Playing rhythm games on AN E-INK PHONE?

Playing games on an android e-reader phone is AN EXPERIENCE. It's something I have been somewhat curious about but I never expected to see it ever happen in a consumer sold product. So let's try some Arcaea and taiko to test how cursed it is!
Phone: Hisense A9
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Ending Song | Omoi - Teo (remix by rN www.yuugenp.xyz/)
Thanks for watching!

[@rockyman2685]

Of course the first time I find out what e-ink is, it's used for a rhythm game.

[@MekaniQ]

💀

[@menantumakawak]

E-ink has been around for 25 years

[@K0nomi]

@@menantumakawak and not everyone has been exposed to its existence

[@ember_falls]

@@menantumakawak I knew that e-readers have different screens but i didnt know what they were called or how they worked

[@seven_chords]

i knew e readers had a special type of screen, just never had any idea how it works

[@bawbsmith]

Compared to my very old Kindle 3, that refresh rate was actually pretty amazing. While this tech improves very slowly, I’m excited for colour e-ink with minimal latency.

[@ends9138]

Why would someone need colour e-ink with low latency, while even a crappy LCD screen would do better

[@newbie4789]

@@ends9138 only purpose of e-ink is the reading. And ig 0 light emission is a cool thing to have. But it's super niche

[@LuisMan123]

@@newbie4789 and it is perfectly visible in sunlight

[@randomchannel9331]

@@newbie4789 it doesnt strain your eyes like an lcd

[@newbie4789]

@@randomchannel9331 yeah ik. But it's still a niche when you consider the downsides. The one time we strain our eyes is when we read and this is perfect. But most other times, we are used to the LCD panels and it's hard to reply

[@mishu1861]

You know your bad when she gets a higher score on an e ink phone than what you usually get

[@danielyuan9862]

Ayo hol up what

[@M0RAX]

Someone here seems to be talking from experience lmao

[@EllaKarhu]

...she was barely hitting anything tho. If you're playing charts you can't read, that's how you stay bad lmao. Try something easier.

[@mishu1861]

This is ajoke

[@pennyyiscool]

@@EllaKarhu its a joke chill :/

[@EzraM5]

Okay real talk, this is something that absolutely interests me, because a lot of what I do with my phone is just reading and texting and chatting anyways. To me, this sounds absolutely wonderful, especially considering what the battery life must be like at 4000mAh. But... Yeah I certainly didn't want such a thing for gaming, lmao.

[@feelshowdy]

Same! I'm definitely going to look up e-ink phones I can purchase in my country after this.

[@APLGaming7888]

Its running android so the battery is still not gonna be great

[@mal0gen]

@@APLGaming7888 Hard disagree. If the phone costs ~350Eur, it's gonna have either a cheap MediaTek chip or a relatively old Snapdragon chip. Both won't consume much battery at all, so... altogether with the e-ink display, I doubt it will be that bad

[@Cypekeh]

same, I would buy a phone like that, but I'll probably wait until there's more like it, because the competition is too small right now and probably a lot of things are in a "beta" phase (and also I don't know the company and there aren't a lot of reviews)

[@mal0gen]

@@Cypekeh There once was a company that made the Yotaphone, a russian phone with an e-ink screen on the back and a normal screen on the front. check that out. see if there are any used ones available

[@rekkisomo]

The fact that the phone is still running at a high FPS despite the screen barely even supporting it.... why

[@SianaGearz]

Smaller companies are lucky if they understand what they're doing even a little bit. Not enough expertise to modify deeply into the system to throttle application refresh to coincide with screen refresh. Hisense is actually a large company but you understand that when they can snag a specialist, which is very difficult, they're going to send them off to do mass market, heavy competition products rather than an offbeat Android with a small target audience that will buy one regardless of small flaws, because there is basically no competition, nobody else would dare try to compete, invest into r&d, and then lose that money, in a way the division of a large company that develops this phone has to operate like a smaller company.

[@MAIcrosoft]

I have a 25" E-Ink monitor (Onyx Boox Mira Pro) for mainly coding, office (excel, word, etc.) and researching type stuff (wikipedia, reviews, reddit). It was quite a hefty investment but totally worth it because my eyes feel a lot happier than before I got this monitor. It's so chill reading from E-Ink, especially because you can see the screen with just natural light. I'm really positive about the future of e-paper and can't wait for the time we all can finally experience 60fps+ E-Ink 😁

[@NuuweiLol]

Just set windows to black and white

[@edherman7652]

@@NuuweiLol 🗿

[@MAIcrosoft]

@@NuuweiLol You're missing the point there, e-paper is not a conventional LCD screen that can only display black and white. It has the same properties as paper, looks like paper, and similar to paper you don't need any backlight to be able to see/read it (unless it's too dark ofc).

[@NuuweiLol]

@@MAIcrosoft ok

[@LongNguyen-dh3bm]

@@NuuweiLol why are you even commenting lmao

[@RyuSei544732]

kinda surprised on how can e-ink phones is actually quite powerful, but overlooked due to its display's lag

[@strayink1725]

powerful for what?

[@RyuSei544732]

@@strayink1725 the specs, heck it can even record arcaea beyond its screen fps

[@strayink1725]

@@RyuSei544732 it's clearly an android phone with cheaper panel tho, the specs isn't even better from entry level phone with mediatek G80 series (hisense hi reader use unisoc T610 and 4GB Ram) 😂

[@cunnyman]

@@strayink1725 cheaper? E-ink panels are cheap? Pretty sure it’s more expensive than basic LCD.

[@strayink1725]

@@cunnyman yeah it's cheap product for me because it's only shows monochromatic display, what makes e-ink price higher than lcd is because it's not mass produced and it makes e-ink exclusive product than lcd, just you know almost all entry phone nowadays are using lcd with ips panel with over 90% sRGB that's makes more value than that phone with shit*y e-ink, $400 just for monochromatic android phone? Meh I'll pass.

[@DavidJake]

her:"the screen is so laggy" also her : *Proceed to play professionally*

[@yunski_gtd]

What a creative use for this phone, as it wasn't intended for that at all in the first place.

[@Shirakoume]

Okay but respect to tokaku for actually knowing how e-readers/ink work like damn thats cool and now we can show off Edit: I’m sorry

[@zerodrip669]

i don't think a single person gives a shit my guy

[@decenticedtea]

she probably did research, still impressive that she showed how it worked in an understandable way

[@MarcosGarcia-kx4rb]

Respect because she googled it ? Can you respect me ? Because I also googled how it worked when I got a kindle and I got the answer in the first website that popped out.

[@Shirakoume]

@@MarcosGarcia-kx4rb Okay sorry I didn’t know, I actually forgot google existed for a while

[@hazemimam6826]

@@MarcosGarcia-kx4rb bruh

[@camerons.8322]

2:29 is my favorite moment. Look how the e-ink is very easily viewable under direct sunlight. That to me is definitely one of it's biggest benefits. The downside is when it's dark, you need a backlight built in or you won't be seeing anything.

[@SianaGearz]

Yes it has GlowLight built in. Backlights don't work with this sort of screen technology; so instead there is a front light unit. The LEDs fire into a total internal reflection (TIR) glass or film at the front of the LCD from the rims. The light then bounces around and exits into the screen via tiny dots oriented towards the screen. At the small etched dots occupying a small amount of total area, the TIR principle is defeated, allowing light to escape. A less refined version of frontlight but using fundamentally the same operating principle has been seen as far back as 2001 in Palm personal organiser handhelds with colour screen. From there it has made its way a year later to GamePark GP32, a Korean gaming handheld, and then another year later to Gameboy Advance SP. All of these devices are more or less sunlight legible but have a low colour gamut where colours kind of blend together and are more implied than actually easy to distinguish, and the contrast is compromised as well.

[@otchii106]

imagine playing a colour based game on that

[@DJruslan4ic]

Taiko moment

[@osamaelaraf2872]

among us

[@DJruslan4ic]

@@osamaelaraf2872 brain champ colour sequence minigame

[@yamigekusu]

I'm already colourblind- this sounds like a nightmare to me

[@twy_]

Re:Stage Prism Step perhaps

[@OwO-.]

4:08 IDK if this will actually work on this but there is an option to unlock a quick settings tile in the developer options that inverts all colors, that should make Spotify usable lol

[@Aidiakapi]

This is super cool to see. I love my e-ink display for my e-reader, and I hope that one day it'll become a serious contender for general purpose displays. Seems like it's already quite capable for a phone, if you don't watch videos or play games.

[@eemeli7093]

2:52 no tokaku, any android device can simply sideload the google play services if you need it. Absolutely no need for root

[@tokaku]

whoops, didn't know that. i had a phone that ran a de-googled OS that would outright reject anything google play services and whatnot

[@GelatekForever]

@@tokaku 🐒

[@stanb1455]

I would use MicroG instead of regular Play Services.

[@tokaku]

@@stanb1455 that's what I had. Not the most perfect sadly. Things like in app purchases were impossible if the app didn't offer a website payment alternative. Some apps just wouldn't work (Grab, the Singaporean equivalent of Uber) was only just a white screen for me. Buncha other minor inconveniences like lack of google maps and whatnot. The point is not to use google after all

[@jabashque]

No, that works only if the OEM deliberately included stub apks in the /system partition for Google Play Services, Play Store, and so on. They need to be granted system level permissions, which you cannot do for apps that aren't already installed in the system partition. Whether or not Hisense actually included stub apks for Google Play Services is something you'd have to find out yourself.

[@AJ_UK_LIVE]

Hi there! This is one of the most fun ideas for a video I have seen for ages! I had no idea there are e-ink phones! I am genuinely amazed at how far the tech has come. Amazing stuff.

[@k2skater870]

Im very blowned away to not only the fact that the animation is very good in an e ink phone but the fps are still mind poggers to be good in catching up with the game. I was expecting clips of poor frame but no its so good.

[@jgames01]

Super interesting. I'm a huge Android phone nerd, own a few HiSense products. Had no idea they made phones, especially e-ink phones! Also THANK YOU for for the suggestions on mobile rhythm games. Also another niche I just never thought about as a long time clo e hero player. Thank you thank you thank you!

[@teero121]

I swear your content is never boring. You always have something new and interesting to show.

[@vl1asdfasdf]

using something with a high refresh rate after using that for a long time must feel really weird

[@wylsonagustino7947]

I was a potato PC user for 4-5 years, used to play games at 10-25 fps. When I do get a new laptop with 144hz, I actually put the monitor refresh to cap at 60 because I can't see shit 🤣🤣 even the mouse seems blurry

[@poog4328]

@@wylsonagustino7947 yeah i had something similar happen to me

[@kevinwong_2016]

Vl1 your here right?

[@rogelioperezenriquez4862]

I wonder how would a classic game boy emulator look in that.

[@idklol781]

showing any of the new pack charts to that thing will actually explode the phone 💀

[@Nukunyx]

am i the only one kinda satisfied by the sound of the phone whenever she taps on it, it sounds SO WEIRDLY FRICKING NICE, it's like a dull kinda thump that sounds so nice lmao

[@bluenexus1212]

I’m honestly really excited for the future of e ink phones, I would love a e ink screen if it was quicker refresh rate but, idk if that’s even physically possible still hype af tho

[@lev1617]

True. They’ve been in my local walmart for years and have barely improved

[@CarlosHenrique-fb3hj]

The idea of ​​an e-ink screen is revolutionary as it can meet the need for a high efficiency screen with low consumption, I really want to see this future

[@ga0tza]

ive never seen an e-ink experience this good you can actually have a video playing (granted its not fast pace and fast moving) relatively smoothly

[@Discoh]

Wow, cool! I've never heard of e-ink phones before. Super fascinating that it's still a fully-featured smartphone under the hood. Rhythm games are obviously the breaking point for this kind of display, but I imagine it could be quite comfortable for slower-paced games. Thanks for putting this on my radar!

[@drifter4training]

there was the yota phone but it was pricy and not accessible to the international market due to its limited logistics and supply (I think)... its a russian brand and went bankrupt before the pandemic...

[@PillowPrincessAngelicaPham]

That looks like hell for rhythm gamers to have

[@edge21str]

Seems like the perfect phone for reading manga.

[@Brachi551]

Finally after 2 months, you started posting again wooo!!!!🎉🎉

[@remy5540]

since you can't rely on the screen's video latency, this would be the ultimate muscle memory test apart from covering the screen with paper awesome vid tokaku! this is the first time i learned what an e-ink is too

[@erdemgundogdu6332]

it's trippy to realise my 10th gen kindle does kinda have a similar refresh rate and scrolling capabilities, just not the hardware and software to do any of this

[@CozyCat4]

Nice PPT you got there!

[@RamlyJer]

Dang, your muscle memory is so good. I can't see anything on the display but you still know where the notes are

[@monki.gaming8457]

For such a unique phone, the OS is very nice!

[@AdmitthatijustdiditX]

This was fun to see! :) It appears to have a possible refresh of 83ms, or 12hz. But I'm not sure that accounts for "pixel" response and doesnt include input latency.

[@Zackrobotheart]

wow this is a great explaination of e-ink I never knew how the pigment actually works

[@tetranymous9300]

Currently in the electronics tinkering world 3 colour e-ink displays are becoming more common (b/w with 1 accent colour) however I've seen displays with up to 7 so far. Will be interesting to see if these come to commercial devices in the future

[@alexthelion335]

That refresh rate is really impressive for e-ink!

[@baldaizamusic]

I love your voice, you sound like the most approachable and cool person ever

[@sniperbloom1305]

hey really good video tokaku !!

[@BruhMomentum22]

ARCAEA SPOILER WARNING: I want to buy this now, but only because I want to see how BYD Testify with sealed Fatalis would look like lmao

[@rewardwesley6361]

Sealed fatalis only allows to repeat the distortion parts of the first try experience

[@rewardwesley6361]

And considering the after effects of playing testify, youd probably unlock the thing on byd

[@kellymountain]

me when i get spoiled for a god damn rhythm game

[@extrimanil]

@@kellymountain they literally gave a warning 💀

[@kellymountain]

@@extrimanil the joke is it's a rhythm game why would you need spoilers for tapping buttons

[@SianaGearz]

I'm actually amazed by this and i want this as my next phone.

[@fab8490]

That’s the smoothest e-ink screen I’ve ever seen

[@GeckoDraws]

The black and white would take a bit of time to get used to, but i'll be honest, its so pleasing to look at!!! :0

[@someitguy2175]

This might be worthwhile for backpacking.

[@xSuspect-7]

Im impressed, it was so interesting that just after 3min I remembered what the video was about

[@HybRidChrome]

It's so interesting to see how e-ink evolves o.o

[@zilog1]

WOW thats an impressive refresh rate for an E-ink display. fuking fantastic

[@c8ff]

nice powerpoint presentation

[@traps3428]

Finally a product where light theme is actually useful!

[@canadian_gamer2589]

damn, i havent seen this chanel in so long, i forgot it existed

[@LordMegatherium]

Casually picks an ebook on design patterns to show off the display... goddamn succubus :D

[@hiroitsuka7714]

You need the ability to see 1s in the future to play games with this phone °-°

[@itsAlphaFox]

That is a REALLY responsive e-ink screen

[@OfficialMummyCat]

the e ink is a vibe but not for everyone

[@SuperCabbage]

Glad to see the drum is still okay lol

[@squabbledOwO]

i remember seeing someone's iphone that was so broken only like half the screen worked and it was in black in white, kinda reminded me of this also i NEED that lock screen on my phone holy crap

[@ubacow7109]

The hisense is actually good for audio too it has an Audiophile DAC I believe for a low end specced device tho it has pretty good sounding speakers too.

[@netako]

That ghosting tho, it's like watching TV on an old CRT or a Plasma screen. x)

[@theyellowunoreversecard3711]

wtf why is the screen recording is so good

[@jackelhog]

And here I am working towards a e ink monitor

There's grey scale mode on normal android phone too: enable developer settings, search for grayscale and enable it :)

[@user-gh2ys6jb3u]

It just like a Stop Motion of Arcaea Gameplay with papers.

[@antares56]

i was today years old when i realized that screen recorder, instead of recording your screen records the video output.

[@VOLTRONDEFENDER4440]

And now e-ink color has come out

[@b.c.9358]

I was blown away at how fast you were and then I remembered I was playing the video at 2x speed Now you're just very fast but I can't tell how fast because of the lag

[@Povilaz]

Very interesting.

[@themexiflan]

I'm sorry I just found out about the browser version of taiko from this video and my mind is BLOWN.

[@marcywu7477]

Same, lol

[@Stefan_38]

Yeah the screen "refresh rate" sucks which is expected but we gota pay respect for the battery life

[@JodiGilar]

dunno why is this in my recommendation, but hooo boooy, does this remind me of my days playing cytus & deemo on my then-new YotaPhone 2 😂

[@Tiicup]

now I wanna see battle Royale and or racing games on this!!!

[@graywolf2694]

That's still a pretty cool phone, I kind of want one

[@TheBladeGuy522]

Imagine watching videos with that.

[@User-ghcwvouvmgs]

I would love to buy and e-ink phone sometime, it would be really cool and I really don't need color for anything so the only real downsides are refresh rate and resolution

[@stixstixy]

have you tried rhythm heaven? its one of my favorite rhythm game series and i thought you might like it too (if you havent already played it yet lol)

[@saito0332]

Cant believe you can play laggy games without having a hard time

[@ElectronicInspiration]

We went from curved black and white crts, to colour, to flat crts, to flat lcds, to curved lcds, to hdr monitors... to black and white displays again. All in about 100 years

[@vurpo7080]

The curvature has just slowly changed over time... Originally screens had positive curvature, then over time they changed to 0 curvature, and then to negative curvature!

[@chilepicapepper6730]

This is e ink technology has always Fascinated me it’s definitely not me but it it’s still crazy cool

[@Monkey_48]

Hey I have a question I wanted to start Taiko but I don’t know how to read the charting because originally I just play mania but I want to get into taiko and I just wanna know how to read the charting that way I can get good at the game if I could have an answer thank you

[@PhilipHubbe]

It would be so cool if you could take videos in black and white e reader format!

[@SomeSortOfSpark]

Watching this in 144p for the best experience. 💀

[@MANGOM1LK]

i'm a little curious how game boy emulation looks on this display - cool video!

[@akio_star]

Bro that e-ink phone runs just like how my phone runs

[@hastalktechtube5901]

LOL. Gaming on an e-ink device! You should discuss the proper use of it.

[@unexpectedmemes372]

It looks very nice

[@knight_x_slayer]

As a 12.83 ptt player, this looks so incredibly painful to watch. The video also makes my phone look bent and it's tripping me out

[@monken0banana]

Great skills

[@jadebayoba7073]

Its like playing it on a very low end phone

[@iKiwed]

The refresh rate is incredible considering it's an e-ink display

[@aricurry3981]

never heard about E ink before... this is new for me

[@Turtlee.]

this is actually so cool, i don't like reading on bigger screens so i don't use most e-readers. i like the compactness and holdability of phones so this is something i would want since i read a lot on my phone

[@DanaTheInsane]

Give it 30 years. You will.

[@drainboy]

glad i'm not the only one who got the hisense a9😅

[@tbthanh7420]

21th like XD, also use a Kobo too.

[@BryceDixonDev]

A huge benefit to e-ink displays over LCD, OLED, or other standards is that they are extremely power efficient since it only needs power when the image is updating. That's why they are so popular in e-readers; sure some people prefer the look, but the primary reason from a manufacturing standpoint is that your battery can now be 10% the original size (and cost!) while keeping the same battery lifetime!

[@JjisanX]

You missed the opportunity to play Monochrome Princess on it

[@berkcan3475]

I just want to play that game but that flying notes feature is killing meeee 😭😭

[@phs125]

The refresh button sounds amazing. Without that, it'd be a pretty terrible phone.

[@nymX_X]

and it looks fucking AWESOME

[@FoxBlocksHere]

Non-e-reader devices that use e-ink displays are so awesome! I just wish the market for them wasn't so small. Also, one thing I'd like to see is a phone that somehow combines both a regular screen type (LCD, OLED, etc.) and an e-ink display, and switches between them with a toggle, if that's even possible.

[@GeorgeProbably]

What you want is a YotaPhone! It had a standard AMOLED screen on the front, with an e-ink display on the back. Unfortunately, the company has gone out of business

[@umpoucodetudoealgumacoisa]

I've heard there's a Russian phone that does exactly that. The "YotaPhone"

[@FoxBlocksHere]

"gone out of business" That makes it a hard sell. It's no longer sold officially, won't receive updates, etc. AND you have to rely on the second-hand market (that probably only has a few in circulation since it's an obscure product). If only LG were still making phones. They liked trying new things, so this would have been right up their alley. P.S. Also, even if they didn't go out of business, they might have been banished from international trade by now due to the Ukraine war.