Close-ups of HanLin V8 e-book reader posted

[Alexander Turcic]

Roland "CommanderROR" Rohde and TaKir managed to take a few close-up shots of the HanLin V8 e-book reader, which is, as some of you may not know, the Chinese equivalent to Sony's forthcoming Sony Portable Reader. The HanLin is also based on E Ink with similar specs such as a 6-inch 800x600 display with four grey scales. It has a Li-ion 760mAh battery that's supposed to be sufficient for 10'000 page turns.

As you can see from the screenshots, presentation of HTML content is still somewhat problematic - I noticed that line feeds are not always properly translated. Roland is also pointing out ghosting effects (which was already an issue with first-gen E Ink devices such as the Sony Librie). I personally cannot detect those here, but why don't you decide for yourself. Edit: Follow the thread for more screenshots added by Roland and TaKir, which (unfortunately) clearly depict that there is a slight after-image on the screen, even in the case of the more advanced E Ink display of the iRex iLiad.

Finally, I am not a great fan of the console font, which shouldn't be a problem though if the HanLin software supports other fonts as well (confirm?).

[CommanderROR]

The screenshots you pointed to are mild examples, in some of them I can#t detect more than a hint of ghosting.

for a rather extreme example look at this:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...achmentid=1133

or this:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...achmentid=1145

in the secon creenshot, when you enlarge the file to full size, you can actually read the text in some places. the fact that the picture was taken using better "sharpness" than the ones in my thread help identify the ghosts!

[TaKir]

Here you can see some gosts at Iliad )) Look below the last line (link to page3) - white squares...
http://ilimas.com.sapo.pt/IMG_1435.JPG
and here too... (to the leftand below from "Dear Customers") - white squares too...
http://ilimas.com.sapo.pt/IMG_1428.JPG

So, it is not a problem of Jinke or Librie - I guess new Sony Reader will have this "gosts".

But it doesn't look so "strong" in reality. And doesn't disturb reading at all ))

[CommanderROR]

Thank you for pointing that out TaKir.
I can see the white squares in the first screenshot, but I couldn't fine anything in the second...I'll have to take a closer look.

[NatCh]

@TaKir

A fellow Weber reader! I carry that whole series around with me on my Pilot.

[TadW]

Here is some more info from E Ink mentioning the ghosting effect:

Display Update Modes
The controller (Hecuba, based on an Apollo ASIC, which is used for the 6" E Ink prototype kit) can use one of four waveforms to update the display:

• The initialization (INIT) waveform is used to completely erase the display when the controller has been shut down between updates (for example, if the device is powered off). This waveform flashes several times to ensure that any previously displayed image is completely removed.
• The grayscale clearing (GC) waveform is used to update the full display with the optimal image quality. This waveform takes approximately 1000 ms (1 second) to rewrite the display. When GC is used, the entire display will flash as the new image is written.
• The grayscale update (GU) waveform provides a faster update than GC, with less flashing. However, in some circumstances, use of GU may leave a slight remnant of the previous image on the display.
• The monochrome update (MU) waveform provides for a very fast, nonflashing update when only black and white pixels are being updated (e.g. no pixel is transitioning to or from gray). This waveform takes approximately 500 ms to complete.

[CommanderROR]

Reply from Jinke:

Yes, the current display shows the Ghosting. Now eInk and PVI is improving the displaying effects through technology. The current effective method is “double clear display”, but this will reduce the refreshing speed and the display will flash, the reader won’t feel good about that. After we compare the effects of “double clear display” with “one clear display ”, we still adopt “one clear display”, the strong ghosting you mentioned only happened when you first turn the page after you don’t read the book a long time. When you read the book in normal speed and turn the page, the ghosting will gradually be lightened.

[Snappy!]

If I do get Hanlin, I would not really bother about the ghosting. It's battery life and clarity (in and outdoors) is its main selling points to me. If ghosting matters more than battery life and clarity, then I'll get a pda or a device with a ~5" TFT display.

Of cos if we can get zero ghosting, long batt life and clarity, its the best. But hey, nothing's perfect ... ...

[bshort]

CommanderROR, TaKir, LVD,

Thank you for posting these screenshots!

It looks like the HTML file you tested has hard line breaks, right? Have you tried displaying a text file with only line breaks between paragraphs?

Thanks,
-Brian

[CommanderROR]

Not so far bshort...

The interesting fact is, that my PocketPC breaks the lines differently. I breaks some lines strangle yas well, but it does it in different places than the Hanlin...at least hat was my observation.
simple text is a bit of a problem...as you can see from my PDA screenshot, it creates a very...muddled text. The Hanlin .txt viewer isn't working too well yet (there are pictures around that show this) so the results wouldn't be optimal.
I belive that these problem can be solved, but it'll take a lot of work and I don't know who is working on this and how well they will be able to do this.

Also, with dotreader on the horizon (see the IDPF news release int he news section and on the fromtpage), maybe waiting for one of the LINUX devices like the V2 and the Iliad would be a very good idea, because for them it would be a lot easier to create an adaption of dotreader.

[CommanderROR]

Ok...thanks to TaKir we now have more creenshots of the V8 in action (using the new beta software, still far from final but getting better).

The Screenies show a .txt file that I ripped from a PDF. Looks quite good actually...^^