stepanm99 t1_j2o725v wrote
I happen to have Hisense A5 pro CC with color e-ink, for more than a year now. Using it as a normal phone. Screen refresh set on "speed" and the colors make apps very usable but it's tradeoff between speed and quality. I read on my phone mostly, or listen to music on spotify. It doesn't tempt me to spend more time scrolling socials or watching youtube because videos are looking terrible to scary sometimes. But it is perfectly readable in bright environments, it works great as gps. Also the eyestrain is minimized as you don't need backlight. And the batery life. Charging once in 4-5 days of my use. I hope there will be some e-ink phones in the future when this one breaks down.
pygmy t1_j2ofncd wrote
Sounds great, wish I'd heard about these earlier!
Are the photos it takes any good? Do Gmail & other Google apps work ok?
stepanm99 t1_j2olja3 wrote
Picture quality is not fantastic, just 13mpx, nothing much in comparison with mainstream phones with ton-of-mpx fancy multiple AI camera. Also it could be tricky to take one because e-ink, low refresh rate and you can't see much if the scene has low contrast. It does it's job, decently I would say.
Although mine came with google play I had to reinstall it in order to make it work. It was about to be expected since it's from chinese market. Also had to remove some suspicious apps that were in chinese and wasn't sure of their purpose. Some english translations of the system are odd but understandable. Also, if anyone considers buying one, check the cell network bands, it works fine in Europe but I am not sure whether it would work at your place.
nicetriangle t1_j2oqm45 wrote
13 megapixels is actually not bad. All the recent iPhones except for the last Pro models shoot 12 megapixel images and I think Androids are a mixed bag but a lot also shoot around 12.
isommers1 t1_j2oqxmx wrote
Megapixel count doesn't mean much for quality these days. Yes, both this phone and an iPhone 11 have similar MP count. The pictures will look miles apart though. Just don't get your hopes up.
bad_apiarist t1_j2qo8kl wrote
For real. 13mp is a resolution of (or similar to) 3264x2448. Exactly what freakin' purpose do you put your photos to that this is just too small for you? This resolution is completely impractical and overkill for any images looked at on a mobile device or posted to social media or even just for your personal archive for looking at later.
This is to say nothing of the fact that the image quality captured with gigantic sensors of 13, 15 or 20mp can be utterly crap where there is no detail added by those pixels regardless, so you just get huge files with an actual discernible detail level of 8 or 10mp.
nicetriangle t1_j2rrqoq wrote
Higher megapixel sensors often give you better image sharpness and they can be binned to get better low light sensitivity when shot at lower resolutions. Also a lot of people (myself included) are ditching dedicated cameras for their photography and so yeah, I want a big image if I can get one. You can legitimately have decent sized prints made or use them as desktop wallpapers and that sort of thing. Larger image sizes also allow you to crop in on an image and still have a decent amount of resolution to work with.
I ditched my old Canon 5D3 when I got my last iPhone because I was no longer using the Canon professionally and the only reason I was holding onto it was for travel. The new iPhone finally shot good enough photos that I didn't feel the need to lug around a large camera anymore. It's not as good as the Canon but it's good enough now and sure as hell less of a hassle to carry around and doesn't immediately flag me as a tourist wherever I may be.
SpecialNose9325 t1_j2qrzh4 wrote
Thats ... not a measure of quality. There are $200 phones that just throw in a 12MP sensor and big players who put R&D into color science and post processing of a 12MP image on a $1000 phone.
peteythefool t1_j2rqj5y wrote
Megapixel count is meaningless in the world of post processing. Apple has basically the same 12 MP sensor since the iPhone 8 (maybe the X, not sure) and their post processing does most of the heavy lifting. They've been consistently taking some of the best photos in the mobile space, and definitely the best videos. Samsung and Google have been working hard to take the crown, but Apple got a head start as they've been working with the same hardware for quite some time now.
I've seen 48mp photos taken by my old Poco F3 (released in 2021) that looked noticeably worse than photos taken by an iPhone x (released in 2017).
nicetriangle t1_j2rr187 wrote
My reply was simply to the "just 13 mpx" part. 12 is fairly par for the course for many cellphones. I understand there's a lot more going on in imaging than just the pixel count.
peteythefool t1_j2ry7bt wrote
I understood brother, the guy you're replying to just might not be as tech savy, and looks at number on a sheet and just thinks equal is equal and bigger is better!
Had a similar discussion with my wife and her best friend when they were comparing buying a new iPhone 11 vs another similarly priced android phone, one of the Samsung flips, they were going on about how the cameras were bigger, how the battery was bigger, there was more ram, and so on, and that because of it the flip must have been a better phone than the iPhone. And despite me really not liking Apple, I had to try and explain why it wasn't an apples to apples comparison, and that the vertical integration apple has lets them get away, and even have better results, with subpar, or "inferior" specs.
nicetriangle t1_j2s2lcf wrote
Gotcha, yeah agreed on all of the above. Spec numbers really don't tell the full story these days in hardware. Optimization is so critical.
JasperJ t1_j2siow2 wrote
That’s not actually true. Apple’s phones have had 12 MP sensors for a very long time. They are not “the same sensor but with better post processing”. Not even remotely.
AR_Harlock t1_j2rdj1a wrote
Ahhh it's a shame it doesn't have the double display like some SW
Staple_Diet t1_j2osmy7 wrote
Hi, I have one of these Chinese e-ink android tablets (Boyue Like book). Google etc all works on these devices including email, drive etc. The great thing about them is their ability to be writing pads, as the screens provide much more friction. Plenty of them come with Wacom screens, so you can use a whole host of pens with them.
hellnukes t1_j2p1c2e wrote
That sounds futuristic as duck for me idk why
Aoiboshi t1_j2p1i47 wrote
How is using Reddit on it?
[deleted] t1_j2pobwr wrote
[deleted]
Ninnux t1_j2r66t3 wrote
This may be my next phone. Thanks for the ;TLDR.
inotparanoid t1_j2r9fz0 wrote
Sounds great. I'll finally stop wasting time watching YouTube on my phone.
bnetimeslovesreddit t1_j2rmkmm wrote
Its certainly sounds like positive behaviour change when the phone limits your capacity to mindless zombie like scrolling
LukeIis t1_j2qejx9 wrote
I’m assuming you can text on it? Does it have a SIM card?
stepanm99 t1_j2r5h1a wrote
Yes, it's like regular smartphone. Actually it's dual SIM but one slot is shared with microSD card, which, I think, is not something uncommon. So I can have either two sims or sim and SD card.
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