Rejoice, for Hisense are taking a real interest in developing solutions for people who suffer from eye strain. Yesterday they announced the world's first E-ink colour phone, in a standard and pro variant, as well as a new reflective LCD (RLCD) monochrome tablet that appears to support HDMI in. This announcement, at least for me, is very important. I'll break it down:

The A5C and Pro CC are two affordable android e ink phones that are capable of displaying 4096 colours. The pro appears to have a refresh rate of just 137ms, making it a very useable colour smart phone. Like the A5, both are fully useable in ambient light. This is therefore the first modern colour smartphone that uses ambient light that I am aware of. The colour will of course be very muted, but given that I find videos perfectly watchable on the regular A5, it will provide an adequate media experience that will save many from jumping back to a regular phone. These are being released in June.

Secondly, a 10 inch RLCD tablet has been announced. This is also a big deal as it's the first modern reflective display that should be able to be used as an external monitor. Given it's LCD, we can expect fast refresh. It's monochrome unfortunately, though this was likely necessary to ensure contrast was adequate. My primary interest will be seeing how dither affect me on this screen. Hisense have also said they will release an 'eye-friendly' external light to be used with it. Interesting to see how that works out, but the bottom line is Hisense, alongside Onyx, are the two device manufacturers that are really providing solutions for those with light-based disorders.

I plan on purchasing both of these devices and like with the A5, I will talk about them on this forum for anyone interested. Unfortunately the preorder system is only on JD.com, whcih apparently will ship internationally but I haven't found a way of navigating the chinese sign up page (if anybody can help out here I'd really appreciate it).

Hisense A5C https://item.m.jd.com/product/100012545746.html

Hisense A5 Pro CC https://item.m.jd.com/product/100007001395.html

    Seanicus refresh rate of just 137ms

    You mean latency/response time? Refresh rate is usually frames per second/hertz

      Seanicus Hail to Hisense! Thats wonderfull news, not only for the eInk phone, but also for the android 10 on the Pro version. Those of us affected for the eyestrain on the android 9 will have a chance to have another android version to try.

      I will send an email to Hisense to ask if the A5 normal version will be upgraded to android 10, but I don't think so because the Pro versions run a different processor which, by the way, I didnt find any info about.

      JTL And how is that compared to the other Hisense or other android eInk devices?

      • JTL replied to this.

        NotAlone JTL And how is that compared to the other Hisense or other android eInk devices?

        That wasn't my point, my point is you were misusing the wrong units.

        As for that question I don't know

        JTL I agree it's not the regular unit we use for screen refresh, but I am reasonably confident they do mean screen refresh rate interval in ms. Perhaps this is a unit better suited to e ink as the technology is very different.

        • JTL replied to this.

          Seanicus Yeah fair, maybe "latency per frame"? Although as I type this out it seems implied.

          Fair enough

          Let's hope they release those and especially the tablet world-wide. Seems like an insta-buy.

          Yeah I'm interested in the tablet.. if it's truly reflective, it will be usable outside in the daylight, which most devices can't really say. The HDMI port it has isn't very common these days either.

          6 months later

          contadorpl Good question! I wonder whether there are news about the phone as well. If someone bought it, could he please comment on eventual dither from Android 10? Thanks!

          1) even if discontinued can be lifechaning for us so your comment adds nothing to the discussion
          2) read with understanding: "In October, a second generation model will be released, fixing a number of issues, but the company failed to disclose how it will be changed."

          • JTL replied to this.

            contadorpl so your comment adds nothing to the discussion

            I disagree. Could be considered a warning that a) Attempting to obtain such a device might be difficult, and b) Any issues in the software may not be corrected by the manufacturer.

              3 months later

              I bought Q5
              No strain at all
              Good on sunlight
              No gapps but it's no problem ( Aurora, VMOS etc )

                krooto Out of curiosity, which version did you get? The original discontinued run, or the second run?

                  a year later

                  krooto

                  Do you have experience / can you compare it to eink devices (kindle, onyx boox, dasung) eye comfort wise?

                  dev