Say hello to a phone with two 4.3-inch displays

Looks like some companies are going to give the dual-screen phone design another go. According to Engadget, NTT DoCoMo has announced its spring line-up of phones. Among the new line-up is the Medias W N-05E.

Despite having the hard-to-remember name, the phone is very interesting, as it is trying a dual-screen design. The handset has LTE functionality along with two 4.3-inch LCD displays with resolutions of 540 x 960 on each screen. It will run on Android Jelly Bean.

It is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. For photography, the phone is equipped with an 8 megapixel camera. It has 16GB of built-in storage, which is expandable via microSDHC. Though, it does lack NFC functionality.

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The NEC Medias W N-05E featuring two touch screens

When fully open, the phone gives a complete screen size of 5.6-inches diagonally. When shut, it measures at 64 mm in width. The screens are built in a way that apps can use each screen independently, or use up both screens to provide more space.

The phone is set to see the light of day in April in Japan, and as of yet there is no word on a release date for the rest of the world. The price of the device has not yet been announced.

The same company – NEC – had shown off a similar design in 2011 in the form of a tablet. The device, officially dubbed the NEC LT-W Cloud Communicator, features two 7-inch resistive touchscreens that run at a resolution of 800 x 600 each, and a clamshell hinge, which basically makes it open and close like a book.

The tablet runs on Android 2.1 Eclair and is powered by an ARM Cortex A8 processor. The tablet also supports USB 2.0, has a speaker and a GPS system, an accelerometer and a 3 megapixel camera at the rear that can be used for recording 720p video.