Hisense Touch Media Player Launches With E-ink Display

Chinese tech company, Hisense, is known for its TVs among other devices. The company has just unveiled a new media player that sports a metal build, an e-ink display, and a powerful audio chip. It’s called the Hisense Touch, and this news comes to us from Liliputing.

The Hisense Touch may look like a phone, but it’s all about the audio

At first glance, the Hisense Touch may look like a sleek and sexy smartphone, but it’s not a communication device at all. It supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, but it doesn’t have the equipment for cellular data.

The Hisense Touch supports playback of 32-bit HiFi audio that’s pushed through a dedicated DAC. This will drive decent headphones to deliver some killer sound. It makes use of the ES9038+ES9603 audio chip. This will give audiophiles some amazing audio to chew on.

The e-ink display shows that this is mainly for listening to music

Adorning the Hisense Touch is a slender 5.84-inch e-ink display. Having an e-ink display has its drawbacks and benefits. Right off the bat, users can forget about playing any sort of videos, or games on this display. E-ink displays aren’t made for this type of media.

It’s a monochrome panel, but there’s no word on the resolution. The display will only refresh when you interact with it. While it won’t be good for videos or games, it’ll be perfect for browsing and selecting music to play. The software will probably be formatted to efficiently use an e-ink display. Don’t expect flashy and drawn-out animations or scrolling.

The main benefit of using an e-ink display is the battery life. What drains a device’s batter the most is its display. This is only compounded by more pixels and higher refresh rates. The fact that the e-ink display uses such little juice makes the 3,000 mAh battery seem much better.

The Hisense Touch comes with modest smartphone specs, which should be good for a media player

Though it’s not a smartphone, the Hisense Touch has specs that read like one- and a dated one, at that. The exact processor was not specified, but it’s an octa-core Qualcomm SoC that’s clocked at 1.8 GHz. This is paired with an Adreno 610. This is backed up by 4 GB of RAM. It most likely won’t need much to power this device, in all honesty.

As for storage, it comes with 128 GB of storage. That should be more than enough for most users. This is especially true because only music is being stored, and not much else.

The Hisense Touch is running on Android 11. Users, unfortunately, should prepare to have a chunk of their storage eaten up by the system. We don’t know if Hisense plans on updating the device to Android 12.

The Hisense Touch retails for CNY1,599 (or about $250). For the price of a budget phone, this media player is a compelling offer. Right now, there’s no telling if this will launch outside of China.