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last week, Chinese tech firm BigMe Apple teased an interesting new addition to its lineup of e-readers and digital notebooks: the “world’s first” dual-screen smartphone, with both e-ink and LCD displays on opposite sides of the device. I thought I had a pretty good idea of how it might work — but now, BigMe has revealed what “Hebrew Dual” will actually look like, and it’s definitely not what I was expecting. This actually made me laugh out loud.
The e-ink side of the phone looks exactly as I expected, with a 6.13-inch, 300 ppi black-and-white/150 ppi color e-ink display not unlike the Boox Palma 2 Pro or BigMe’s own HiBrake Pro Color. It supports stylus input, which I didn’t expect, but instead of the full-screen rear LCD screen I Was Hopefully, there’s a small, circular touchscreen on the back of the device that looks like nothing more than a submarine’s porthole.
Credit: BigMe
You’re probably wondering why this thing exists, or why anyone would buy it. I don’t know either.
Product page on BigMe website The 360×360 circular LCD is described as a “secondary screen” whose purpose is to check notifications, music, or the time – three things you can do directly from the lock screen on any Android-enabled touchscreen device, but e-ink displays are either on or off, so the added utility makes a certain kind of sense. But people who choose e-ink smartphones are generally looking for fewer distractions, so I can’t imagine many of them want a phone that will still ping them with alerts, only on a small, awkward screen that’s too small to read easily. Anyone nostalgic for the days of the unreadable display on the front of the Motorola Razr?
Credit: Velimir Zeland/Shutterstock
Even Bigme is a little confused as to why he designed this thing. In a promotional video, you can see a model awkwardly interacting with a circular LCD, taking selfies and watching vertical videos with large black bars on either side. Adding to the usefulness, the video also explains that you can use this second screen to capture a photo of your pet. Layer a chatbot on top of it and you can create your own “AI pet”. Sure, January.
In response to the incredulous comments on r/BigMeReddit (general feedback: “It couldn’t be more disappointing”) The company attempted a justification: “This product combines an e-ink main screen with an LCD subscreen for (pro)functions such as viewing images, watching videos, (and) receiving call reminders… This design puts you in an eye-friendly experience when using the LCD tasks that e-ink alone handles less effectively.” Acknowledging that the reality doesn’t exactly match people’s expectations, the company said it has “heard your requests for full-screen dual E-Ink and LCD phones (both with larger displays)” and that it will “incorporate this into our future product planning.”
I’m not really sure why BigMe needed help coming to this conclusion, but here we are.
What do you think so far?
If you really want to buy a Hybrake Dual, you have plenty of options
Let it not be said that BigMe is taking this half-measure: the company is Launching Hybrake Dual in eight different configurations. You can preorder it with a black-and-white or color e-ink screen, choose between 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage, and buy it with or without the stylus and case. Prices range from $519 on the low end to all the way up to $689. (For comparison, the BigMe HiBrake Pro Color—without the porthole LCD or stylus support—is on sale for $489 at Amazon.
Once you get past the quirky design choices, the Hibook Dual has fairly standard features for an e-ink phone: 5G dual-SIM, the older Android 14 OS, the aforementioned storage and RAM options, a typical “octacore” 2.6GHz processor, a 4,500mAh battery, a 5MP selfie camera, and a 20MP rear camera. However, I don’t know why I bothered telling you this. You’re probably not going to buy it.
(I’m still laughing. Why is it a circle?)
