e-ink phones -- Better for touring?
E-ink seems to be a better alternative for touring. The screen is easy to read in direct sunlight and battery life is much much better -- users routinely report autonomy of up to 10 days, vs 12hrs for most (AM)(O)LED phones. The downside is that for all practical purposes there's only one manufacturer, essentially catering to the Chinese market, and considering that an e-ink phone is somewhat like a smaller Kindle Paperwhite with phone capabilities, there is a significant performance gap compared with flagship smartphones.
I personally always tour with a smartphone (don't we all), turned on once or twice a day to fetch/answer email, review the itinerary and get odd jobs done. I'd typically be able to get roughly 4 days between charges (4 000mAh). Based on my understanding of e-ink phones and my experience with e-ink tablets, I believe that it is not unreasonable to hope for an autonomy of more than 2 weeks.
I've ordered one (Hisense A5, which comes with a custom ROM and Google Play Store installed) and will eventually report on my experience once I've figured out how to configure it properly. If others have experiences with this type of phone, I'll eagerly read what you have to say.