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

[norweger]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Sorry that things turned out the way that they did. However, I would have been very surprised had they turned out otherwise.

I lacked the imagination. He's got my money, my phone and I ponied up for return shipping. The worst about it all is all the toil and trouble. The endless rounds chatting and waiting where the customer service say "rest assured I'll fix it", but all they do is rest and not fix. And lots more. I needn't go into detail, you know all about it.

I thought the worst would be to get the phone back and lose the money, or get some money back and not the phone.

Oh well. Gotta take new rounds with them. Call China by phone. Can't say I am looking forward to it. Wish I could report him to the local police as well, but they'll likely shrug and be happy a foreigner got fleeced.

Thanks, anyway, for the warning. Childbirth is supposedly like this. You forget the pain, and go again.

I tried to get in touch with the bank (brilliant suggestion), but the card was charged in September, so nothing they could do.

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Even when you can get your money back as I eventually did, it's not worth the time and frustration navigating chatbox loops with robots.

Amen!

[norweger]

Originally Posted by jago25_98

I'll add a lot more details when I've got time but:

A5Pro
- confirm, the blue backlight is hideous

Please do elaborate. I guess people's preferences are different. I haven't tried this phone before, but am strongly considering it, in case I'll come across a second hand one.

[cqman]

Originally Posted by norweger

Please do elaborate. I guess people's preferences are different. I haven't tried this phone before, but am strongly considering it, in case I'll come across a second hand one.

Mine is fine. Never heard the same problem from other A5 Pro users.

I bought mine after Onyx confirmed they wouldn't release their planned phone this year. I'm happy with my choice. The only problem is that my A5 Pro has a very small black defect dot near the left bottom. I know It's not uncommon for E-ink devices so I kept it.

Good luck!

[jago25_98]

The main problem with my A5Pro (black and white) is that it contacts taobao.com, qq.com and hismarttv.com with no apps running and the private DNS option in settings has been deleted.

Fortunately, using an Android for Work profile via Island or Shelter and deleting all the apps in the profile appears to stop this, so I'm pretty happy with the phone now, even if it can't really run GApps. There are degoogled replacements for those anyway. It's amazing how many apps work without Gapps.

The blue screen could be partly from the screen filter but I don't want to take it off at the moment.

[norweger]

Originally Posted by jago25_98

Fortunately, using an Android for Work profile via Island or Shelter and deleting all the apps in the profile appears to stop this, so I'm pretty happy with the phone now, even if it can't really run GApps.

Thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by norweger

Aliexpress. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. (...) So. I paid $355.05 for the phone. Paid $110 for return shipping. Have spend hours on end getting through a byzantine process, of radio silence and chatbots and cutting stuff out now cuz it's a loooong story, and in the end, finally, I was promised to get back 2/3 of what I paid.

And now the tracking says the seller got the phone (Hurray, hurray, hurray!). The seller signed the receipt. And all of a sudden the seller's vanished. With my phone. With my money. And he's nowhere to be reached.

Got problems with Aliexpress, anyone? I found a way out. I got in touch with Shenzhen Police, and had a native Chinese woman from Fiverr call the vendor to tell about it. And now I got an email from Aliexpress that I will get my money back. Well, some of it. And it might take twenty business days. Hoping this'll be the end of it.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by norweger

Got problems with Aliexpress, anyone? I found a way out. I got in touch with Shenzhen Police, and had a native Chinese woman from Fiverr call the vendor to tell about it. And now I got an email from Aliexpress that I will get my money back. Well, some of it. And it might take twenty business days. Hoping this'll be the end of it.

Great news. Hope it works out for you. Still think I will continue to avoid Aliexpress for expensive purchases such as phones.

You would think that it would be in the interest of Aliexpress to clamp down on such vendor behaviour as it just drives potential business elsewhere.

[norweger]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Great news. Hope it works out for you. Still think I will continue to avoid Aliexpress for expensive purchases such as phones.

You would think that it would be in the interest of Aliexpress to clamp down on such vendor behaviour as it just drives potential business elsewhere.

The wise man learns from other's mistakes, the fool not from his own. I remembered that I got my money back last time, but forgot all the pain. So, I bought expensive again, and went through purgatory again. I totally agree with you, Aliexpress should be shunned for expensive stuff.

And yeah, I think they ought to put the customer first, if they want to stay competitive. As for now, I guess many see the Ali website and think it's like eBay, only cheaper.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Hope that works out for you.

If, for some reason, you end back up with the A5 Pro CC, I have just discovered a setting which I hadn't previously noticed. It is under the Display and Brightness area in Settings. It is called Classic E-ink Screen Mode. When you enable this mode, the phone only displays blacks and whites and greys, just like on a regular e-ink device. I don't notice the grid effect as much with it enabled, not that it bothers me anyway.

I don't know whether this feature has been there all along or whether it is new because I recently received a firmware update after not having had the phone connected to the internet in months.

Does that make the screen turn identical to the A5 (Pro) or is it still going to be darker and grainier in comparison? How about the contrast? I don't really need colour that much, but if it can be turned off with no downside in the A5 Pro CC, I could turn it on only for video calls; on the other hand the refresh rate might be annoying enough to not use the phone for such things anyway.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by kandwo

Does that make the screen turn identical to the A5 (Pro) or is it still going to be darker and grainier in comparison? How about the contrast? I don't really need colour that much, but if it can be turned off with no downside in the A5 Pro CC, I could turn it on only for video calls; on the other hand the refresh rate might be annoying enough to not use the phone for such things anyway.

If you don't need colour, I would go for the A5 Pro. With the frontlight off, the screen of the A5 Pro CC is always a bit darker than the A5, even in the "classic eink screen" mode. However, with the frontlight on, the contrast is quite good.

In the attached pictures, the A5 is on the left with the red wrist strap. It is the exact same book, same page, same reading app, same font size... The photos were taken inside on a cloudy day with indoor lights off.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

If you don't need colour, I would go for the A5 Pro. With the frontlight off, the screen of the A5 Pro CC is always a bit darker than the A5, even in the "classic eink screen" mode. However, with the frontlight on, the contrast is quite good.

In the attached pictures, the A5 is on the left with the red wrist strap. It is the exact same book, same page, same reading app, same font size... The photos were taken inside on a cloudy day with indoor lights off.

The images are much appreciated! Seems like the CC has a bluish hue even in the classic BW mode. I imagine that would be annoying in the long run. While you are correct in that the contrast looks really good when the frontlight is on, I think my eyes would tire from the constant lumination!

The only things I would "need" colour for are pictures and maybe video calls - though the latter would probably not work well anyway. The more I think about it the less I feel I need colour: I'd rather watch pictures or videos on a bigger screen anyway.

Unless it's true that Hisense will release a new phone on the 22nd of December, I think I'll buy the A5 Pro. The only thing missing from it are Google Play services, which I need for my banking apps (however, if GAPPS can be installed on the Onyx device that I've ordered I won't even need that).

From what I've seen, which admittedly isn't much (the phone doesn't seem popular enough for too many youtube videos), the A5 Pro has everything I want in a phone, except warm frontlight (though neither does my Kindle Paperwhite and it isn't a huge deal - still better than an LCD with warm night light).

[jago25_98]

The blue could be from the screen filter though?

Originally Posted by Question Mark

If you don't need colour, I would go for the A5 Pro. With the frontlight off, the screen of the A5 Pro CC is always a bit darker than the A5, even in the "classic eink screen" mode. However, with the frontlight on, the contrast is quite good.

In the attached pictures, the A5 is on the left with the red wrist strap. It is the exact same book, same page, same reading app, same font size... The photos were taken inside on a cloudy day with indoor lights off.

[Markismus]

Forget about the frontlight: Use real light. The A5 pro cc is beautiful in full sunshine and very clear in the store (TL overlights.) Of course, if you sit in your comfy chair with no reading lamp (paradox in itself!) and romantic christmas lighting, you can turn it on the frontlight. But it is never that beautiful.

It's eInk. It's the counterpart to LED. That one is good in the dark, this one is good in the light and reasonable in the dark: Not beautiful. Be sure to understand that the beauty is not that the resolution only gives you newspaper quality pictures (and video!), the beauty is that it gives you ePaper with 4k colors!
But it's never going to be very good if you evaluate it in the dark. I can't even read my iPhone in the sunshine. However, I am used to it and won't complain about that obvious shortcoming of the technology.

I am just starting to realize that I am moving away for a bit from LED screens. Even while writing this, I am staring at a LED. It's everywhere. So you shouldn't be worried if you find that the devices don't work like your LED; That the white is a bit off. It has 4k colors. The gamut isn't going to be like a LED with milllions. However, it is very nice. Even though most people, that I show it to find it interesting, but not as good as their phone. Because it isn't OLED. And I quite agree. It isn't OLED: it's eInk.

And for the sake of everyday use: You can use it everywhere. Even in the sun. It has a battery that after a day of intensive use shows somewhere between 78% and 83%. I still charge it every night, because Li-batteries like to be topped off and I am used to my iPhone being at 3%-10% at that time. I can give it to my children without the worry of eyes being to long on a screen.

So that is the positive side. The negative side obviously is the dependency of a _lot_ of apps on Google. I can't use Google Play. And I am wondering whether I want to. Google is nice, but I don't like to be dependent on it. If you install apk's of Google services*, etc. etc., you get rid of all the nag boxes of apps saying that they need Google. Even the Google keyboard can be sideloaded: It won't even nag at you, as it does when you have installed it from Play and disabled Play afterwards.** But there are still limits.

I can install my banking app, but it needs a working Google Play or a working Google Camera for the QR code to scan. I can use it to sign transactions with a pin, but whenever it want's to scan a color code (Rabobank) I have to use scrcy (screencopy) to hook it up to a PC and get the color code there, because 4k colors on eInk are never going to be recognized by the rabo scanner.

_________________________________
* You can install apk-files quite automatically in android. You can download the from stores such as Aurora or F-droid. You can also use sites such as ApkMonk or ApkPure.
** A feature in the Onyx Boox android system.

[skynet84]

Hi guys! Take a look at my Hisense A5 Pro CC Unboxing!
https://youtu.be/A4mO1PVP5Cs
Let me know if you have any request or suggestion because I will release soon a deep videoreview ��
Subscribe to my channel, this way you can help me to increase my Youtube channel. Thank you! ����

[jago25_98]

Yep. The worst are the banking apps. I'm tied to an out of date device just to run the infernal banking apps. What I want to do is use something like Genymotion or buy a spare phone just to keep at home to run them....

Originally Posted by Markismus

Forget about the frontlight: Use real light. The A5 pro cc is beautiful in full sunshine and very clear in the store (TL overlights.) Of course, if you sit in your comfy chair with no reading lamp (paradox in itself!) and romantic christmas lighting, you can turn it on the frontlight. But it is never that beautiful.

It's eInk. It's the counterpart to LED. That one is good in the dark, this one is good in the light and reasonable in the dark: Not beautiful. Be sure to understand that the beauty is not that the resolution only gives you newspaper quality pictures (and video!), the beauty is that it gives you ePaper with 4k colors!
But it's never going to be very good if you evaluate it in the dark. I can't even read my iPhone in the sunshine. However, I am used to it and won't complain about that obvious shortcoming of the technology.

I am just starting to realize that I am moving away for a bit from LED screens. Even while writing this, I am staring at a LED. It's everywhere. So you shouldn't be worried if you find that the devices don't work like your LED; That the white is a bit off. It has 4k colors. The gamut isn't going to be like a LED with milllions. However, it is very nice. Even though most people, that I show it to find it interesting, but not as good as their phone. Because it isn't OLED. And I quite agree. It isn't OLED: it's eInk.

And for the sake of everyday use: You can use it everywhere. Even in the sun. It has a battery that after a day of intensive use shows somewhere between 78% and 83%. I still charge it every night, because Li-batteries like to be topped off and I am used to my iPhone being at 3%-10% at that time. I can give it to my children without the worry of eyes being to long on a screen.

So that is the positive side. The negative side obviously is the dependency of a _lot_ of apps on Google. I can't use Google Play. And I am wondering whether I want to. Google is nice, but I don't like to be dependent on it. If you install apk's of Google services*, etc. etc., you get rid of all the nag boxes of apps saying that they need Google. Even the Google keyboard can be sideloaded: It won't even nag at you, as it does when you have installed it from Play and disabled Play afterwards.** But there are still limits.

I can install my banking app, but it needs a working Google Play or a working Google Camera for the QR code to scan. I can use it to sign transactions with a pin, but whenever it want's to scan a color code (Rabobank) I have to use scrcy (screencopy) to hook it up to a PC and get the color code there, because 4k colors on eInk are never going to be recognized by the rabo scanner.

_________________________________
* You can install apk-files quite automatically in android. You can download the from stores such as Aurora or F-droid. You can also use sites such as ApkMonk or ApkPure.
** A feature in the Onyx Boox android system.

[Markismus]

Originally Posted by jago25_98

Yep. The worst are the banking apps. I'm tied to an out of date device just to run the infernal banking apps. What I want to do is use something like Genymotion or buy a spare phone just to keep at home to run them....

So running a VM on a website to bypass hardware restrictions......It seems simpler to run a VM on the device. But would it be possible. I remember the ThinApps: Software encapsuled in a VM with all necessary dependencies to make them portable. That's really what's needed for Android, too.

It's still going: ThinApps

Apparently, VM on Android it is called vmos.

Seeing that they discuss Xposed in the FAQ it is geared towards hacking.
Some other interesting points:
- Why can't I use the SIM card to make a call?
This function is currently under developing.
- Why can't I use NFC?
It's under developing.
- Why does the phone stuck and became very hot?
The real phone configuration is not good enough.

Still going to try installing the apk-file. If my Hisense runs hot, I'll let you know.