The Hisense Touch Lite has an E INK screen and it is a dedicated music player. It does not have the same HIFI chip and is missing many of the codecs of the more expensive Hisense Touch HIFI. The Touch Lite has less RAM and internal storge and does not have a camera. Still, if you want a solid music player that can play all of the major formats and it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, this is good value for the money
The Hisense Touch features a 5.84 capacitive touchscreen E INK Carta HD display with a resolution of solution of 1440 x 720 with 287 PPI. It has a front-lit display and color temperature system, so you can interact with the screen in lowlight conditions. The screen is completely flush with the bezel and protected by a layer of glass. The front and back are piano black.
Underneath the hood is a Qualcomm quadcore processor, 2GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. There is a USB-C port for charging the device and WIFI to access the internet and download apps. This device supports Bluetooth 5.1, so you can plugin a pair of headphones, but HIFI audio cannot be outputted through Bluetooth, because it uses different codecs. It is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery and the weight is 155g.
This has a high build quality, made of aluminum and supports 32-bit/384 kHz audio. Audio is played via the AAC dual 1216 stereo speakers or the 3.5mm headphone jack up to 122dB. The device runs an operating system called Touch OS that’s based on Google Android 11.
If you have seen any of our reviews for the Hisense line of smartphones, this uses a similar layout. So you can launch various speed modes to boost the performance of the E INK display. This is useful if you decide you want to install some some apps that have animations, such as page turns. One of the most exciting aspects about the music player is that it is running Android 11, which is the first time we have seen a modern OS on an E INK device. Hisense typically supports a myriad of languages, including English.
The retail packaging is rather plain jane. It is made of cardboard and it just says Touch with a cool looking font on the front and on the back, it lists some of the other devices that Hisense sells. Inside the box is a QuickStart guide and the device, encased in wax paper. There is no USB cable inside, maybe Hisense forgot to include it, or they figure everyone has a USB-C cable by now.
I don’t think you should buy this model, there are too many drawbacks compared to the Hisense Touch HIFI, if it was $100 cheaper, it would have tremendous value, but at $30, there is not enough here. You can buy the Hisense Touch Lite from the Good e-Reader Store for $299 or you can get the Touch HIFI for $329.99.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.