom software had its limitations.
Only certain apps could Simul-Task - which was accessed by tapping both screens at the
same time.
In stock configuration, the Simul-Task-available apps included only the Browser, Phone Book,
Email, Gallery, Messaging, Phone, and Kyocera's custom VueQue app, which let you watch videos
while browsing others.
Running two apps side-by-side doesn't sound like rocket science today, with Samsung's
new Galaxy Note 10.1 offering side-by-side app running ability, and Windows' snap feature
starting to bleed into tablets ? but this was early 2011, and the Echo was trying to
address a gap in the market that really needed addressing.
Outside of webOS, the lack of elegant multitasking on smartphones was a real problem that needed
solving.
The problem: it wasn't elegant.
The dual-tap-to-open function of the multitasking menu meant multitouch was disabled in some
crucial apps in tablet mode, which impacted usability quite a bit in apps like the Gallery.
Sure, you could watch videos while you were taking care of other business, but the pitiful
number of apps which supported the feature meant you couldn't, say, check your email
with the Gmail app while doing anything else - you had to use the Android email client
for that.
And the Simul-Tasking-capable app selection never widened, because people could quite
early tell this phone wasn't going anywhere.
Really, how could it?
With a bezel (thin, but still there) bisecting the displays in so-called "tablet mode," even
normal usage without simultasking wasn't enjoyable.
And "tablet mode" still only yielded a 4.7" diagonal screen area - more square, sure,
and okay for the time, but much smaller than the more utilitarian phablet screens that
started showing up in devices like the Galaxy Note.
And while we can't ding the device too hard for its lack of responsiveness - this was
the era of Froyo, after all - it needs to be said that the Echo was a laggy, laggy phone.
Frame drops, skips, and general sluggishness pervade the OS.
Also, there was never much pretty about Froyo, and the Echo's hardware and custom skin don't
do it any favors.
If you're going to (try to) build next-generation hardware, don't saddle it with half-baked
software.
That's lesson #2.
In all, it's hard to demolish the Echo.
Not because it's not a bad device - this thing is a train wreck, as far as execution goes.
But because I hate coming down on companies that try something new.
There's so little that's new and exciting in smartphone hardware these days.
We've written about it countless times at Pocketnow - everything's a variation on the
same dull slate with a big display.
So it's always nice to see a company really strive to do something different, fun, and
interesting.
And on paper, the Echo was all of that.
A phone with a hinge that carried six pending patents, dual screens, that transformed into
a tablet when you wanted it to?
It sounded like every gadget geek's dream come true.
Unfortunately, where it stumbled was in execution, and its stumbles were big enough and bad enough
that the obituaries were being written almost as soon as the Echo launched.
Unfortunately, in the world of mobile technology as elsewhere, it's not just about what looks
good on paper; it's about what actually works well in the real world.
Folks, I'm Michael Fisher from Pocketnow.com; thanks for joining me for episode 1 of "Worst
Gadget Ever."
If you liked what you saw, throw us a thumbs-up here on YouTube.
If you have a comment or a suggestion on another device we should cover - we're going to be
doing more of them - drop us a line on the post at Pocketnow.com, shoot me an email at
michael@pocketnow.com, drop us a line on Twitter - pocketnowtweets for the official account,
captain2phones for me - and stay tuned for more from Pocketnow.
Thanks for watching!