Hisense A5C, A5 Pro CC, color e-ink phones

[orebmur]

Originally Posted by tracey1

I have encountered some issues with my Hisense A5
[...]

It would be advisable to indicate whether your A5 is equipped with the unofficial multilingual ROM or the regularily updated official ROM.

The A5 used here has the most up to date offical ROM and it doesn't seem to suffer from any of the issues you are reporting.

Disclaimer: I only use this for reading books with the back light permanently turned off and nothing else. So no phone calls, nor chats or videos, and the camera is never used either.

[tracey1]

Originally Posted by orebmur

It would be advisable to indicate whether your A5 is equipped with the unofficial multilingual ROM or the regularily updated official ROM.

The A5 used here has the most up to date offical ROM and it doesn't seem to suffer from any of the issues you are reporting.

Disclaimer: I only use this for reading books with the back light permanently turned off and nothing else. So no phone calls, nor chats or videos, and the camera is never used either.

It is the multilingual ROM with pre-installed Google Play.

[orebmur]

Originally Posted by tracey1

It is the multilingual ROM with pre-installed Google Play.

I guess that leaves you with buggy and unsupported software which will never receive any bug fixes by the vendor like it is provided via the offial ROM. There already were several upgrades.

Just tested the camera with the latest official ROM: It doesn't turn on the screen lightning when activated. So the camera can be used with an unilluminated screen. And no, light never turns on randomly with the latest official ROM.

There is no need to bother about Google Play since one can easily have access to Google's app store via the Aurora app for any apk's that aren't available via F-Droid. The former is available via the latter. Avoiding to have installed any Google framework stuff works wonders for battery life.

Links:
F-Droid app store f-droid.org/en/
Aurora app store auroraoss.com

[tracey1]

Originally Posted by orebmur

I guess that leaves you with buggy and unsupported software which will never receive any bug fixes by the vendor like it is provided via the offial ROM. There already were several upgrades.

Just tested the camera with the latest official ROM: It doesn't turn on the screen lightning when activated. So the camera can be used with an unilluminated screen. And no, light never turns on randomly with the latest official ROM.

There is no need to bother about Google Play since one can easily have access to Google's app store via the Aurora app for any apk's that aren't available via F-Droid. The former is available via the latter. Avoiding to have installed any Google framework stuff works wonders for battery life.

Links:
F-Droid app store f-droid.org/en/
Aurora app store auroraoss.com

What options am I left with ? Any way to fix those bugs ?

Thanks for checking on the camera. Videos are flickering as well.

I know of the aurora store. Apparently there are apps that explicitedly need Google play services. In your opinion, are there adequate alternatives to those apps ?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by tracey1

What options am I left with ?

Apparently, it is possible to flash the regular A5 firmware onto a device running the hacked "international" firmware.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=419

Of course, you would lose Google Play in so doing.

[orebmur]

Originally Posted by tracey1

What options am I left with ? Any way to fix those bugs ?

Initially i also bought an A5 with that hacked unofficial firmware because i was attracted by the alleged multilingual support, but which in the end turned out to be superficial at best. Finally i resorted flashing the original vendor firmware.

See wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Hisense_A5#Rooting_and_firmware_availability for technical details of the procedure.

Originally Posted by tracey1

Thanks for checking on the camera. Videos are flickering as well.

Admittedly, the A5 hardly is a suitable device for playing videos, to begin with. I wouldn't even bother.

Originally Posted by tracey1

Apparently there are apps that explicitedly need Google play services. In your opinion, are there adequate alternatives to those apps ?

This might be a hard one. In theory, lots of apps expect Google play services, while in practice this often turns out to be not necessary. Needs to be verified on a case by case basis for every single app.

Originally Posted by tracey1

In your opinion, are there adequate alternatives to those apps ?

To tell the truth, i am hardly an expert in this area, so better don't trust my words.

If there is no practical experience there is no way to reliably know. So i'd rather abstain from uttering any hypothetical opinions. Since you didn't state which specific apps you refer to there is no way to compare and know.

In parallel i use another smartphone for the remaining daily necessities. This one i have rooted and degoogled, replacing the Play Services with MicroG (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroG, instead. Unfortunately, it was a hassle to set up. But at least no app ever complains about the lack of Play services. But then again, i am a very minimalistic user of anything smartphone, turning off all features not explicitely needed and limiting usage to the bare minum.

[kandwo]

The new firmware update for my A5 Pro brings better scrolling: when scrolling in clear mode it automatically switches to balanced mode while scrolling and then back to clear mode again afterwards.

This finally makes it possible to use clear mode in the browser (I use einkbro).

I wonder what other new things they have implemented. The changelog is completely blank, as usual. (The only reason I found out about the improved scrolling is because I heard that their newer Hisense Touch uses it, so I immediately tried it after updating.)

[gamba66]

I have a question: I have bought the hisense a5 with the multilanguage and google play firmware.

I have read its possible to remove it and flash the ENG/CHI firmware but then google play would need to be added some other way?

Is it worth the effort and if yes, why?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by gamba66

I have a question: I have bought the hisense a5 with the multilanguage and google play firmware.

I have read its possible to remove it and flash the ENG/CHI firmware but then google play would need to be added some other way?

Is it worth the effort and if yes, why?

I have the A5 ProCC with the regular firmware. Unless things have changed, so far as I am aware, one cannot install Google Play.

However, one can find many apps on other sites such as F-Droid, Aurora Store, APKPure... You can then download and install many of the same apps that you can find in the Play Store.

I have been able to do this with most of the apps that I have on my other Android devices. However, there are some apps that require Google Play services to run properly. If you require such apps, you may be out of luck. Fortunately for me, the apps which I use work just fine.

[darkrat]

Hallo,
here my 2 cents about my setup of A5 Pro:

• Install the APPs possibly from their original site (and not from a store like Aurora) or from F-Droid
• on the left button I mapped "manual light on/off"
• for Italian networks, I installed 4G Switcher from Aurora and selected LTE/UMTS auto (PRL) as preferred network
• as launcher AIO Launcher is perfect
• for contacts, tasks and calendar syncing I use DAVx5 with Foregound option turned on
• app for calendar: Business Calendar 2 from Aurora
• app for tasks: Opentasks from fdroid
• for email fairmail from GitHub, but I'm not happy with it, it's a good email app but not "eink" firendly
• for maps I use Waze (Aurora Store) and for outdoor activity OSMAND+ (from F-Droid)
• To keep APPs running in the background (but notifications not always work) I disable battery optimization:
  1. Allow Autorun under Apps & permission managment >Selfrunning Managment
  2. Allow Autorun under Apps & permission managment > Associated Selfrunning Managment
  3. Add to whitelist under Apps & permission managment > Memory Cleanup or disable Memory Cleanup entirely
  4. Disable automatic refrigartion under Apps & permission managment > Application of freezer

With all main apps working in background (SMS, Email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Calendar, Tasks) the battery drain is very similar to any other smartphone with a similar battery: more or less 1,5 days of normal use
In order to save battery (e.g. using it for outdoor activities etc.) I activate Super Power Saving Mode, which allow the selection of 4 active apps. All the others are turned off.
In order to have a better eink reading mode in all the apps I changed the Display settings to: Contrast 40%, Black 100%, White 100%

Now I would like to find the right email app for black and white eink (Fairmail, K9.mail, bluemail already tested) and a way to cancel chinese charachters in calls management... Any hint?

[ferlanero]

Originally Posted by darkrat

Hallo,
here my 2 cents about my setup of A5 Pro:

• for Italian networks, I installed 4G Switcher from Aurora and selected LTE/UMTS auto (PRL) as preferred network

What are the supposed benefits of changing the GSM connection settings?

Originally Posted by darkrat

• as launcher AIO Launcher is perfect

Similar in concept to AIO is Olauncher Clutter Free, we are also working in make this app eink friendly (eg. minimizing animations, no icons only text, resizable text, only black and white colors...)

it's worth a try:

https://github.com/jooooscha/Olauncher

Originally Posted by darkrat

• app for calendar: Business Calendar 2 from Aurora

For calendar I use Simple Calendar Pro from F-Droid. It's really customizable as other Simple Mobile Tools.

Originally Posted by darkrat

• for email fairmail from GitHub, but I'm not happy with it, it's a good email app but not "eink" friendly

I'm agree with you, but still I have not been able to find any better.

Originally Posted by darkrat

Now I would like to find a way to cancel chinese characters in calls management... Any hint?

Take a look at "Simple Contacts Pro" & "Simple Dialer" in F-Droid. Both combined completely replace the needed of any Chinese app for dialer in the A5 CC Pro.

At this point I also would like to add the best camera app I have been able to test on this phone Hedge Cam 2. Try on: https://sourceforge.net/projects/hedgecam/

[Markismus]

I ran into problems with Fairmail for the 2-step authentication that has been forced since May, iirc. Wasn't able to log in using an app password. So I switched to Edison mail.

I really like the simple dailer and contacts app: Great to be rid of the Chinese characters. Hedgecam is also a great improvement.

I use Etar and DAVx5 for calendar and contacts (together with OpenVPN to and Radicale on my homeserver.) Will give simple calendar a try, though.

For the launcher I am liking Niagara Launcher. However, I have configured Vision launcher and it will take some time to tune Niagara.

What I am irritated about is the Gallery app. I can't seem to find anything. [Italics]Does anyone know a better alternative?[/italics]

[ferlanero]

Originally Posted by Markismus

I ran into problems with Fairmail for the 2-step authentication that has been forced since May, iirc. Wasn't able to log in using an app password. So I switched to Edison mail.

I really like the simple dailer and contacts app: Great to be rid of the Chinese characters. Hedgecam is also a great improvement.

I use Etar and DAVx5 for calendar and contacts (together with OpenVPN to and Radicale on my homeserver.) Will give simple calendar a try, though.

For the launcher I am liking Niagara Launcher. However, I have configured Vision launcher and it will take some time to tune Niagara.

What I am irritated about is the Gallery app. I can't seem to find anything. [Italics]Does anyone know a better alternative?[/italics]

For gallery app, try Camera Roll: GitHub - kollerlukas/Camera-Roll-Android-App: Simple Galley App for Android, with lovely Material Design. - https://github.com/kollerlukas/Camera-Roll-Android-App

Super customizable app very suitable for eink screens