The Hanlin V8 and it's russian twin, the lbook are now available. So far I haven't seen any comprehensive information about these devices yet. There have been some posts concerning the devices, but they're too well hiddn in their threads...
This thread is a place, where I'd like to see a collection of information, pictures, reveiws and hands-on experience with these devices.
Altough I own an Iliad, I'm still very much interested in these devices. Unfortunately I can't really justify buying another e-reading device just now... :vulcan:

So, all of you out there, give us some input!

Thanks.

Feel free to add all the "hidden" info from the threads into the MobileRead wiki also!

This thread is good, don't get me wrong. And probably even a great intermediate step. But the wiki is an ideal place to collect it all. We just have to all get familiar enough with wiki that it becomes simple and quick to add the info.

I for one wouldn't mind seeing the info in both places ;) Many people are not accustomed to Wikis - so if someone puts the information down here, someone else could copy it over to the Wiki afterwards.

I mainly made this sticky because I would like to see some more publicity for the Jinke devices.
The Sony and iRex devices have a very active user-base on these forums, the Hanlin devices are a bit under-repersented which I think is a bit sad. The Hanlin V8 was the first eink reader after the Librié after all...^^

I agree. Let's collect the information in the forum and find volunteers to transfer informational content to the Wiki in parallel or afterwards.

I mainly made this sticky because I would like to see some more publicity for the Jinke devices.
The Sony and iRex devices have a very active user-base on these forums, the Hanlin devices are a bit under-repersented which I think is a bit sad. The Hanlin V8 was the first eink reader after the Librié after all...^^
Sony was pretty under-represented too. Until yesterday, anyway. :tongue3:

I'm hoping that representation for all the devices will swell! And the excitement about iLiad and Sony Reader should help to increase awareness for all the devices. Especially worldwide outside of the US.

And I'm also in agreement that collecting the info in the forums first is good, and gives us a chance to have fun with it while it's fresh. Then it can move to the wiki when the "best" stuff becomes apparent. :)

I mainly made this sticky because I would like to see some more publicity for the Jinke devices.
The Sony and iRex devices have a very active user-base on these forums, the Hanlin devices are a bit under-repersented which I think is a bit sad. The Hanlin V8 was the first eink reader after the Librié after all...^^

I think a part of the reason is that most of MobileRead's readership seems to be European and American. The V8 hasn't been offered officially for sale anywhere outside China (and sort of Russia?). The V2 was supposed to be the Western device from Hanlin, and was their offering to compete with the Reader and the Iliad. I expect that once it's available, you'll see a similar level of excitement. I know I was going to buy it, if it came along before the Reader...

Unfortunately, I badly know English language. It complicates my dialogue at this forum.

About lBook eReader V8 you will find the information here:

http://www.lbook.com.ua/en

http://www.lbook.com.ua/en/News/Photo-archive

Our purpose to make the device with good characteristics under very low price.

We hope, that for Christmas lBook eReader V8 will be on sale at the price of 280-290 dollars. And to autumn of next year the retail price will not exceed 200-220 US dollars.

The device now well works with books in TXT - a format. In the near future will be ready HTML and XML Readers. There is a program for converting PDF and DjVu - files, and as the virtual printer for job with documents MS Office.

For an output with this device on the European market we do not have not enough partners, certification ISO9001 and CE is already received.

We think, that because of the low price this device will not be popular in the Europe.

I don't think it will be unpopular because of the low price...quite the opposite in fact...^^

Our purpose to make the device with good characteristics under very low price.

I must admit that it is a good purpose and I wish you every succes on this way. I do not think low price can make device unpopular if the device have some other advantages besides low price and looks like "lbook" have them. One thing makes me sad - it seems you move in opposite direction to your purpose - the lbook in Russia costs about 400$ instead of promised 320$ and I don't see the way it can change in the near future.

The price on the website LVD provided is 320USD. Thereis another shop that offers it for 315€, so it isn't really that bad.
the trouble is, that it's not too easy to get somethiung shipped to Germany (or anywhere in the EU) without paying a monstrous 16 (and soon 19) Percent import VAT!!!

I think this Import VAt is a real curse because it has stopped me from getting stuff from outside Europe many times. It is supposed to protect the EU market, but since it's being applied to items that aren't available inside the EU it doesn't really serve that purpose in my opinion...
It gives our governement money they don't deserve!!!
It's one of the very few things I can get REALLY mad about, so I won't continue here...

The price on the website LVD provided is 320USD. Thereis another shop that offers it for 315€, so it isn't really that bad.

Yup it is true, 315 EUR it is exactly about 400 USD so it is not so good at least for me. LVD won't sell me the book for 320$ I will have to pay 80 USD to this internet shop. I have the same feelings about it as you do have about VAT :angry: So, I agree with you, let's finish this little offtop.

Why will you have to pay 80USD to his shop???Shipping cannot be that expensive...

Why will you have to pay 80USD to his shop???Shipping cannot be that expensive...
It looks like I was not clear enaugh. LVD price is 320USD and price in this shop is 400USD hence 80 USD for this shop. LVD does not sell the lbook outside of Kiev. He is looking for a partners in another locations. This internet shop is such a partner. Shipping is not even included in this price.

I shall be glad to receive the partner in the Europe, I cannot sell now the device in Germany, Poland, France... The Software is not adapted for these languages (there is no translation of the menu, registration of a box, demands correction the module of a hyphenation and parsing of the text).

The price of the device for the partner at shipment from China, Kiev or Budapest depending on volume of purchases. For example at purchase of 500 devices now the price makes 265 dollars.

Unlike SONY II you can read the open electronic books and you will not have problems with national fonts.

Leonid,

AFAIK, Sony will display national fonts if they are embedded into PDF. Of cause I would prefer just to drop txt version "Понедельник начинается в Субботу" and don't mess PDFs and fonts :)

Unlike SONY II you can read the open electronic books and you will not have problems with national fonts.Do you mean OEB format?

Unlike SONY II you can read the open electronic books and you will not have problems with national fonts.
It is very interesting how did you acheive this? Can user install a font to the lbook? The Sony Librie had Unicode support and it had no problems with cyrillic font, so I think it is too early talk about problems with Sony Reader.

Do you mean OEB format?
I doubt LVD meant OEB format. The following quote from LVD site:

Supported formats of electronic books:
WOLF, HTML, TXT, (DOC, RTF, PDF, Excel, PPT)
after conversion in WOLF- file

The reason I asked that is that the Sony Reader will handle RTF, TXT, PDF.... so I'm trying to figure out what he means when he says the Sony Reader won't "read the open electronic books" :smile:

I may guess he means that if someone will try to read on Sony Reader for example TXT file with encoding different from US ascii in Russian Greek or whotever other language he will fail because of problems with national fonts and lbook dosn't have such problems.

Yah, that would make sense, we don't really know yet just what unicode it will and won't handle, but it's looking like it may not handle the characters that are particularly different from english. :(

http://files.ebook.googlepages.com/jinkevssonyreader

lBook eReader vs Sony 500

Some words about the project lBook eReader V8:

1. An example of a usual TXT-file. Pay attention to formatting of the lines, a new proportional font, an automatic hyphenation (a correctness of hyphenation of English words I do not guarantee).

2. Two variants of the menu.

3. The algorithm of scanning the screen for reduction of artefacts is changed.

The Hanlin V8 is a lovely little machine. I bought it in august 2006 directly from Jinke in China. It is the Russian English model. You can have also Chinese English. From TaKir I know that it is different from the Lbook because of the software they make for it in Russia. After a while it was clear for me how to bring, the free e-books to this reader. Its easy after a time of troubleshooting. All over the internet you can find free e-books to read. And in my experience all types of fonts the V8 will accept. The only thing I don't like is de grey screen. There must always be light from another source.
To put things in perspective I will upload some pictures with different Fonts. Made in wordpad. The 0349.jpg picture is the Arial narrow font.

edit. typos.

Is that "The Hunger Artist," sjaaks V8?

Edit: Nevermind, I see the title now. :smile:

On another thread I have posted pictures of the Hanlin V8. Not all of them are noteworthy. But some you will see here again.

edit. Picture added. Franz Kafka, Rosetta.
Letter to my Father, in Russian, Greek and German.

edit. Pic. less kB.

Reading with or without a border. I don't know.
Scale the hardware down, yes.

edit. Pic. less kB.

Scale down the hardware.

I wanted to make the Hanlin V8 look small in my hand. The opposite happened.
(Working the first time with GIMP.)

edit. Pic.size less kB.

Scale down the hardware.

Travel-edition.

edit. Picture added.

wow :D
reminds me on "Escape from Jupiter", they had a PDA with this feature :D

Scale down the hardware.

Travel-edition.

I would buy that in a heartbeat.

If it had a SD card slot, integrated cover, decent battery life, and was the same footprint as a small paperback book, I'd buy it, and probably pay whatever it cost.

The current ebook devices are just a little too large for me. The Palm TX is still smaller and more portable, and allows me to read in the dark and browse the web at the same time. It doesn't have nearly the battery life of something that uses eink, but I'm not willing to give up the size and expandability for it.

-Brian

If it had a SD card slot, integrated cover, decent battery life, and was the same footprint as a small paperback book....That pretty much describes the Sony Reader ....

That pretty much describes the Sony Reader ....
Except for battery life... the Sony Reader battery is not decent but heart-stirring.

That pretty much describes the Sony Reader ....

And except for the size. It's not anywhere near the same size as a small paperback book. Maybe a trade-paperback...

Scale down the hardware. Travel-edition Hanlin V8 umpc.

And except for the size. It's not anywhere near the same size as a small paperback book. Maybe a trade-paperback...I just laid a mass-market sized PPB on top of my Reader: the heights are the same, and the Reader's not quite 3/4" wider.

That's pretty near the same size in my ... erm, book. :grin:

Oh, the Reader is thinner, too. :beam:

The next big thing is a smaller device. More portable.

If you can read the text on the picture's than why not scale the hardware down? Reduce the size to a minimum, reduce weight. Text on the picture is +/- 60x90 mm.

The future will tell.

edit. Picture added. Hanlin V8 half the size, half the price. Much more portable.

Lbook v8 is Hanlin v8? Am I right?

Yup. :yes:

lBook V8 differs from Hanlin V8 the "European" software. :-)