Hisense A5

[Waiting4somethin]

I use it for audiobooks/podcasts often, blocking touch screen and remapping the side buttons to pause/ rewind, then vol up/down with long press, when using keymapper (on fdroid)...which didn't work on a2.

Pretty much replaced my old sansa zip mp3 player at point. I got a max2 recently so that's doing pdfs.

[tracey1]

I can't believe that there's still no solution to the google play problem. I really would have hoped that some tech savy people would have come up with a solution by now. A phone without google play services is massively restrictive.

[binaryhermit]

I can, as I understand it, unless you can unlock the bootloader, then you can't install GApps...

Maybe I'm wrong.

[cartz]

Originally Posted by tracey1

I can't believe that there's still no solution to the google play problem. I really would have hoped that some tech savy people would have come up with a solution by now. A phone without google play services is massively restrictive.

It is no surprise that there is no solution. It is a phone for the Chinese market and only has very small niche interest outside China.

Rather than waiting for something that may not happen I suggest you outline what you are trying to achieve that requires Google Play Services. There are plenty of users on this forum that have succesfully found alternative apps for their needs and may be able to provide advice.

[afainber]

Not sure if it would be useful to anyone (it was very useful to me, as I'm using my Hisense A5 was an e-book reader only, without all the telephony functions):

If you run the command
service call epd 4

It puts the device in a "force refresh" mode when every update of the screen triggers a full re-draw.
This means that every page turn in your favorite reader app will be a rad slower but 100% free of artifacts.

Hope this benefits anyone (like it did me )

[kconan]

How can we run that command?

And I thought clear mode was free of artifacts...

[afainber]

Originally Posted by kconan

How can we run that command?

And I thought clear mode was free of artifacts...

You can run it any way Android lets you: via a local terminal app, remotely via adb, via tasker....

Clear mode has less artifacts, but it's not free of artifacts altogether.
If you try reading a book in a clear mode, it will take some time, but eventually you'll start seeing that the text is less clear and the background appears more grey.

[cartz]

Originally Posted by afainber

You can run it any way Android lets you: via a local terminal app, remotely via adb, via tasker....

What I would love is to be able to program the physical e-ink button (which seems pretty useless) to do a screen refresh while in smooth mode. This would be perfect for reading long web articles and for playing games.

Currently I need to switch to clear mode then back to smooth mode using the button right button. That is annoying while reading and usually not feasible when playing a game.

Is there a command that would achieve this and would it be possible to assign it to the physical button?

[orebmur]

Originally Posted by cartz

What I would love is to be able to program the physical e-ink button (which seems pretty useless) to do a screen refresh while in smooth mode.

Short pressing the e-ink button by default triggers a screen refresh.
No need to program anything, unless you want to modify the long press behaviour.

[tracey1]

Originally Posted by cartz

It is no surprise that there is no solution. It is a phone for the Chinese market and only has very small niche interest outside China.

Rather than waiting for something that may not happen I suggest you outline what you are trying to achieve that requires Google Play Services. There are plenty of users on this forum that have succesfully found alternative apps for their needs and may be able to provide advice.

I guess I wonder why they managed to implement Google play in one of their devices (Hisense A2 Pro).

Does any Hisense Phone have a matte E-Paper Display ?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by tracey1

I guess I wonder why they managed to implement Google play in one of their devices (Hisense A2 Pro).

Does any Hisense Phone have a matte E-Paper Display ?

The A5 comes with a matte screen protector already applied. No air bubbles. Very nice. Clarity compares very favourably with my Onyx e-readers which do not have screen protectors.

[tracey1]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

The A5 comes with a matte screen protector already applied. No air bubbles. Very nice. Clarity compares very favourably with my Onyx e-readers which do not have screen protectors.

I see, so no matte display but a matte screen protector. I saw a video of it and it the display looked surpringlisy non-reflective. And how do you like the experience so far ? Is it comparable in any way to the Yotaphone 2's matte Display ?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by tracey1

I see, so no matte display but a matte screen protector. I saw a video of it and it the display looked surpringlisy non-reflective. And how do you like the experience so far ? Is it comparable in any way to the Yotaphone 2's matte Display ?

Never had a Yotaphone so can't compare. But I have had and do have quite a few other e-ink devices by Onyx, Kobo and Sony. I also had the A2 Pro which I gave to my wife when I got the A5.

As for the A5, it is now my main reading device for epub books. It is a joy to use. I find it easier to select text on it to look up in a dictionary than on any of my Onyx devices. I now mainly use my onyx devices for PDFs or if I want to take notes. Haven't used my Kobo readers in months.

[kconan]

I had a Yotaphone 2 and the A5 has a waaaay better and bigger eink screen.

I use it as my main reading device (and I have a Kindle voyage), but without google services I still use my LG V30 as phone.

I did remove the protector of the A5 screen. It looks much better without it.

[tracey1]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Never had a Yotaphone so can't compare. But I have had and do have quite a few other e-ink devices by Onyx, Kobo and Sony. I also had the A2 Pro which I gave to my wife when I got the A5.

As for the A5, it is now my main reading device for epub books. It is a joy to use. I find it easier to select text on it to look up in a dictionary than on any of my Onyx devices. I now mainly use my onyx devices for PDFs or if I want to take notes. Haven't used my Kobo readers in months.

That sounds really good. There are mainly two things I believe, I have read about the E ink Display of the Hisense phones, respectively the A2 Pro that seem a little off-putting. Apparently while using the E-ink Display, it switches to the color display after a while. And it's said to flash/refresh often while using an internet browser. Can you confirm that ?

I own an Yotaphone 2 and use the E-ink Display as my main display. The E-ink display never switches to the color display unless you don't use it for a while and the browsing experience was very neat. I do wonder what your thought on this are and do you think I could use the E ink Display of the Hisense comfortably as my main display as I have done with the YP2 ?