Hisense A5 CC Pro

[Markismus]

I just ordered the Pro CC from CECT-shop. Apparently, it's a front for a firm registered in Hongkong. Their banking account is in Czech Republic. I expect it to delivered sometime next week.

I saw on xda a nice post about rooting. Did anyone succeed with it? Did it work as expected or is there an unusable SELinux context? (I was able to root my Onyx Boox Note Pro, but still can't do much on the shell due to the limited context.)

I also saw that there could be a lot of bloatware on it, reporting back to wherever. I think you can disable them using the commands from step one of this guide.

Still, what'll be interesting is the performance of the device. Does the fingerprint scanner work better than iPhone6 (I hate it! My fingers are apparently unrecognizable.) Does the NFC work? Does the face recognition work? Do the Bluetooth and WiFi have separate antenna's? Most of all: How it reads?!

Anyone any experience to share?

Oh, and just to be sure: The device does have a Moebius screen, right? With plastic substrate? I always drop everything...
Apparently, according to Goodereader, It’s a Kaleido Eink screen: “E Ink Kaleido is a non-glass-based CFA comprised of RGB.”
Based on Eink's own website, the only thing I can get is that Triton is explicitely glass, while Kaleido is not mentioned as such.

[Markismus]

I read a _lot_ about the glare and the need for a matte screen cover. Has anyone found out which screen covers are compatible with the Hisense A5 Pro CC?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by Markismus

I read a _lot_ about the glare and the need for a matte screen cover. Has anyone found out which screen covers are compatible with the Hisense A5 Pro CC?

I had read a lot about the glare, too. Fortunately, my A5 Pro CC came with a matte screen already attached. It hadn't said that it would in the product description on CECT Shop's website so that was a very pleasant surprise.

[Markismus]

Nice!

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by Markismus

Still, what'll be interesting is the performance of the device. Does the fingerprint scanner work better than iPhone6 (I hate it! My fingers are apparently unrecognizable.) Does the NFC work? Does the face recognition work? Do the Bluetooth and WiFi have separate antenna's? Most of all: How it reads?!

Haven't used the fingerprint recognition yet, but it worked fine for me on the A2 Pro so I would assume that it works the same or better on the A5 Pro CC.

Have never used NFC on any device.

Not sure if the wifi and BT have separate antennae, but both work acceptably for me.

Functions wonderfully as an ereader for me using the Moon+ Reader Pro reading app. It is much more responsive than my Onyx devices which I also am quite happy with. I got the version with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage.

[Markismus]

If BT and WiFi are not separate, I'll have a problem streaming audio over WiFi to the phone to a BT headset (In my case a hearing aid.) That was the reason to send the previously bought mobile back. iPhone6 works fine, though.

I've got Moon Reader Pro, too, but I am more used to Koreader. Any reason not to use that app?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by Markismus

If BT and WiFi are not separate, I'll have a problem streaming audio over WiFi to the phone to a BT headset (In my case a hearing aid.)

I can connect to the internet via wifi. If I then connect to YouTube via a browser, I can hear everything fine through my BT connected headset.

Originally Posted by Markismus

I've got Moon Reader Pro, too, but I am more used to Koreader. Any reason not to use that app?

I used Koreader a lot on my Kobo devices and quite liked it. However, I found that it did not handle Japanese very well.

Moon+ Reader is one of the few reading apps which can correctly render furigana in Japanese texts. Most other apps place furigana into the main body of the text immediately following a kanji. Apart from disrupting the flow of the text, this then makes it difficult to click on unknown kanji to look them up.

[Markismus]

Good! That is indeed what’s important. (Whether they are separate or not was just the explanation given for its malfunctioning.)

[Markismus]

The device came in yesterday. Somehow I missed that Cect shop is in Hong Kong: I had to pay 40€ in taxes. I thought it was a German shop and was surprised when the Bank was in Czech Republic.

I am wondering what the saturation setting does. It doesn't seem to have an impact on the screen color.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by Markismus

I am wondering what the saturation setting does. It doesn't seem to have an impact on the screen color.

Haven't played around with it too much, but when I maximize the saturation, photos seem to be darker. I think it may also may make text appear a little bolder.

[jago25_98]

I have the black and white A5Pro.

The main 3 things to say here are:

1) The phone polls taobao.com and qq.com. Private DNS in settings has been deleted. VPNs don't reconnect reliably. This continues even after a debloat script is run. I don't know what app is doing it or whether it's baked in at system level.

You can only reliably block this problem by getting your DNS server settings from a DHCP server you control. You could conceivably do this by only connecting to your home WiFi, setting DHCP to NextDNS and blocking those domains.

2 wrongs don't make a right but actually it looks like the phone does a lot less spying than Google but I understand that while Google resells our data, maybe qq.com and taobao.com don't resell it as securely...?

2) The screen backlight has a low refresh rate and is bright white. I'd estimate equivalent to a 5000k bulb in colour.

Personally for me this isn't a deal breaker but if you need the backlight it's not as nice to read as a Kindle.

3) One click roots aren't safe and AFAIK rooting doesn't work. The 2accounts workaround didn't help me get all GApps working either and besides, why open your data to both China and Google

The phone is really good otherwise. It's just very Chinese in ways that westerners don't like. Viewing it from the Chinese market viewpoint I'd say Hisense have done a fantastic job. The bloatware and eink is really well done. Just a shame we can't use it

Because of the inability to block those tracking domains I can't replace my main phone so instead I'm carrying it as a spare like an ereader. However, unlike an ereader it can almost replace my phone. The problem is that I can't trust it so it's very limited what I can do with it.On reflection, I might prefer to just some other eink device that connects to my phone.

GApps install basically doesn't work. This is as close as I can get to making it a phone replacement:

- mirroring WhatsApp messages to Telegram via a bot, even though WhatsApp is installable on the A5
- syncing files with Syncthing
- accessing a rooted phone via Airdroid
- Nextcloud and Webdav calandar/contacts/etc is possible but I don't trust using the phone's built in contacts until those requests to qq.com/taobao.com are blocked. I don't want my trusted friends to get robocalls from Chinese scammers like other Chinese people I know

[Markismus]

@jago25_98 Did you try the open source project Netguard for blocking? And maybe Orbot or OpenVPN to either obfuscate or go via your own LAN?

I have mine A5 CC Pro now for a week. And although the screen is rapidly growing on me*,
I am still configuring the phone. So by the time I am done, I am probably that invested in it, that I’ll really have to like it.

________________
*Apparently, my brain has to adapt to new input. I finally am starting to understand the problem my old mum has with mobiles and laptops

[jago25_98]

I found an Android for Work profile via Island or Shelter can do it. Thanks: I'll check those out :-)

Originally Posted by Markismus

@jago25_98 Did you try the open source project Netguard for blocking? And maybe Orbot or OpenVPN to either obfuscate or go via your own LAN?

I have mine A5 CC Pro now for a week. And although the screen is rapidly growing on me*,
I am still configuring the phone. So by the time I am done, I am probably that invested in it, that I’ll really have to like it.

________________
*Apparently, my brain has to adapt to new input. I finally am starting to understand the problem my old mum has with mobiles and laptops