Bigme Hibreak Professional EINK Smartphone Assessment

February 9, 2025

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The Bigme Hibreak Professional is the world’s most potent E-ink smartphone. It destroys every part else in the marketplace, which isn’t saying a lot. The one different units are the Bigme Hibreak BW and Hibreak Colour, three-year-old Hisense telephones, Minimalist Cellphone, and the Mudita Kompact. The large promoting factors are the 6.13-inch Carta 1200 show, which retains issues excessive decision and web page turns quick, the Dimensity Octa-core, 2.4GHz processor, and all of the completely different pace modes.

{Hardware}

The HiBreak Professional comes with a 6.13-inch E INK Carta 1200 e-paper show with a decision of 824 x 1648 and 300 PPI. The gadget’s shade scheme is white, and the display screen is barely sunken and isn’t protected by a layer of glass. The rear has a pleasant leather-like end, however does little to alleviate the general plastic really feel the construct is all about. Bigme stated the show affords zero blue gentle and 0 flickering, which makes it extremely secure for the eyes. The entrance gentle function affords 36-level heat and chilly twin temperature controls for comfy studying in exterior lighting. A lightweight sensor is on the prime to robotically regulate the display screen’s brightness. The dynamic refresh know-how removes residual photographs robotically, so there may be little to no ghosting.

Below the hood, the telephone includes a 6nm octa-core 2.4 GHz MediaTek Dimensity 1080 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage. You can not develop the storage because it doesn’t have an SD card. Nonetheless, the storage ought to be sufficient for 1000’s of apps, audiobooks, and e-books.

It has a 20 MP rear digicam and a 5 MP entrance shooter. The telephone helps 4G/5G with dual-sim, 2.4G/5G WIFI, and Bluetooth 5.2 for wi-fi headphones or earbuds to take heed to audiobooks, music, or podcasts. NFC and a USB-C port can be found. The telephone has a single speaker on the underside, which is mono and doesn’t sound superb. A speaker grill is on the prime, which is the way you hear what individuals are saying, in case you ought to use this as an precise telephone. There’s a microphone on the underside of the display screen and one on the prime. An influence and quantity button are on the fitting aspect, a USB-C port on the underside, a dual-sim port, and two customization keys on the left.

Holding the gadget alive is a 4500 mAh battery, which ought to final just a few weeks on a single cost. It helps 18-watt quick charging, so the battery ought to recharge itself shortly. I like that it has a fingerprint sensor, to maintain issues safe, so that you don’t all the time have to enter a tool password. A gyroscope can be useful for switching the orientation from panorama to portrait mode.

Software program

The Bigme Hibreak Professional runs Google Android 14 and has full entry to the Google Play Retailer, making it simple to obtain thousands and thousands of apps and hold them up to date. Google Play Companies can be preinstalled to obtain all of the main Google apps reminiscent of Google Books, Maps, Chrome, and so on.

The house display screen may be very busy and proper out of the field. There are such a lot of apps. Textual content, prompt messaging, and folders populated with much more apps that the common person will probably uninstall most. Suffice it to say that there’s a shortcut to the Google Play Retailer, a display screen saver, a bookshelf, an app supervisor, settings, music, a clock, and all the same old Google preinstalled apps. On the underside of the display screen is the UI, with the digicam.

If you happen to swipe down from the highest of the display screen, you may entry fast settings to determine a Wi-Fi community, join Bluetooth equipment, hook up with the information connection, use airplane mode, activate the flashlight, and allow system-wide darkish mode. Slider bars management the front-lit show, shade temperature system, and quantity slider.

The E INK Management Centre can be housed on this space and is sort of essential, contemplating that is an E INK telephone, which usually suffers from refresh points. You may set the telephone to completely different studying settings reminiscent of books, magazines, comics, and video. A customized settings unlocks varied system tweaks, reminiscent of anti-shake, auto-clean, set the refresh mode, distinction, and pace modes. Pace modes are normal fare in case you ever owned a Boox or Bigme gadget. HD 256 shows 256 ranges of gray scale, as a substitute of the standard 16 ranges. Regal, quick and excessive have their makes use of, however fast and excessive are inclined to degrade picture high quality to extend efficiency. That is good in case you stream content material reminiscent of video, searching the Google Play App retailer, or adventuring on advanced web sites.

That is every part that makes the Bigme telephone stand out from the standard Android telephones in the marketplace. In any other case, it’s only a telephone with an E-ink display screen; nonetheless, studying on it makes it higher than a flagship Apple or Samsung gadget.

Studying

There’s a inventory studying app, however you don’t need to use it, contemplating you would need to sideload all of your content material. This telephone has Google Play, which is closely app reliant however good. Because it runs Android 14, it might probably entry each e-reading, comedian, manga, or library service app in the marketplace. Wish to use Kindle with animated page-turns or Google Play Books? This handles all of it, with pace. That is primarily as a result of sheer quantity of RAM and the processor. The completely different pace modes assist out on this regard too.

An E INK telephone has clear benefits over an iPhone or different flagship. E INK is the closest you will get to studying on paper, so the decision is super, it’s simple on the eyes and appropriate for lengthy studying periods. I’ve an iPhone 14 Professional Max with an excellent massive display screen, and the brilliant gentle hurts my eyes if I learn web sites, use apps, or learn web sites on Flipboard or Google Information. I really feel myself staying up late at evening, with all of the eyestrain. This is the reason, recently, I’ve been turning the display screen off and listening to an audiobook earlier than mattress. If I need to learn a ebook, I’ve a Kindle Colorsoft as my day by day driver. The Hibreak Professional is an iPhone and an e-reader substitute, you don’t want each anymore.

The display screen on that is higher than the Kindle, as a result of there isn’t a layer of glass, so utilizing the Hibreak won’t mirror overhead lighting nor get any glare from the solar. The battery life is not so good as the Kindle as a result of it runs Android, which all the time suffers from battery life points because of so many background processes operating concurrently.

I cannot checklist all of the apps you’ll need to set up; individuals with telephones or Android tablets have already got the popular apps they use day by day. There is a wonderful Reddit thread on what different Bigme customers have on their Hibreak telephone or different Bigme tablets, value studying.

Finally, this telephone ought to be able to being your day by day driver for years. Most different e-readers and different units in the marketplace nonetheless ship with Android 11, which gained’t be supported in just a few years. However, for the reason that Hibreak Professional runs Android 14, it ought to run any app for six years sooner or later.

Wrap Up

The general unit has a chunkier design and is a little more blocky within the hand than the earlier technology. It was a bit extra streamlined however much less succesful than our present Professional model.

The general efficiency is quick, sturdy, and as quick as hell in excessive mode. Its 300 PPI means it might probably sort out something you may throw at it visually.

Truthfully, I can’t see any downsides. I suppose, gun to my head, I might have preferred at the least another speaker to get stereo and possibly a headphone jack. However I suppose Bluetooth is appropriate for wi-fi earbuds or headphones. Proper now, the speaker is the best weak spot.

A private fault I might pick was the large display screen Hole. The space between the display screen and the highest coat layer.

It’s nearly as in case you might match half a stack of post-it notes in between that hole, and the Hole itself offers you a fairly drastic drop shadow that impedes the general cleanliness of the invoice itself.

Nonetheless, it’s a house run exterior that. There’s not too many issues improper you may pick of this unit. The one factor that appears the remark part is clamouring for, is a color model.