Transcription
This is the Big Me Hyre Pro, and I find it hard to complain about anything about it, to be honest. At this price point, about £330, you're getting a sick e-reader. And well, that sick e-reader might as well just be your phone. I think it's really good. I've been using it at home for several weeks, and I brought it here on my holiday to Fort Ventura, and I've really enjoyed having it as my minimal phone. They sent me this for review, but as usual, they've had no input whatsoever in this content, and of course, I don't get to check the video before I publish it.
Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome aboard this Easter flight from London to—flight today. My name is Ben. Okay, so there are a few things that I can complain about, of course, but one is a major deal. The rest are quite small things. It could use some fine-tuning of the auto-light settings. They react really quickly. And although that's a good thing in some situations, in other situations it's a little bit distracting, and I'd like the option to maybe like make them react a little bit slower or have my preference for the lights actually being dimmer more often would be better. So maybe if you could alter the speed it would react and it's sort of default setting if you like, or how bright you ever want it to go because certainly you don't want it full brightness on the blue light when it's actually totally dark. That auto-brightness is so sensitive that sometimes it will actually flash when it's just on the cusp of whichever brightness change it's on.
Another thing is that the updater has failed a couple of times, and that seems to be a bit of a Big Me thing, but it does usually end up updating in the end. So, that's a bit of a nuisance. And the big thing is that Android Auto doesn't seem to work. At least it doesn't work for me. And there is a workaround where you can actually change the DPI settings. And I've seen it working for other reviewers, and I've seen it working. Android Auto is there and it does work, but it doesn't seem to work on my car. I can't find any DPI settings where it will actually display an app on the screen. So, that's really frustrating. Again, I would back Big Me to actually sort that out by updates at some point, if indeed we can get the phone updated at all. And those reviewers that have got Android Auto to work have seen some weird scaling issues onto the car screen. So, something to look at, Big Me.
And I know that some of the reviewers will find that although there are dual SIMs in here, there isn't the option for a TF card slot. I know that for some people that is a deal-breaker. That's not an issue for me personally. 256 GB of storage is easily enough for me, using this as a simple smartphone with only select apps on it and just a whole bunch of books on it. But I can see that if that was something that you would expect, you'd be a bit disappointed not to see it here on this phone where it is on lots of alternatives at this sort of form factor in this size.
Now, if you're really nitpicking, then I suppose you would say the depth of the screen is a little bit of an issue. You can see here, if you just look right to the corner, that actually there is a bit of a gap between the e-ink and the actual top surface of the screen. It's not a major issue in use, but there is that. Also, incidentally, I've got a glossy screen protector, a cheap screen protector on here, which actually I added myself. Mine didn't come with one on, so you might see some reflections there. And I've added that because I really want to keep this phone looking great. But I'll take that off for the rest of this review because you'll see actually there are fewer reflections from the screen when it's just the surface that it came with. And for some reason, the corners of the screen are actually slightly cut off. And you can see sometimes the user interface elements actually go slightly off the edge. I noticed it in one of Big Me's own apps, I'm not sure which, where actually one of the icons actually went just slightly underneath the corner of the screen. And that's just because they've chosen to round off the edges of these perfectly rectangular panel. You can see I've got my notes here on OneNote, and it's working really, really [Music] well. It was in the reader app. Look, this tiny little flash actually got cut off from the bottom corner of your screen. And that's not a major issue. It's a bit odd. It shouldn't happen, of course, especially in your own software, but that was something that actually reportedly happened to Mac in their Safari app, and that was actually documented on an LTT video recently. So, why on earth would you not just make every pixel of the screen visible? I don't know.
I suppose also this is not a flagship standard phone. You've got 8 GB of RAM in here, and you've not got the very latest Snapdragon. You've got a MediaTek, perfectly adequate though with eight cores, two of which are performance cores, 300 dot per inch, and you can see there, yeah, 8 GB of RAM, of which currently there's only 2 GB of them available, but I can just get rid of them all to give all that RAM back to the system. And you can see loading up OneNote from scratch. Works really well. It's not though your flagship standard 12 or 16 GB of RAM, 200-megapixel camera. It's got a 20-megapixel camera, which is adequate. I barely ever use it at all cuz I carry a camera. It's not a 1 TB storage job. It's not got the latest Snapdragon, but it's a fine smartphone with all the standard mid-range smartphone features. And the important thing about it is it works just like a smartphone whilst being a great e-reader. It does all of the things that you need from a smartphone, but it has that great e-ink screen.
Okay, so that was more than three things, but all of them I would consider minor, and they haven't stopped me enjoying this phone. My intention is really to use my larger phone just around the house as a sort of tablet and in the car as my Android Auto. And that's the thing, that's what's remarkable about this. It has worked as my everyday carry. I can leave my big phone behind. That's what I really wanted it to be. And in the world of minimal phones where there are flaws and there are compromises, this thing is quick enough, the screen is clear enough, is crisp enough, even in the extreme speed mode that I'm pretty much able just to use it like a normal smartphone. In fact, I find the extreme speed mode is pretty much good enough for all apps and all use. And in any case, when I change that speed mode, for instance, in Kindle, I've set it to a lower speed mode, better quality mode, it actually remembers your settings. So, you don't need to think about setting up the e-ink once you've actually got it organized. And for being out here reading when the sun is out, it's absolutely glorious. I mean, just look at the screen right now. So, these are all your customization settings. You can see I'm in default here for Kindle. So, you can actually optimize within each app, and it will remember this setting. So, I'm on fast mode but with auto-clean on. High quality though still. And then when I go into OneNote, it's remembered that it should be in—still on default seems to be good enough. But I can change to custom. It's even faster and still retains that clarity. And I've got that single press should I need to if I need to clear out the screen again.
And I'll also say one thing very important for this type of device is the battery life has been really, really quite good. Sure, it depends which apps you use. If you use more dynamic apps, apps that are using more of that processing power, you will find a drop in battery life. But if you're just reading on it, then the battery life has been really supreme. And I'm getting that promised kind of week rather than days on the phone. Now, if you watch my channel at all, you'll know that there are a good few e-ink devices out there. And one of the main differentiators, one of the key things for e-readers to get right is actually how they manage the e-ink screen. And I'm happy to tell you that it's done really well on the Big Me Hyre Pro. There are a few other e-ink minimal phones out there, and I can tell you that none of them come close to how this screen looks. They've just got it right. It's fast when it needs to be fast. It's clear when it needs to be clear. And it's clean when it needs to be clean. And importantly, it can do most of those things most of the time. It doesn't have to switch between modes to get those things right. And that leads to a really uninterrupted use of it as a smartphone. And the other options, I can't say that for. The Light Phone 2 has an e-ink screen. It's got an appalling screen, quite frankly. And really all I need to say about the Light Phone 2 is you can do so little with it that you might as well just carry around a $20 dumb phone because you'll pull that out of your pocket just as infrequently, but the dumb phone will be more useful to you when you do need it.
Then there's the Minimal Phone, which is trying to be just as useful as this. It's got a QWERTY keyboard though which differentiates it. It's an Android 14 phone as well with all of the Google Play Store. But the Minimal Phone is massively let down by the software. It's underdeveloped. The software is where Big Me was four years ago. More on that one in a future review as well. And then there's the Muoda, which actually if you want a phone which cannot do certain things, then that's the one to buy because the software is reasonably well optimized for the e-ink screen. Although I think they can do better. But at least they've really thought about what it does do. And the software, although it's limited, does have some really mindful and thoughtful additions on it. For example, it might just help you meditate. And the Muoda could be an option if you weren't looking to get rid of your existing smartphone. If you actually like using your iPhone most of the time, but you want an option to carry around just a phone and leave your iPhone behind at times. The problem with that though is you can't use apps like WhatsApp or Signal or Messenger on the Muoda. And that's how most of us use messaging these days, not SMS. But this one, the Big Me Hyre Pro, wow, it has actually managed to replace my smartphone.
So, how's the video on the Big Me Pro? This is the front-facing camera. And this is the rear-facing camera. What's that like? Say what, Mal? Are you gathering hazelnuts cuz you're squirrels? No. I wouldn't recommend taking video on it or really having it as a camera, but if you did, you know, one thing from a modern smartphone you do need is a camera. Just looking at the build now, I personally think the buttons are really quite good. The fingerprint reader is fast for me. I've enrolled my thumb more than once, so that means that I get accurate presses each time. I've enrolled this fingerprint, and it also does face unlock, and the buttons are really satisfying I find to press whilst you're reading with that really seamless change between pages and also change between apps. I really like the action buttons which have three functions: single press, double press, or long press to do your various different functions you've assigned them to. And yeah, I find all that really quite good. The infrared blaster on top I haven't found a use for and probably won't. So that's just a needless thing for me. And yeah, there's a speaker on the bottom and the speaker on top making the stereo pair. I've been using it nearly exclusively on my holiday as my carrying around phone, and I've left my big phone at home just to use as a sort of tablet really. I've taken it to the beach. I've taken photos on it and shared them via WhatsApp, and I've used Chat GPT on it as well. It's worked with roaming here in the Canary Islands. I made an impressive itinerary on Chat GPT, including things for all different age groups in the family and gluten-free options for my gluten-free mother-in-law. It's managed to do all of the smartphone things on a daily basis.
And well, if you're also aware on my channel, I often rank in devices. So, I'm wondering if you'd be interested in a ranking of minimal phones or e-ink smartphones. We could maybe make that a live stream sometime soon, really. But I can already tell you right now, this one is the one that would be number one on that list. And the thing that's really impressed me is it might even be my favorite e-ink device at the moment. Full stop. And most importantly, it's just been a pleasure to pull this out and sit on a lounger in the full sun and read on this glorious crisp e-ink screen. They really got it right this time on the Hybreak Pro. So, where with the last one, the Hybreak, I wasn't able to fully replace my smartphone, I feel like I'm going to be able to do it full-time on this phone. Now, of course, it's not going to be able to replace all the LCD or OLED screens in my life, but all I'm doing on this phone is installing apps intentionally that I know I'm going to want to use on the e-ink screen. And that sets it apart from the really stripped-down minimal phones that I can choose what I want on this phone, and I can then do minimalism on my own terms rather than someone else's conception of what you want from a minimal phone.
And I did wonder if it was really necessary, but some of you have suggested that a little garage whackom stylus similar to an S Pen would work really well on the Hybrid Pro. So maybe that for next generation, please Big Me. I think that would be good having it then as just a little scratch pad for you. A little place where you can write down your to-do list in your own handwriting on this pretty large screen actually. I mean OneNote just works on here. It is great. But why would anyone want this? And I get this comment quite a lot. Surely this is just a worse smartphone. Why would you want a black and white smartphone? So let's talk about that. At the start of the holiday I was really disciplined, and I hardly looked at my big foldable phone. I carried this round, and I was just reading Dante on it. Whenever there was a few minutes of downtime, I just picked up my pocket and read another canto. I absolutely loved that experience. I was sleeping well. I was relaxed. I was thinking good thoughts. I was really very happy. Now, incidentally, I don't think that you need another device to do that, but let's just say this device helped me to do that. I don't think digital minimalism is about having to have a new device to enable that; you can certainly switch off without having to have a new thing. But then midweek a couple of work emails came in, and I replied to them on my big foldable phone. And the big foldable phone is great because it's like a portable computer. It's brilliant for getting those productive tasks done. And then it was the football. So that evening it was Man United's epic throwing away a lead and then going down in extra time and then coming back to score three goals in six minutes to win in extra time. And that's incredible. But that led me down that same old habitual route of checking that phone. So I watched a lot of clips on YouTube. I watched some highlights and some reaction videos. And then I was back in that cycle, that regular round of checking various apps. And what followed then was two nights of broken sleep, waking up three or four times and actually checking my phone. Sometimes I'd write emails or I'd sort little admin things out, and I'd tell myself that at least I was being productive, even though I was awake in the middle of the night, and that's not a healthy way to be, especially not on your holiday, and the contrast between that and the start of the week was huge, and in fact I wrote this little bit in the middle of the night last night, but I woke up and I wrote it on the Big Me phone, and hopefully then—and then I was able to get back to sleep that little bit more easily.
So that's the point. It's a phone that can do all of the things that you need a modern phone to do: Messenger apps of your choice, app that signs you into your new car, the phone you can get your e-tickets on so you can scan through a barrier at the train station or a concert. But when you want somewhere to just read and write with fewer distractions, you can get back into Dante's epic scaling of Mount Purgatory, rather than just check your emails and your newsfeed again. And then there's the point I get asked this quite a bit as well. Surely you want a minimal phone to not be able to do all these things. Well, I get that, too. They say, "Doesn't that just defeat the point? Why do you want Google Play when you want to do less on this particular phone?" And I don't think this phone can yet be all things to all people at all times. But there are just so many things that we do on smartphones that are just useful, that aren't algorithmic feed. You use your smartphone to control your music, to find your way on GPS. You use it to charge your car, to pay for things. The Hyre Pro is a phone that can keep doing that whilst being a joy to read on. And your OLED phone can't be that. And what you are is less likely to get sucked into that algorithmic feed. You choose which apps to install on here and make it your minimal phone. [Music]