As a lover of real books, I have long been a little sceptical about the
concept of e-readers but when one plopped into my pigeonhole recently, I
decided to put aside my prejudices and give the Hanlin e-reader a go.
The device is made by China’s Tianjin Jinke Electronics, a company which has
specialised in similar devices for the past few years.
My first impressions are that the e-reader is lightweight, slim and designed
with a minimum of clutter. The screen – not a touchscreen unfortunately - is
six inches across the diagonal. Pages appear as black text on white, just as
you would get in a real book, and are easy to read. You can even read the
text clearly in strong sunlight although the user manual says you should
avoid putting the e-reader in direct sun.
When you turn on the e-reader, you are presented with a bookshelf view, which
shows eight e-books or other files at a time. You select your chosen item by
pressing on one of the numerical keys at the bottom of the screen.
To turn pages inside an e-book, you press one of the large arrow keys to the
left of the screen. Their positioning seems somewhat counter-intuitive and
might have been better on the right.
The Hanlin e-reader has a zoom facility, accessed through the number 8 key.
Pressing it once zooms in slightly. Pressing it twice flips the book’s
orientation on the screen from vertical to horizontal and shows the text at
double size.
Keys 1 to 5 can also be used to set bookmarks throughout the book. A short
press on one of the keys is enough to set the bookmark. Any time you press
the key, it takes you back to that page.
Getting books and other content onto the e-reader is a matter of either using
the supplied USB cable or by downloading files onto an SD card. The range of
supported files is immense and includes MP3 files, several picture formats
and PowerPoint as well as PDF and text files.
The company’s website includes a number of free e-books of classic titles such
as Frankenstein, On the Origin of Species and Peter Pan to download. Other
free out-of-copyright titles are available from Project
Gutenberg. However, these text files are often difficult to read
because of the cramped text. You can also buy e-books of current titles from
sites such as Mobipocket and ebooks
U, which retain the formatting of real books and are much easier to
read.
This device is clearly aimed at the same market as the Amazon’s Kindle and the
Sony Reader. Amazon’s device has many cool additional features such as
wireless downloads over 3G networks and text-to-speech conversion but it is
currently only available to US residents. The Hanlin e-reader is a little
cheaper than Sony’s Reader but the range of features is broadly similar. My
own view is that the Sony device has the nicer design but there is little to
choose between them on usability.
The spec
Dimensions: 184 x 120 x 9.9mm. Weight: 210g. 600x800 four level greyscale
screen. Battery life: 8,000 page turns (fewer when also used to play MP3
files), 512MB internal memory (up to 1,000 books), SD card slot expandable
to 4GB, multi-language support, 3.5 mm standard audio jack. Supports wide
range of file formats (PDF, MOBI, DOC, WOLF, MP3, HTML, TXT, CHM, FB2, Djvu,
PNG, TIF, GIF, BMP, JPG, PPT, EPUB, LIT, PRC)
The hype
They say: “Puts your entire library in your pocket…”
The reality
We say: It would have to be quite a big pocket but the concept of being able
to download hundreds of books into something that weighs less than a single
paperback is a compelling one. However, if you love the feel of a paperback
in your hands, you will take some convincing.
The bottom line
£193.99 for basic package including 1GB SD card from Hanlin;
£229.95 for package with leather case and nightlight
The verdict
You could buy an awful lot of books for the £200 this costs but carrying them
around the world on your travels would be prohibitive. Reading a book on an
e-reader is not as satisfying (for me at least) as holding a paper version
in your hands but you do get used to it. With its slim profile, it’s easy to
imagine sliding the Hanlin e-reader into your briefcase as you head off for
the airport, thereby packing enough reading material for the flight to the
Far East.
The roadwarrior rating
7 out of 10
