Bigme Hibreak: These smartphone come with a color E-Ink screen and also Android 14

schizoidman@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.ml – 55 points – Bigme Hibreak: These smartphone come with a color E-Ink screen and also Android 14
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133938

Bigme Hibreak: These smartphone come with a color E-Ink screen and also Android 14

18

Odd choice to use Android 11 on one of them and Android 14 on the other. Makes me suspicious of their ability to keep these devices up to date over time.

The fact that they have to advertise the Android version tells me this will never see a single update.

I tend to just care about security updates at this point. There isn't any new features I want, anymore. I'm either using it as a phone, sending messages, or in an apk. The OS version is of little consequence.

Do they offer a security update commitment?

I have no idea. Plus, with a brand new company, you can't even be sure they'll be around in a few years to follow through with any such promises.

Any review? In theory interested (I have reMarkable 1, 2 and PineNote) but short of trying one myself I'd like to read what people here think, not just announcements, otherwise feels like an ad.

Obviously based on the community here, I'd also like to know, beyond the eInk screen performances (which seems to be the single biggest differentiating factor) if it's possible to use Linux rather than Android, like on the devices I already have.

Which do you prefer? reMarkable 2 or PineNote? I've been thinking of getting something like those.

I use the reMarkable 2 nearly daily. It's so much thinner and can be tinkered with (you can ssh to it then do whatever you want BUT the interface itself, the read/writing software xochtil is NOT open-source, hence hacks) so I prefer it.

That said the PineNote is quite powerful comparatively, both specs (which don't "feel" like much when you are on eInk anyway, even memory) and connectivity (e.g Bluetooth simply opening up a world of accessories) so it's cool to tinker.

What usage do you have in mind? Could help to differentiate both. Also FWIW I don't think the PineNote is in stock.

I’m curious if it’s possible to connect either of these devices to hdmi?

Not HDMI but you can do screen sharing wirelessly, e.g https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable?tab=readme-ov-file#screen-sharingstreaming

Cool thanks! I don’t think those options would work. The school I work at has a very strict firewall so I doubt ssh or vnc would work on our network.

Well you can bring your laptop, plug it on HDMI then ssh to the device, I've done that in the past.

Yeah I don’t think our firewall would allow even that. Connections not on port 80 are blocked on almost all devices.

If it's your laptop then you don't have to care about the firewall, your laptop can be the access point and connect to the reMarkable.