HiSense launches first smartphones with color E-ink display, tablet with blue light free monochrome RLCD

Hisense has become a globally known brand over the past several years due the popularity of its TVs and through other activities including sponsorship of the Red Bull Formula 1 racing team. However, in its home market of China, it is also known for making smartphones and tablets. These include the just launched A5 series of smartphones that feature E-ink displays, instead of LCD or OLED, and a new tablet also with an E-ink display.

The new Hisense A5C and A5ProCC are the first smartphones in the world to feature color E-ink displays at 5.85-inches, to be exact. The new layer of color filtering is applied over the top of E-ink’s more familiar greyscale displays to deliver up to 4096 colors. While this is a far cry from the 1 billion colors the new Oppo Find X2 display can produce, it is still a notable breakthrough, particularly as E-ink displays are ultra-efficient – think up to four days between charges for these devices.

There are other downsides to the new A5C and A5ProCC. The E-ink displays have very low refresh rates and won’t be any good for watching movies or playing 3D video games – however they will be superb for viewing printed text while the Pro model also features Hi-Fi audio playback. Think of them as mini-Kindles and you might actually seriously think of tracking one down even with its relatively low-end UNISOC T610 ARM-based CPU.

If an Android-based Kindle-like device is more your cup of tea, the new Hisense Q5 tablet which runs the same flavor of Android 10 found on the new color E-ink smartphones is worth a look. It features a 10.5-inch monochrome RLCD display that doesn’t produce the harmful blue light that is emitted from LCD displays and, to a lesser extent, OLED displays. It also has a refresh rate that makes it suitable for viewing video and other content without the eyestrain, which is particularly helpful at night.

The Hisense A5C smartphone goes on sale in China on April 29 for around US $240 while the ACProCC goes on sale in June for around US$282. The Hisense Q5 tablet also goes on sale in June for around US$324.