(Source: http://yotaphone.com/#/en/images)

State Duma members and senators will consider the possibility of replacing offıcial foreign-made cellphones with Russian-made Yotaphone. Federation Council Commission on Information Society Development will examine the issue of the security of information exchange made with official smartphones. To minimize the threat of unauthorized access to governmental information, lawmakers are ready to research the reliability of existing gadgets and to switch to a new smartphone from Russian Yota Devices, as well as to gadgets with the function of traffic encryption. It is possible that either phones will be equipped with security system by firmware overwriting or "unsafe" devices will be just banned. It was noted, that Russian legislators became anxious about foreign-made smartphones after White House security banned Barack Obama from using iPhone.

Yota Devices is a private company of vast expertise in mobile communications and connectivity devices. The company developed its first connectivity device in 2009. In 2012, Yota Devices sold more than 1 million modems and routers, representing 6% LTE connectivity devices market in the segment of modems and routers. Yota Devices' business philosophy is based on enhancing the user experience by applying the best contemporary technologies.

Foreign media gave several positive reviews on Yotaphone. The New York Times describes it as “Russia’s first smartphone that is a quirky, dual-screen device with a traditional LCD-color display on one side and an electronic-paper display similar to the Amazon Kindle on the other”. The Yotaphone, developed by a Russian tech start-up, Yota Devices, is sold for about $675 in Europe and for $600 in Russia, slightly cheaper than top competitors like the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Engadget comments that “the phone provides a brief but effective tutorial, covering basic navigation and how to flip information over to the E Ink side. Navigation is done by means of swipes on the large blank capacitive area below each display, which takes some learning but has the advantage of providing a single paradigm for gestures so that they work in broadly similar ways regardless of which side of the phone you happen to be using”.

The Russian phone, which uses an Android operating system, is an attempt by a European company to jump into the handset market, largely dominated by American and Asian manufacturers. Nokia, the largest cellphone maker in Europe, is in the final stages of selling that business to Microsoft for $7.2 billion. Jolla, a smaller Finnish start-up founded by former Nokia engineers, has only recently started selling its own handset aimed at a global audience.