Bigme HiBreak Dual 2 smartphone with E Ink and LCD screens hits Kickstarter for $599 and up

The Bigme HiBreak Dual 2 is a smartphone with a 6.13 inch E Ink display. It’s also a phone with a 5 inch LCD display on the other side. In other words, you get all the benefits of E Ink (high contrast, low power consumption, sunlight visible) without sacrificing support for full-color, high-motion graphics.

First announced in June, the BigMe HiBreak Dual is up for pre-order for $599 and up through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, and the phone is expected to ship to backers this fall.

I normally wouldn’t use the words “pre-order” and “crowdfunding” in the same sentence, but I will make an exception for a company like Bigme, which is an established company with a long track record of producing and selling eReaders, E Ink tablets, and other hardware. That said, this is a crowdfunding campaign, and sometimes those do fail… even when they’re run by an established brand.

That said, with an estimated ship date of October or November, it seems like Bigme is pretty confident that it can produce and sell this phone. And that makes sense because it’s basically a bigger, better version of the original HiBreak Dual that launched earlier this year. The two phones have the same E Ink screen and the same basic design. But the new model has a much larger LCD display, a faster processor, and other upgrades that should make it a much better phone.

The HiBreak Dual 2 has a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 processor and comes in two memory and storage configurations: 12GB + 256GB or 16GB + 512GB. It has a 4450 mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging, dual SIM support for 5G networks,  and a fingerprint sensor for biometric security.

The phone has a 50MP rear camera and 5MP front-facing camera, a USB Type-C port, stereo speakers, and dual microphones. There’s also optional support for a Bigme C8 stylus, and the Bigme HiBreak Dual 2 ships with Android 16.

Of course, the displays are the key selling points for this phone. The LCD display isn’t all that impressive, with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. But since it’s a relatively small 5 inch display, it has a pixel density of 294 pixels per inch. And since it is an LCD screen, it’s a full color screen with a fast enough refresh rate to let you watch movies, play games, or use the screen as a viewfinder for selfies snapped with the phone’s primary 50MP camera.

The E Ink display, meanwhile, is available in two versions. Customers who opt for a black and white screen will get a 824 x 1648 pixel greyscale display, while folks who opt for a color screen will get a display that offers a similar resolution when viewing content with up to 16 shades of grey, but just 412 x 824 pixels when viewing color content (with support for up to 4096 colors).

E Ink screens offer a paper-like viewing experience, partly because they can be viewed using only ambient light. But if you’re using the device in a dark or dimly lit environment, there’s also a front-light that offers 36 levels of brightness and color temperature adjustment. This doesn’t shine light at your eyes though, since it uses LEDs that shine light at the display itself. Many people find this results in an experience that’s easier on the eyes when you’re reading eBooks or other documents. But it’s not always a great fit for activities that require a high degree of motion, like web surfing, gaming, or recording or playing videos.

Bigme does claim that its E Ink screen can support refresh rates up to 80 fps, but every E Ink device I’ve seen that has technology to push refresh rates higher than a few times per second has had to compromise image quality to get there. At lower refresh rates, this screen should look as good as a Kindle display. At higher refresh rates, expect to see ghosting, tearing, and stutter. But unlike most E Ink phones or tablets, you don’t need to put up with that – you can just turn the HiBreak Dual around and use the other screen when you want faster motion.

That said, there are a few things to keep in mind before spending money on this device. One is that even if the crowdfunding campaign is a success, the phone won’t ship for several months. Another is that Bigme is a company that primarily makes eReaders and eNotes, not phones. So while this isn’t the company’s first phone, there’s not a long history of similar devices you can look up to see how well the company supports its products. And speaking of support, Bigme says that shipping the HiBreak Dual 2 with Android 16 makes it “future proof,” but the truth is that Google has already released Android 17, and there’s no word on if or when Bigme will release any operating system updates for this phone.

That said, the phone isn’t prohibitively expensive, at least during crowdfunding:

Those prices included a phone case, but you’ll need to pay $21 more for the optional C8 stylus.

In keeping with the “dual” theme, Bigme is also offering some Kickstarter special bundles that let you save money if you buy a 2-pack of HiBreak Dual 2 phones.