At 9:23 on June 19 I took the above picture. The Hisense was at 83% battery life after having been partially charged for the first time.
We are now two days of heavy use later, and the Hisense is currently reading 36% battery remaining.
I'll post another update tomorrow when it dies, or at this time if it's still alive, and then charge it up for a fair runtime test.
If battery drain is even (it isn't, but whatever) I'm currently averaging roughly 1/4 of the battery per day.
In practice, I used a lot more network and backlight night one than I have since then, so actual drain rate probably averages lower.
We'll see as the week progresses if I'm right, and I'll keep a running tab for a few weeks for a better average.
Its 9pm. Today was a less heavy use day, but still some. Sitting at 19% remaining.
That's solid as hell.
"Days if not weeks" on a charge, easy.
So I'm sticking it on the charger now. We'll see where I land tomorrow.
@ajroach42 oh my god this exists? what's the refresh time like?
@syntacticsugarglider I'll post a video later. It's fine if you don't care about fidelity. It's crap if you want if you want it to look good.
@ajroach42 i don't really care about fidelity, I'm just really excited by the potential battery life
and i found a video online of the A5 Pro CC, not sure how different it is (other than a panel with color support) but the refresh times really impressed me compared to the Kindles etc. I've owned in the past
@syntacticsugarglider it's a Hisense A5 if that'll help you compare.
@ajroach42 yeah I found the model info but I didn't find a video of that specific model
as I said the A5 CC impressed me though so I might just buy one at some point to play around with
@ajroach42 Yes! How long have you had it? Thoughts? Blog post? 😃
@kelbot
I would love to read @ajroach42's thoughts on this too :)
@ajroach42 I am guessing they mean the #ebook reader: https://github.com/koreader/koreader @emacsomancer @kelbot
@kelbot I just got it two hours ago. Took like five months because of the corona virus.
@ajroach42 *eyes go wiiiiide*
@ajroach42 What is this device?
@ajroach42 The Hisense A5 E INK smartphone?
https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-a5-e-ink-smartphone-review
@dredmorbius that's the one.
@ajroach42 that is kinda nuts
@ajroach42 Looks awesome. Is that the original or Pro? They just started shipping the Pro recently, and one with a color e-ink screen.
I have the Kingrow K1, but I wish I'd waited for the HiSense.
@ieure the original. Ordered it in January, but it got delayed until mid May due to corona, and then I moved to GA and just got my mail.
@ajroach42 Is this an eink phone?
@ajroach42 Is that fuzzyness around the toot text real or just your picture? I can see it's doing stipling for grey scales, but it surprises me there seems to be some above the characters (or is that just jpeg artifacting on your picture)
@penguin42 I hadn't done a fuller screen refresh in a while. The fuzziness was from the character count counter jiggling things around.
@ajroach42 Ah, is this one of the epaper things where it's a bit less distinct until you do a full refresh?
@ajroach42
How does the light theme look like on it?
@ajroach42
Wow that looks pretty good. Now I want to get my hands on one as well
@xiamx took me several months to get this one. Working on a full review.
@ajroach42 niece, looking forward for it! I've seen a few review from the coolapk community but felt they were over enthusiastic about it.
@xiamx I mean, aside from the pita that is the Chinese skinned distro, I've enjoyed the hell out of it so far.
I don't think it is daily driver ready for folks looking for a regular smartphone, but if you come in with an understanding of the limitations and intentions of the device, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how usable it is.
At least, I have been so far. I'll have more to report in a few days.
@ajroach42 how is it for typing?
@egret fine, but not great. The included keyboard app was garbage. I replaced it but the new one also isn't great.
@egret but that's just a problem of me not having an Android keyboard app I like, not a limitation of the device.
@ajroach42 I was wondering how usable such a screen is for messaging, with the eink updating on every keypress. I would love to try a phone like this, probably at a smaller size, because 90% of what I do on the phone is reading static forum posts and articles anyway.
@egret oh, partial updates. It's fine.
@ajroach42 @egret good, looking forward to your review, would be very interested in it as my daily in theory, the only things I want to be doing on my phone (ebook, messaging, confirm something on a map or wiki) seem like they should be fine in the limits, but does have to be usable/non-frustrating in the basics to be daily .
@loppear Don't look forward to that, I won't buy a new phone until my xperia xz1 compact gives in, and then I'll just take a second hand one out of the cupboard where I have 3 more laying around (when I find a good pair of shoes I buy 4 more).
I refuse to use anything above 4.8 inches.
@ajroach42 I was also using Tusky on my Yotaphone 2, extremely nice for browsing the fediverse in bright sunlight
@ajroach42 this is an e-ink Android tablet?
@ajroach42 hey, this is cool! I didn't know such devices were available 😮 😀 📱
@badrihippo Hisense A5. I'll post a review and a users guide within the month.
@ajroach42 Great! Looking forward to it 🙂
I have lots of minor complaints so far, but no major ones yet.
I'm going to try to find a set up guide for folks in the states, and then figure out if I want to try to make it a daily driver.