Okay, hear me out. The duel-sided YotaPhone is not a gimmick. It makes sense. On the back of the YotaPhone is an e-ink display that can mirror anything displayed on the main screen. And because e-ink screens do not require battery life, these images are available even if the phone battery dies. Get it? Probably not yet.

As shown in the video below, this allows for tons of novel use cases. Load your boarding pass on the back screen so it’s always handy. Put a to-do list on always-on screen. Store a map or directions on the screen. Or, best of all, the YotaPhone can load RSS feeds or notifications onto the e-ink screen, effectively turning the phone into a dual-sided productivity machine.

The YotaPhone is currently just a prototype. In fact, as explained in the video, the unit shown in the demo was fresh off the production line three weeks ago. At 9mm thin, it’s not that much thicker than an iPhone 4S. The company expects the final production unit to be even thinner.

Sure, I agree that it’s not a phone for everyone, but having two screens, especially one as special as an e-ink screen which doesn’t consume battery life.