Do any of you remember the Yotaphone? This is a dual display smartphone that runs on the Android operating system, and at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, Yota devices, the company behind the Yotaphone (Captain Obvious is calling in this time around, informing you that one can tell by the name of the device) has announced a spanking new peripheral for road warriors, calling it the Yota Ruby. The Yota Ruby is a sleek LTE hotspot that comes with a tiny e-ink screen to keep up with the times, where it does seem to have taken a design page out of Apple’s playbook, while ditching aluminum in place of white plastic.
The e-ink display and a two-way power switch are located at the top, where sliding the latter to the left will enable the Ruby to behave like a secure hotspot, while sliding it to the right, and it ends up as a public access point. The e-ink display itself shows off the battery and signal status, in addition to the number of connected devices and a smiley icon that confirms public mode. At the bottom edge would be a trick flap which doubles up as both a micro-USB socket and a USB Type A plug, depending on how one positions it. Pretty neat idea, no? As for the micro-SIM slot, it remains hidden right behind, The Yota Ruby supports quad-band EDGE, plus HSPA+ and LTE for the European market at this point in time, with a battery life of approximately 16 hours of non-stop use.