Review: Bigme HiBreak Android e-ink phone

Review unit provided by Bigme

The Bigme HiBreak is an Android 11 phone released in mid 2024. It comes with an 5.84-inch e-ink display that's available either in black and white, or colour, and the prices are USD 249 and USD 279 respectively.

The review unit I received is the black and white version.

Video review

Bottom line

This is a really cool looking phone for people who want a phone that's free from distraction, especially social media distraction. Limitations of the phone comes down to the limitations of e-ink, visual quality, responsiveness. It's those limitations that may make you use your phone less, if that's your goal. You also won't want to watch videos.

The e-ink display has outstanding legibility under direct sunlight. The downside is contrast from the UI designs from apps, webpages, may be difficult to see at times. E.g. With Google Maps, buildings can't be seen and roads are barely visible. Not sure if the HiBreak colour version will be better.

The other downside is the refresh rate won't be as fast compared to LCD or OLED displays, but that's to be expected from e-ink displays. The frontlight is noticeably brighter at the bottom edge. The UI does not have much features but that can be considered a selling point too.

Battery life can easily last a day. 10-15 hours depending on usage. Downside is overnight drain with wifi on is around 1% per hour. Enable airplane mode and the battery drain drops to 2-3% total overnight.

Specifications

• Display: 5.84-inch Kaleido 3 color E Ink display, 720 x 1440 resolution
• DPI: BW 275, colour 91.9
• Front light: 36 levels
• Processor: MediaTek Helio P35
• RAM: 6GB
• Storage: 128GB, expandable via memory card
• Operating System: Android 11
• Connectivity: WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE network bands B1/B2/B3/B5/B7/B8/B20/B28/B34/B38/B39/B40/B41
• GPS: Yes
• Gyroscope: Yes
• Camera: Rear 13 MP, Front 5 MP
• Dimensions: 76.8 x 154 x 8.6 mm
• Charging port: USB-C
• Weight: 170 grams
• Battery: 4,000mAh

Things included

• Phone
• SIM ejection tool
• Quick start guide

No charger and charging cable are included.

Design

The e-ink display looks really cool to me. The screen definitely stands out among other phones with LCDs and OLED displays despite this being just black and white. If you want colour, that's just an extra USD 30 which isn't much.

Shown above is the always-on feature that shows the clock and calendar.

The e-ink display is great for reading. But since the screen size is just 5.84 inches, be prepared to flip more pages. DPI for the BW phone is 275 and for the colour it's 91.9.

Legibility under direct sunlight is outstanding.

The back is made with plastic and has this leather look. The 13MP rear camera comes with a flash.

The build quality is sturdy enough even though the whole phone's made with plastic.

The USB C charging port only has USB 2 transfer speed.

Power and volume buttons are located on the right.

There's a shortcut button on the left that can be customised with the following shortcuts:

• None
• Home screen
• Back
• Screenshot
• Multitasking switcher
• Clear cache
• Full refresh
• E-ink centre
• Previous page
• Next page
• Light switch

There's also a useful nav-ball shortcut on the screen with 9 customisable shortcuts:

• None
• Back
• Homepage
• Open application
• Shut down and restart
• Lock screen
• Wifi
• Bluetooth
• Screenshot
• Previous page
• Next page
• Multi-task switching
• E-ink centre
• Full refresh
• Clear cache
• Page key
• Sleep
• Close the floating ball
• Navigation ball set
• Volume
• Rotation

The display is matte textured plastic with anti-glare. The display can be scratched so be careful not to have this in a pocket with other hard objects.

One downside or limitation for e-ink displays is contrast is not ideal in certain situations. There are times outlines, backgrounds for buttons, or visuals that cannot be seen due to lack of contrast due as e-ink displays can only produce 16 levels of gray.

There's a front 5MP camera beside the only one speaker at the top and audio sounds alright, thankfully not too hollow.

There's no 3.5mm audio jack.

Front light has 36 adjustable levels and looks even enough except for the noticeable glow at the bottom edge.

One downside here is there's no auto-brightness for the front light. When using the phone at night, you'll have to increase the brightness, and the next morning you'll have to reduce the brightness.

Refresh rate for the e-ink display is actually good enough for web browsing. Sure there will be ghosting as you scroll, but I'm surprised there isn't more ghosting or image retention after you stop scrolling.

E-ink displays will have ghosting or image retention but you can adjust the settings to reduce ghosting at the expense of more flickering and latency. The default e-ink settings looks alright and performs fast enough.

Performance

The phone uses the MediaTek Helio P35 chip which isn't particularly powerful but for an e-ink display the performance is still smooth enough.

The main issue with an e-ink display is due to the refresh rate so response won't be as instant as LCDs or OLED displays. This is quite apparent when scrolling web pages or typing. Is it an issue? Not really for me because expectations for e-ink display is lower hence it's easier to meet those expectations (of refresh rate).

There's 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. There's enough RAM for multi-tasking but having apps reload once is a while is not unexpected. More storage is possible with the microSD card slot. I tried to connect my Samsung T7 SSD but it could not be recognised.

Calls

The phone supports 4G cellular connection. Calls sound alright. There's messaging obviously, SMS, Telegram, Whatsapp, etc.

Battery life

Battery life is something I cannot test conclusively due to the e-ink technology.

Having said that, I can definitely get at least one day of battery life easily. This is with me checking emails, messages, web browsing, reading, but no watching of videos and social media.

Standby battery drain overnight is higher than expected at 1% per hour with always-on display set to update the clock every one minute. Airplane mode definitely has to be enabled overnight to prevent the massive battery drain.

Charging speed is slow. I measured 40% charge per hour. So that's almost two and half hours for a full charge.

Downsides

There's no fingerprint or face unlock. Raise to wake takes around 2 seconds before the passcode screen appears.

The UI from Bigme and Android 11 do not provide much features. Many of the Android settings actually do not apply, such as brightness or auto-brightness which actually does not control the front light brightness.

Another downside relates to the limited number of gray levels. Kaleido 3 display can only show 16 levels of gray so contrast for certain UI elements is affected and can make it difficult to read certain UI elements, e.g. buttons, outlines, shades.

There's no mention of NFC.

Conclusion

I think this phone is great for those who want to minimise distraction from social media. You can still watch videos, surf the web, or do social media, but the experience won't be ideal and hence you probably would use the phone less.

The phone is great for podcasts (with wireless earphones) and reading.

The e-ink display looks great except for the part with 16-levels of gray.

The improvements that would make this phone even better is to have fingerprint unlock, and have more gray levels, and dual stereo speakers.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Design looks good
+ Decent build quality
+ E-ink display stands out
+ Excellent legibility under direct sunlight
+ Customisable side buttons
+ MicroSD card support
+ Decent performance for an e-ink phone
+ Call quality is okay
+ Customisable nav-ball and side button for many shortcuts
+ Day long battery life
- Noticeable front light glow at the bottom edge
- 2 seconds wait for passcode screen with lift to wake
- No face or fingerprint unlock
- 16 levels of gray from Kaleido 3 display
- Only one speaker
- No NFC
- No auto-brightness for the front light
- Does not work with external SSD
- Charging speed is slow
- Overnight standby battery drain is higher than expected when wifi is on

Availability

The Bigme HiBreak phone is available from Bigme online store.