Catching up with the latest viral TikToks on your smartphone or getting lost in mobile gaming can be a strain on the eyes. E Ink alternatives are few and far between, and they can be pricey for what you get. Bigme has now launched more budget-friendly options.
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once it’s linux and par with a pixel 7 for performance I’m in. android’s future is looking a bit too unpromising right now
This phone is running Android…
literally my point…
Yeah, I misread, sorry. Some day, I hope, some day.
How long is software support? Is the bootloader unlockable?
I mean that’s really sick and I hope it does well because I’d love to see that tech go further. Fairly tempted as I don’t watch/play games much on my phone anyways.
They’ve made several e-ink phones by now.
It’s just not suited for it. Even though it CAN do fairly smooth animation, it always looks like absolute ass due to the ghosting.
The tech is doing fine tho. There are two decent ways to do color now (one fast, one slow), and the picture quality is mind-boggling when you let it refresh properly. It’s absolutely fantastic for reading books, but it’s only gotten better for my favorite use-case, which is comics and manga. The ability to do color adds so much.
It’s also in use in a ton of industries. There are re-usable eink price-tags for store shelves that you can put price and product info on. While just sitting there showing info, they use no power, while still being able to be updated digitally when needed.
I also realized the live timetable at my local bus-stop is actually a giant eink panel. Which makes so much sense. Compared to a giant LCD panel it uses orders of magnitude less power, and is even more readable in daylight without any kind of backlight, and it only needs to update once a minute. It doesn’t show any info with more than 60 second precision anyway.
But eink simply cannot compete with LCD/OLED in terms of emissive color quality and refresh rate. While it straight up wins in terms of daylight readability, longevity and power efficiency. Supposedly the panels lose contrast over time, but I’ve never noticed it happening myself, even on decades old devices.
For normal use tho, eink sucks. I avoid ever using my ereader for anything except actually reading. Writing, doing any kind of browsing, (even to find something to read), is horrible. It’s like using a phone with gloves on, but all the time.
The experience is at its best when you just continue reading something you already had open, and only ever interact with the display or a button to turn the page. The moment you need to pan, zoom, select something, use and on-screen keyboard, etc. you start wishing you could use something else.
I literally use my phone to find what to read, then switch to the ereader to actually read.
It’s absolutely fantastic for reading books, but it’s only gotten better for my favorite use-case, which is comics and manga. The ability to do color adds so much.
Do you have a preferred device? I’m really curious but it’s hard to know where to start with colored screens.
I would love something like this so long as it was unlocked and wasn’t weighed down by Android.
I see a hint of color, so I just know the refresh rate is going to be awful.
EDIT: On second look, I see they also have a black-and-white model.
For anyone interested but still cares about their privacy, you can “debloat” your standard Android ROM and remove most of Google’s crap via ADB: https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater
Sadly it seems no e-SIM support?
I love e-ink screens and Always wanted one of those phones, but even the “budget” ones are too expensive for me :(
So, at that price point, what’s the catch? I’m fine with Android, don’t watch video on my phone, would love the battery savings.
If it’s the same as past e-ink phones it’ll be slow. But nothing you’re going to do on an e-ink phone is super likely to require that much power anyways unless you are using your phone far differently than I am.
Not using mine for video or even social media. Main uses cases are calling, text, GPS, map, compass, web surfing when I have to. E-ink sound good for me?
After watching this review I am actually going to say yeah probably. The ghosting has gotten way better than I remember it being for real time apps. If youre interested watch the review he goes over most of your use cases.
Wow! Not in the market ATM, but I’m sold. IR blaster?! Impressive view in the sunshine. I struggle on the trail, worse on the water, trying to see where the hell I’m at and where I’m pointed.
That review was enough to catch my interest. I may well go for this when I need a new phone.
Folks choosing the black-and-white HiBreak S will get visuals at 720 x 1,440 pixels (276 ppi), plus the company’s own fast-refresh technology that supports refresh rates of up to 24 frames per second.
Wow, for e-ink that’s pretty good.
Nothing in the article about battery life though. I have to wonder if having a e-ink screen would extend the battery life of a phone noticeably.
Brother, did you read the article?
3,300-mAh battery will “maintain a charge for a remarkably long time” – though doesn’t actually specify how long that might be.
I skimmed it, but not well apparently.
We’re all faulted. I forgive you.
