Good grief. While everyone’s still reeling from the shock of Lenovo’s 23-inch tablet and the non-shock of dual-14-inch-screen tablet Kno quietly passing, Kyocera’s seen its chance to fight hard to top the Bonkers League Table of Touchscreen Stupidity.

As anyone paying attention to the smartphone battle between iOS and Android will know, it’s often a fight between usability and bullet-points. Apple hardware and software is designed to be easy to use, but is somewhat locked-down, and so Android and its hardware partners regularly respond with a list of exciting specs and bullet-points, typically offering ‘more’ in a number of areas that geeks and engineers care about, to best Apple’s shiny toys.

We’re thinking that with the Kyocera Echo, there was a discussion that went along these lines:

“We need something to beat the iPhone. What can we do to be one-up on those guys?”

“Other Android phones have done more speed, more RAM, more installed and impossible-to-remove third-party apps, so we can’t do any of that. What’s left?”

“What about… screens?”

“Genius! The iPhone’s only got one screen, so we’ll clean up if we release a device with two!”

And so (probably) was born the Echo, a device Katherine Boehret on All Things Digital says:

may turn out to be a niche product

No kidding. The device is a fat little bugger, due to the dual-screen nature, and it’s also awkward to get it into dual-screen mode. Worse, though, is this little nugget of information:

only seven of the phone’s apps work in the mode that runs an app on each screen

So even Nintendo DS-style arguments don’t really work here. Instead, you have a device where you can get:

• a slightly bigger screen with a huge black bar across the middle of the content
• a standard-sized screen, hiding the other within the device’s bulk
• ‘Simul-Task Mode’ on seven (count ’em) apps

Sounds great.

Now, where’s my damn 12-screen Android phone? That’s sure to be a winner!