Siam 7X

The Siam 7x is an Android dual-screen smartphone which launched in December 2015. This phone was the first phone produced by CRBT Siam and is one of the first dual-screen phones to be marketed to American consumers.^[2]

History

Several manufacturers, including Samsung, LG and Kyocera have made attempted as recently as 2010 to create a dual-screen smartphone. However, these phones proved to be unsuccessful as their second screens were located within a difficult to access clam-shell design. Darius Allen decided to deviate from this concept by placing the second screen on the outside while using a black and white E Ink Corporation screen to conserve power. A similar design was created by Yotaphone but its parent company targeted this phone to European, Asian and Middle-Eastern markets. The Siam 7x was the first dual-screen phone designed for the North American market.^[3]

Darius Allen also decided to make it initially available only with the Android operating system, citing its similarities to Open-source software. There was also a conscious decision to make this a GSM carrier phone, due to GSM's widespread adoption. In addition to its dual-screen capacity, it also allows a user to insert two SIM cards simultaneously. While this phone was designed in Dallas, it is manufactured in Shenzhen, China, to prevent a lack of supply which has often troubled small smartphone manufacturers.^[4]

Hardware

The Siam 7x operates on Android 5.1. The primary purpose of this phone's design was to properly utilize the concept of a dual-screen smartphone. The screen on the front is 5.0" 1280x720 HD IPS 2.5D display, multi-touch while the screen on the reverse side is 4.7" QHD E-ink paper 2.5D display, multi-touch. It runs on a MTK6735A, Quad-Core，Cortex A53 CPU and utilizes an ARM MaliT760-MP3@450 MHz GPU. It has a hard-drive size of 16 GB with 2 GB of RAM. The amount of hard-drive space can be expanded to 64 GB with a TF Card. It also boasts biometric earprint recognition system which employs the Descartes Biometrix Helix system. This phone also ships with SMS Audio headphones.^[5]

Reception

The Siam 7x dual-screen smartphone was released to the public on November 27, 2015 (Black Friday). Darius Allen has specified that he has produced 10,000 of these phones for its release date, thereby targeting a relatively small sales volume. Allen's primary strategy for marketing this phone has been to promote it on the open market by utilizing celebrities, entertainment partnerships and dedicated shopping-mall kiosks. He is also making attempts to integrate it into carrier sales.^[6]

References