Hisense A9 Pro E-Ink Android Smartphone

https://hisenseeink.com/products/hisense-a9-pro-e-ink-smartphone-1

by haunter • 2 years ago

170 136 2 years ago

superamit• 2 years ago

Very curious to hear experiences from anyone who has one of Hisense's e-ink phones. I recently bought a Boox android e-reader in this form factor, but I was eyeing this phone!

gjsman-10002• 2 years ago

I was briefly looking at the Boox Palma - which appeared to be an e-ink smartphone. I then discovered that the marketing page never mentions 4G or 5G support - because it doesn't actually have a cellular modem.

I can see how most people would take that foregranted. Ouch.

fortytw2• 2 years ago

I have a HiSense HiReader Pro that I picked up right when it came out. It's absolutely loaded with nonsense + makes zillions of requests to Chinese IPs and it takes ages to figure out how to disable / block it all.

It also only works on a single GSM band in the US (which to be fair, I knew before I bought it), but I was hoping that single band would be usable.

I went back to using a Kindle because the experience is so much better all around. Vaguely intrigued by the new Boox Palma though.

bhpm3• 2 years ago

It’s a shame Boox violates GPLv2.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23735962

warkdarrior• 2 years ago

I'm a happy user of Boox Nova Air, this is news to me. Has anyone sued Boox? I'm looking at a new device, maybe an Air 3, but I do not want to get one if I'm subsidizing their legal costs.

carlosjobim3• 2 years ago

Is it so incredibly important that it has to be said every time the brand is mentioned? Boox devices are good, and I don't think there is any other hardware that compares to what they offer.

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

This one notably really is a phone!

There's some good Android e-reader devices, for much cheaper. I nearly picked up a Boox Palma, which looks very slick. $300. I then found the Moaan Inkpalm lineup; the newest gen of their Inkpalm 5 has a decent rk3566 core and is $160.

This at $480 is a much steeper price, but for someone who is a strong reader it could make a lot of sense.

jxdxbx• 2 years ago

The Book Palma is great. I had been vaguely dissatisfied with other Boox devices--and it turns out, it was because they didn't have enough RAM and were too slow. The Palma is responsive enough to actually use for other things than reading. But, reading is the primary use case.

frakkingcylons• 2 years ago

Yep my Palma works great as a pocket-size ereader that is also very capable for reading Wikipedia and web sites too. I typically use it tethered to my iPhone.

ortusdux• 2 years ago

I picked up a Meebook M6 android e-reader for $170 and I've been enjoying it so far. As an e-book reader alone I would put it on par with a kindle, but the fact that I can access my local library's catalogue and use Pocket makes it much better option for me.

cmrdporcupine3• 2 years ago

Is this new? Because the product I saw like this before wasn't actually phone because it didn't take a SIM, was basically like Apple's old iPod Touch. And I don't see any copy in here about GSM bands, SIM tray, etc. Is the "news" here just that they now support Google Play?

I would jump at something like this in a second if it a) took a SIM and b) can run Android Auto for when I'm on the road.

EDIT: it helps to actually read, the copy does say : Cellular: 4G/LTE

Looks like the Android version here is pretty old, so I'd be worried about the viability of b).

natpalmer17762• 2 years ago

They do offer a music-player version of the device, as shown here:

https://hisenseeink.com/products/hisense-touch-lite-e-ink-mu...

natpalmer17762• 2 years ago

Another interesting phone they offer is the dual-screen A6L that has a typical LCD on the front and an e-ink screen on the rear!

https://hisenseeink.com/products/hisense-a6l-64-128-gb

Agree2468• 2 years ago

The YotaPhone did something similar back in 2012, I'm surprised it took this long for someone else to try it again. IIRC they had oodles of crowdfunding support but fumbled the logistics side of things.

croes• 2 years ago

Hisense produces e-ink smartphone at least since 2018, they also got one with a colored e-ink display.

someotherperson• 2 years ago

I had a chance to play with one, it was a phenomenal phone. It's a shame it fell apart.

maxglute3• 2 years ago

Especially wit how many extra screens in folding phones these days.

vzaliva• 2 years ago

One missing feature which caught my eye is water-resistance. It is pretty much standard on modern phones and for me it is critical. I still remember times when you can ruin your expensive iPhone by "water damage" not covered by the warranty.

gjsman-10002• 2 years ago

I'm still frustrated that Apple (or really, any manufacturer), for all their money, can't figure out how to make a water resistant laptop. I would bet top dollar that even Tim Cook has had a spill once.

pquki4• 2 years ago

Tim Apple once said that he spent 80% of his time on iPad:

https://9to5mac.com/2014/07/17/apple-ceo-tim-cook-says-every...

So you are looking for a spill in that 20% of the time.

Watch your wallet.

Erratic65762• 2 years ago

yeah I have developed a ritual protocol of appropriate and unacceptable water glass shapes due to a fatidic incident which cost me a MacBook Air. It could have been prevented if Steve Jobs had had any interest in making laptops more resistant.

So, glasses whose mouth is wider than their bottom are prone to collapse because the centre of gravity is higher

user_78323• 2 years ago

I'm still frustrated that Apple (or really, any manufacturer), for all their money, can't figure out how to make a water resistant laptop.

Depending on your luck and your laptop's vintage, many business class laptops offer(ed) keyboard spill protection. I think my HP ProBook 430 G3 had it, I've definitely spilled a lot of water once from a big bottle and it was mostly "fine". (The headphone jack didn't work but I don't remember if that was a pre-existing issue.) Iirc thinkpads may also offer it.

sofixa3• 2 years ago

It is pretty much standard on modern phones

Only at a high end. Take a random midrange Oppo, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung until a few gens ago and they're not waterproof.

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

I just started using this phone a couple weeks ago. It runs android 11, and the Ink OS that is runs is actually pretty clean and simple. I use Mint Mobile as my provider since TMobile is the only carrier that really supports it in the US. I am located in NYC and while the phone's coverage isn't like my older iPhone's its still pretty good. You can also get it off AliExpress for about $360 (At least I was able to). Not quite sure if it can use Android auto yet.

Overall I have had a good experience using the phone. My goal was to reduce my daily eye strain while not giving up the phone essentials, and it has certainly helped me do that.

mcny4• 2 years ago

runs android 11

that's a bummer. There is a killer new feature on android 12 that allows neostore (F-droid frontend) that allows apps to auto update without me having to remember to manually update them.

tweetle_beetle• 2 years ago

If you are in the market for a current state of the art e-ink phone, would having to do a few taps a month genuinely stop you buying this model? Seems like a very minor inconvenience for someone who values an esoteric technology combination.

szszrk• 2 years ago

Is that really an android 12 feature? F-droid Basic (almost the same app, same dev, same looks, without fancy direct sharing options; you can actually get it via old f-droid) can do that as well. They had to rewrite their implementation of how apps are installed, it took a while. With that only first install of the app needs confirmation.

starky• 2 years ago

If you look into other Android E-ink devices they all run Android 11. I can't find where I saw it now, but I looked into it when I bought a Onyx Boox device and it apparently had something to do with the driver blobs for the screen not supporting Android 12 and higher.

e12e2• 2 years ago

Is that?

https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Store

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.machiav3lli.fdroid/

just_testing• 2 years ago

I just added Neo Store to my boox device. Thanks so much! It is great!

If you have any other recommendations, I'd gladly hear them.

cmrdporcupine3• 2 years ago

I am very curious to see if Android Auto works on it, because if it does I'd seriously consider it.

Does it have a lot of Chinese junk-ware on it, though?

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

I will check in a few days if it can run android auto and update here. To be honest, it probably has a lot of junk-ware on it, this really isn't my domain of expertise though. I can tell you from a user experience, it has been very easy to use.

iamcalledrob• 2 years ago

Are you finding it less addictive than a typical smartphone?

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

yes this is one of the reasons I got it. Good luck binging youtube at a refresh rate so low and only support for black and white.

maxglute3• 2 years ago

Going eink helped me cut back video content. But I ended up listening to more podcast at faster speeds and since i have youtube premium, backgorund listening. It's... better, since I treat it as background noise and ears don't get fatigued / strained like eyes do.

whimsicalism2• 2 years ago

Does it support american networks?

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

TMobile and MVNOs like mint mobile offer decent support (at least in NYC)

inhumantsar• 2 years ago

T-Mobile

giarc2• 2 years ago

What is typing like on this? My daughter has a Kobo Clara and I haven't been impressed with the responsiveness of it.

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

It feels like an iphone 8 keyboard that is about to die. It isn't the quickest thing in the world, but good enough to respond to texts and emails.

KennyBlanken3• 2 years ago

Kobo is notorious for having atrocious response time. I'm on my third generation of Kobo reader and it's still dogshit slow.

The periodic crashes are also really tiresome - I regularly have to hard-power-cycle the thing and often lose my reading progress. Why this has been a problem for 6+ years is beyond me but my guess is that they're spending very little on R&D/QA, running on an ancient SoC.

seam_carver3• 2 years ago

Works fine, this has the fastest eink screen available.

hikingsimulator• 2 years ago

Given the limited framerate of the device, I wonder whether running videos comes with latency that makes listening to them impossible.

It's expected that E-ink would demolish video quality, but does it has an incidence on sound if you want to listen to a video on the metro line?

huppeldepup• 2 years ago

There's a youtube demo in the article.

carlosjobim3• 2 years ago

Why would screen refresh have any influence on audio latency?

Tade0• 2 years ago

How's the battery life?

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

about 3 days (maybe 4 days) of normal usage

shrx• 2 years ago

There's no mention of GPS and NFC, I assume it lacks these modules?

soganess• 2 years ago

I don't know about NFC, but until this moment I just assumed GPS was built in to any (qualcomm) soc that also integrated cellular. Or was it bt/wifi? It piggybacks some other antenna and hence 'just works'.

notorandit• 2 years ago

Not 5G! Shame on them.

Someone• 2 years ago

They have another model that claims to have that. https://hisenseeink.com/products/hisense-a7-5g-e-ink-smartph...:

“It will support most 5G bands thanks to the T7510 chip with NSA/SA support.”

cmrdporcupine3• 2 years ago

... for what... so you can stream some 4k YouTube videos onto your e-ink screen?

sofixa3• 2 years ago

For the coverage. Most network deployments nowadays are 5G, and older 3G and earlier are getting decommissioned/replaced.

BadHumans2• 2 years ago

I want a phone like this but I'm not willing to pay $500 for it.

weare138• 2 years ago

That's the part I don't get. I like the concept overall but I don't see the point of having high end specs. Like it has a 13MP camera for example. How do you view color HD pics or video on an e-ink screen?

stonogo• 2 years ago

Lots of people take pictures on their phone and then look at them on other devices.

sleepycatgirl2• 2 years ago

There is always aliexpress, I suppose. I myself paid ~320$ total, for the 6/128GB version.

BadHumans2• 2 years ago

How do you like it? Do you use it day to day as your primary phone?

johndhi• 2 years ago

How is it with Slack and email?

seam_carver3• 2 years ago

Email with outlook is fine. I imagine slack is also fine.

ploum3• 2 years ago

I’ve been using an Hisense A5 daily for the last 4 years (so it is the previous model, which is less powerful and without Google Play store).

https://ploum.net/se-passer-decran-avec-un-telephone-e-ink/i...

Ask Me Anything about not having a true screen on your phone.

zirror• 2 years ago

How's the battery life?

ahamilton45410• 2 years ago

about 3 days long (maybe 4)

ploum3• 2 years ago

Battery life was about a week and is now about 3 days but it really depends on which apps you want to "freeze" and which apps you never want to "freeze" (to receive notifications).

There’s also a "super saving mode" which allows only 6 apps, no notifications. I use it during long bikepacking trips, recharging every other day when stoping for lunch in a restaurant. It is great. Also, I leave the "super saving mode" if I need to use another app.

So it is perfectly possible to get very long battery time but you need to really configure it and figure out how to use it.

I’ve lost a lot a battery time by disabling freeze for Adguard VPN. In day to day use, I prefer to use more battery and send less data to China (the stuff is full of spyware). Even with that, I charge it every three days but I don’t use it much (which is the goal)

srge• 2 years ago

Can you use navigation apps like Waze ? Et Spotify ?

And chatting apps like Telegram and Whastap ?

ploum3• 2 years ago

I’m using Pure Maps and OSM And perfectly well.

The only downside is that, on some maps, the grey-water is the same as the grey-road and it happened a few times that I thought a canal was a road when doing bike trip.

Google Maps is working but sometimes loosing the position, probably due to the fact there are no Google services on the smartphone. So Google Maps is very unreliable. It may loose positioning in the middle of a trip (suddenly, position is not updated anymore).

Well, really good to degooglize yourself ;-)

Never tried Spotify nor Waze nor Telegram.

Whatsapp was working if I remember well but I’ve deleted my account year ago. Signal is working fine except for notifications which are sometimes held until you launch the app. This doesn’t happen all the time, I suspect the aggressive battery "freezer".

For me, it is a feature as I’m disturbed less (the phone is in silence mode most of the time anyway). If I expect a message, I simply open Signal before locking the screen.

Note: there’s a way to forbid freezing for specific applications if needed. I just didn’t wanted to do it.

Using signal has not been always easy. See : https://ploum.net/2023-03-09-losing-signal.html

jsheard3• 2 years ago

It's a shame Sharps MIP-LCDs haven't been scaled up to phone or tablet sizes, those could be a nice balance with almost the power efficiency and comfort of e-ink but with fast enough response times to keep up with animation and smooth scrolling UIs. That's the screen technology the Pebble smartwatches used, and the Playdate console more recently.

jimktrains2• 2 years ago

I loved the reflective mode on the olpc xo1, but have never seen it in use anywhere else.

user_78323• 2 years ago

Fully agree, in this race of "2000 NIT ULTRA BRIGHT OLED FOR DAYLIGHT!!!" screens, transflective displays make sunlight seem like a gift. My previous smartwatch (Amazfit Bip) had one and it's a real pity no one bothers too much with them.

jsheard3• 2 years ago

Garmin still uses MIP-LCD on a lot of their smartwatches, though even they have started offering more OLED variants which trade battery life and sunlight readability for better aesthetics.

ncann2• 2 years ago

One thing that people tend to not expect for these e-ink smartphones is that their battery life, while good compared to normal phones, is nowhere near the "expected" battery life for an e-ink e-reader. This phone for example has a battery that lasts ~3-4 days, while a normal e-reader can last weeks.

gcr• 2 years ago

That's an interesting point. Is this because of the modem and always-on background tasks / push notifications?

retrac• 2 years ago

Yes. A dedicated eink reader usually goes into full suspend-to-RAM mode, between each page refresh.

Also, e-ink displays consume power when they update. It takes a lot of energy to change the state of the pigment cells, and no power when static. So the always updating, graphically busy interface of an Android phone (even if themed for eink) is much more power-demanding to render.

ncann2• 2 years ago

Yes, in the end these are (mostly) fully fledged android devices with all the baggage running in the background. Modem aside, wifi is usually the biggest battery consumer, keeping wifi off usually will significantly improve the battery life (which is true even for normal phones, but especially so for these e-ink phones).

Erratic65762• 2 years ago

NetGuard at f-droid would double my battery expectancy on an old Samsung A6 by blocking most connections

strohwueste• 2 years ago

Is there a way to mimic the experience on a "normal" android phone? Making everything b/w with monochrome setting is easy. But reducing framerate and maybe also reducing resolution? Maybe even put a filter over it? Anybody tried that?

andrewia• 2 years ago

You can reduce render resolution easily, it's available as the unrooted ABD command `adb shell wm size 1080x1920`. You don't need a computer for it either, you can use an app like Bugjaeger to create a loopback connection on most Wi-Fi networks.

seam_carver3• 2 years ago

It's really not the same. Eink is a completely different screen technology that physically moves ink particles around. The screen doesn't emit light, only reflects ambient light like paper.

lostmsu• 2 years ago

The point is to reduce your desire to watch addictive videos, not to do something with display technology per se. I actually considered that a startup idea - Android fork targeted to restrain addictive content consumption via artificially lowered refresh rates, some color filters and targeted software.

rfwhyte• 2 years ago

$500 USD is an absurd price for a "Phone" with such limited usability. Unless you're some edge-case who absolutely "Needs" the longer battery life, I really fail to see how this can justify a $200-$300 price premium over a low end Android phone.

sleepycatgirl2• 2 years ago

You would be surprised how much more comfy reading stuff is on such phone, over conventional ones.

Version467• 2 years ago

On the one hand, you're right, the price seems absurd. On the other hand, I've only ever heard this argument from people who don't really want such a device anyway.

I don't own this phone, but I paid $500 for a Boox Note Air 2, which is an eink tablet that I use for notetaking and reading and replaced my ipad with it. The limited usability of these devices is a selling point, not a downside. But just because I want a device that does less doesn't mean that I want a device that feels cheap. I still want something sleek, well built and snappy. And eink screens aren't particularly cheap either. So $500 it is.

carlosjobim3• 2 years ago

Go live in a place with a lot of sunshine, and you'll get it. E-ink is absolutely the future for a huge part of the world.

HumblyTossed• 2 years ago

There's also one without the phone part:

https://hisenseeink.com/products/hisense-hi-reader-e-ink-e-r...

I've looked at these a few times and I really want one, but not quite at that price.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 2 years ago

It sucks that the CCP makes all this innovation a nonstarter. If the CCP were to disappear the Chinese hardware hackers would benefit hugely and the West would even benefit from the added innovation/competition. I feel robbed in a way.

soupfordummies• 2 years ago

Looks like I'm not the only one that got intrigued by this phone from the comments in the NYT Smartphone article this morning ;)

yboris• 2 years ago

Related: The Light Phone https://www.thelightphone.com/ - uses E-Ink too

VyseofArcadia2• 2 years ago

I really wanted to like the Light Phone. It's exactly what I want...except one of my biggest use-cases depends on a proprietary and almost assuredly ephemeral web service.

I want to do basically three things on a phone:

1. Calls and texts 2. Maps 3. Music and podcasts

But the only way to get audio files onto a Light Phone is via uploading them to the web dashboard[0]. I contacted support. There exists no other way, or at least not one they are willing to officially acknowledge. Sorry, I don't trust that a hipster minimalist cell phone startup is going to maintain that service for as long as I plan on using the phone.

Light Phone people, if you're reading this: don't be weird about it! The device has USB connectivity! Just let me plug in a damn cable and transfer files over! There is absolutely no reason to have this whole thing hinge on a web service that I assume you are paying good money to keep online and working. Transferring audio files via USB was a solved problem in the year 2000. [1]

Side note, I'm aware that maps likely also depends on a similar web service, but it doesn't irk me quite as much.

[0] https://support.thelightphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004824...

[1] And this isn't even mentioning that the only supported audio seems to be 256kbs CBR mp3s

numpad0• 2 years ago

Can't you enable ADB and install something in apk?

bsimpson• 2 years ago

YouTube is watchable on this thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA5dIN3aS-o&t=325s

Not as smooth as on a traditional phone, but maybe more usable than you would have expected for an eInk display.

bacro• 2 years ago

I already have that on my Boox Note Air 3C and it is pretty handy. I can watch for hours without straining my eyes.

akasakahakada• 2 years ago

I think the point is that the manufacturer decided to put a absurd strong DAC inside so that it double as a music player.

chx• 2 years ago

THIS IS NOT A HISENSE SITE!

There's no such thing as Hisense A9 Pro. It's just A9.

The site has zero contact information, you have no idea who you are buying it from.

Buyer beware!

https://reddit.com/r/eink/comments/17oc6jq/httpshisenseeinkc...

You can find official jd.com links on https://ereaderx.com/product/hisense-a9-eink-phone-specs/ use your favorite proxy, I use superbuy but I won't link because this is not a spam post. Notably it's 266.70 USD from JD this sus website wants 479.99 for the same... shipping will add a little but certainly not even half the difference.

kramerger• 2 years ago

Edit:

Nevermind, I confused HiSense and Huawei's HiSilicon :(

With that said, HiSense is more of a white box OEM outside Asia, so maybe this is them trying a new thing with direct sales to West?

maxglute3• 2 years ago

HiSilicon =/= Hisense.

KennyBlanken3• 2 years ago

Anyone considering buying this phone in the US should probably not do so because it has no support for UTMS aka 3G (still common in rural areas), does not support any of the 4G "long range" bands, and no 5G support (an increasing number of rural cell towers are long-range 5G)

It does support the majority of non-extended-range Tmobile bands. I did not check other carriers, but this thing is much worse than a Nexus 6 in terms of LTE band support - a phone that came out about 8-9 years ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39266008

colinsane• 2 years ago

anyone know how close the kernel/drivers are to mainline? loads of Linux epub/cbz/RSS/etc reader apps are already friendly to small screens, would be lovely if i could just throw a minimal OS on there and rsync my media onto it without going through hoops or fighting the vendor's OS.

josu• 2 years ago

Why are e-ink displays still relatively expensive?

RossBencina2• 2 years ago

Because it's a single-supplier technology.

lawrenceyan• 2 years ago

E-ink devices are going to be like fountain pens. Calling it now.

RossBencina2• 2 years ago

Relatively expensive with a dedicated niche audience? We're already there aren't we?

xchip• 2 years ago

How often do you have to charge it? Strange they don't mention it.

aidenn0• 2 years ago

That's a huge premium for the E-ink screen.

meatjuice• 2 years ago

Can’t wait to play Call of Duty on this thing

t0bia_s• 2 years ago

Width：79.50 mm - thats insane and clearly not comfortable to manipulate with.

Hisense A9 Pro E-Ink Android Smartphone

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