Hisense A5C, A5 Pro CC, color e-ink phones

[pazos]

Originally Posted by orebmur

Unlike opaque Google Play, F-Droid provides libre software with full source code disclosure and has a good reputation since years. Of course, normal Android consumers are unable to distinguish and mostly don't care about such very relevant details.

I agree. It has other nice things like antiFeatures flags and more visible permissions than Gplay.

The app doesn't need to be installed. You can search the repo and download applications directly on your device (or your computer and install them later).

Of course no prevention is better than common sense, so check permissions of installed apps for both Google Play and Fdroid.

[notwaiting]

The Hisense A5 Pro CC comes with a color ink screen compared the the A5 Pro with E-ink screen. The eBook reader Android smartphone received the same upgrades like the classic A5 Pro version. The Pro CC model of the A5 has a 5.84-inch energy-saving color screen with 4096 colors, but supports a faster refresh mode with a refresh time of only 136ms. In addition, it has a dual SIM card slot.

Dual sim. Just what I missed in the best b&w phone ever the a5. I wonder if the refresh rate is significant. I'm not knowledgable about such details, but go on what I see in videos.

[pdurrant]

A page refresh of 136ms means that page turns should be only just noticeable. 40ms would allow 24fps film-rate video.

[norweger]

Great that the refresh is only 136 ms. If that's faster than the upcoming Onyx Boox phone, I'll prolly buy the Hisense A5 Pro CC.

These numbers don't tell me much, so I searched around and found this, which compares various fps quite well

https://www.testufo.com/framerates#c...=stars&pps=120

[binaryhermit]

Originally Posted by Tar

Back to the topic, I was wondering:


Does anyone have a guess at how these eight cores compare to the CPU of the original A5? In terms of processing power and energy efficience in particular.
T610 is a new chipset, but the ARM Cortex A75 and A55 cores are not. It should be possible to determine the expected performance of the CPU even before the benchmarks, to a degree.

Looks like the T610 should be faster than the Snapdragon 439 in the A5C, CPU-wise, at least at its peak.
I mean, the 6 little cores on the T610 should each be faster than one of the 8 cores on the 439.


Not sure how badly either one would be affected by thermal throttling, and not even gonna touch GPU performance with a 10 foot pole here.

But given the limitations of eInk, it's unlikely GPU speed is terribly relevant here. And I'd argue midrange mobile CPUs got more or less good enough speed-wise years ago. Like, my Moto G5+ with a Snapdragon 625 was more than fast enough.

[norweger]

Originally Posted by epaper

Video of A5C playing games, movies, anime It looks pretty damn good for eink

Okay. Now I really want one. But alas, I can't use Snapchat on it, due to no Google Play Services, so it can't be my only phone.

[pdurrant]

Here's an unboxing video. Not in English, but a good look at the phone, including an ultra-closeup of the screen!

The colour filter seems to be RGB stripes, with each row offset from the neighbouring rows so that it's RGB vertically as well as horizontally.

The stripes of the colour filter do not touch - there are transparent areas between the stripes, which presumably increase the brightness of the display with the penalty of making the colour more muted.

So the display is 100dpi in colour, but since the monochrome pixels underlying it are 300dpi, the effect is close to a 300dpi colour display, since the bright/dark edge of any area is at 300dpi.

Fascinating.

[DaleDe]

I believe this is E Ink Kaleido. I just made this wiki page to collect data on this new format.

Dale

[norweger]

The color e-ink Hisense A5C is now for sale.
https://www.cect-shop.com/en/hisense-a5c.html
Wish it was possible to try before you buy. Looks good.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by norweger

The color e-ink Hisense A5C is now for sale.
https://www.cect-shop.com/en/hisense-a5c.html
Wish it was possible to try before you buy. Looks good.

Thanks, I have made a wiki page Hisense A5C.

Dale

[norweger]

Appreciated, Dave. I wrote to CECT shop now, asking if they think they'd manage to make a Google Play Services version. That'd be something special, but they'll prolly not reply.

UPDATE. Someone beat me to it. They've answered five questions, three of which on whether they'll make a version with Google Play Services (found in the tab Customer Questions & Answers). The answers are for the pro model, but it's safe to say their answers are prolly the same for all models: It took 6 months to make a Hisense A5 with Google Play Services, so ... it would take time.

So unless I can live with no Google Play, I'll have to settle for a Hisense A5 or maybe I'll get the upcoming Onyx Boox phone, but it has no colors though.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by norweger

So unless I can live with no Google Play, I'll have to settle for a Hisense A5 or maybe I'll get the upcoming Onyx Boox phone, but it has no colors though.

The more I see of the current colour screens available, the less inclined I am to get one. Although I'm very partial to the retro muted colours, most of my reading is still in black and white. And although I enjoy manga, I suppose I don't read enough of it to make the current colour screens a necessity.

I'm very glad that they are marketing such devices commercially now as I hope that will drive innovation in this field. However, the current implementations seem very underwhelming. Perhaps if I were to experience such devices firsthand, they might be more compelling. But the current video reviews don't impress me.

As for Google Play, I have learned to live quite happily without it on my A5. Sideloading the apps I need has proved quite easy.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

As for Google Play, I have learned to live quite happily without it on my A5. Sideloading the apps I need has proved quite easy.

Kingrow k1 user here, i hate all alternatives to google calendar, all the rest is fine
If those new displays can keep the black and white DPI and provide less optimal colour performance, that you can turn on just when needed, like an a2 mode, i'm in for *next* phone and 8 inches reader.
On the phone, if just for the picture/video people occasionally send on whatsapp.
On the reader, for the usual graph on the pdf, with the yellow line and the red line..

[Philju]

Here it's said that Hisense is supposedly " ... looking at a possible feature firmware update that will give Google Play, not only to this [A6] phone, but all of their devices running Android 9.0, but it will take around six months of testing."

Source:
https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews...rtphone-review

I myself will believe it when I see it.

[pdurrant]

I'll believe it when a reputable news source reports it.