We’ve previously covered smartphones with a black and white e-Paper display usually placed on the back of the phone, while a traditional full-color display is placed at the front. Some models include Yotaphone 2 and Hisense A2, and the advantage of the e-Ink display is that you can extend battery life, quickly check notifications without unlocking your phone, reads book even in bright lights, etc.. but the cost goes up quite a bit since the manufacturers have to integrate two displays in their devices.
Hisense A5 does completely away with the traditional color display and replaces it with a 5.84″ e-Paper display with 1440×720 resolution. The display is black and white, and the slow refresh rate of such display will make it impractical to watch videos and play most games, but if all you do is check emails, browsing the web, reading e-books, accessing social networks, and making phone calls this may be an option.
Hisense A5 specifications:
- SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 octa-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.95 GHz with Adreno 505 GPU
- System Memory – 4GB RAM
- Storage – 32GB or 64GB eMMC flash and MicroSD card slot up to 256GB
- Display – 5.84″ multi-touch e-Paper display with 1440 x 720 resolution, adjustable front light
- Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, built-in speaker and microphone
- Connectivity
- Cellular
- Nano SIM card slot
- GSM – B2/B3/B5/B8
- CDMA – BC0
- TD-SCDMA – B34/B39
- WCDMA – B1/B2/B5/B8
- TDD-LTE – B38/B39/B40/B41/B34
- FDD-LTE – B1/B3/B5/B7/B8
- 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi 4
- Bluetooth 4.2
- GNSS – GPS
- Cellular
- Camera – 13.0MP rear camera with flash and 5.0MP front-facing camera
- USB – 1x micro USB OTG port
- Sensors – Ambient Light Sensor, Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor
- Battery – 4,000mAh non-removable battery that is said to last up to 10 days on a charge (See video below)
- Dimensions – 15.41 x 7.46 x 0.80 cm
- Weight – 158 grams
The device runs Android 9 sadly without Google Play, so you’d have to sideload apps, and ships with a charger, a user manual in Chinese, a screen protector, a SIM needle and a USB cable. Charbax shot a video a few months ago both about Hisense A5 phone and Hisense A6L E-Ink + Color display model. The part about A5 starts at 1:20.
If you’re interested in the phone, you’d have to check out the supported cellular bands, as Liliputing reports that for US users, AT&T coverage should be good for 2G and 3G network, but it will only support some of AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon’s 4G LTE network bands.
Hisense A5 is much cheaper than dual-display phones, and is sold for $234 on Aliexpress, and even lower at $219.99 on GearBest.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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A hybrid display would be interesting. i.e. an LCD with an e-ink panel behind it so when the phone is sleeping it can display notifications etc for almost free (only updating the display when a notification actually happens) without waking everything up and turning the main display on. The problem with this is the lagging b/w screen is going to get really annoying really quickly.
Bought a yotaphone2 for my dad when the price dropped, I used it myself for a week, and the e-ink made the battery last soo much longer.
Finally! Most adults don’t play games on mobiles, and can watch videos on their PCs. The leap in battery life is vital.
it’s more a backflip. before smartphones, there were phones with weeks of battery life 😉 but i love the idea of eink phone that can run android apps and doubles as e-reader
The Hisense-a6 has a normal front screen and a e-reader back screen also almost twice as expensive ~420euro.
*EDIT* I now also see the Hisense-a2 pro ~200euro, yotaphone 3 ~230euro and others.
A2 pro has both screens for 201EUR https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/32963031537.html
Interested… but NOT for Italy… 4G LTE B20 (800 Mhz) missing.
I don’t understand the reason you need a octa core cpu in something you can’t display a thing?
It just drives the price up.
And I do not get the idea of keeping a 13MP camera.