Sprint promised us an "industry first" at its event today, and it certainly delivered: check out the Kyocera Echo, the first dual-screen Android phone. Kyocera's filed several patents on -- the phone can be closed and used like a regular single-screen phone, unfolded all the way, or propped up into the faux-laptop configuration shown above. Under the hood there's a 1GHz second-gen Snapdragon running Android 2.2 -- we'll forgive the older software because Kyocera had to do extensive customization to add dual-screen support to seven core apps like the browser, email, and messaging. The seven optimized apps can be run on each screen individually so you can have the browser up top and email below, and several of them include useful full-dual-screen views as well. There's also a new dual-screen app manager, which is brought up by tapping the two screens simultaneously. Unfortunately, third party apps can't be run in any of the new modes and just fill the entire display for now -- Kyocera and Sprint say an SDK is coming shortly.

As for battery life, Kyocera and Sprint aren't giving definite numbers, but we were told things would last about a day with heavy use of both screens -- and the Echo is being sold in a bundle with a second battery in an external charging case, so you should have plenty of juice on the go. Downsides? Well, it's not the most attractive phone we've ever seen, and we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that there's just a lone rear-facing 5 megapixel camera with 720p video capture and that the Echo is 3G-only -- there's no WiMAX, which is a bit odd for a Sprint halo device. Still, it's definitely one of the most intriguing Android handsets we've ever seen, and at $199 (after a $100 rebate) when it launches sometime in the coming months, it's bound to pique some serious interest. Check a short hands-on video after the break.

You Can Download Manual Kyocera Echo User Guide Click Here