V3 in my hand

[zdevil]

Ok, here is my initial hands-on report.

I bought the V3 online. It cost USD 324, plus USD 44 express delivery.
First I filled in the online form last Sunday. Then Jinke sent me a message detailing the purchase procedure the next day. I wired the money to Jinke last Tuesday. They confirmed the transaction on Thursday and shipped the device in the evening on the same day. Because of the weekend, I received it on Monday morning.

The customer service is excellent. I sent several emails asking about the details of delivery and they answered every single mail promptly, mostly on the same day.

My impression is that for now the recently *hacked* Sony Reader may have functionalities than HanlinV3. I am really looking forward to Jinke's Linux SDK in October.

So far I find these nice things about Hanlin V3:
1) Very handy bookmarking using the number keys: short pressing = jump to the designated bookmark or create one if not yet there; long pressing = erase the old bookmark and add a new one.
2) Pretty fast file access, e.g. only 3-4 secs for a 10MB PDF
3) Turning page takes less than a second
4) Long pressing page turning button makes a 10-page jump
5) Easy menu for first page, last page, or any specific page in a document
6) 3 viewing modes: default full page portrait view, zoomed in portrait view, the biggest landscape view. A cool thing is for A4 PDF, the landscape view will automatically leave out the margins and justify the text!
The results look very close to what is shown in the pics of Sony Reader above.
7) Built-in 512MB memory plus support of up to 4GB of SD
8) As a run-of-the-mill USB mass storage device when connected to a PC (and my Zaurus too ) just like a huge USB stick; no driver is needed.
9) Very good rendering of both simplified and traditional Chinese characters (even Hong Kong Cantonese characters!), and nice multi language support
10) Good support of embedded fonts in PDFs.
11) Good display of images (even in PDF, DOC and HTML)
12) No file conversion is necessary (unlike the unhacked Sony Reader)

What is left to be desired:
1) More zooming levels!
2) Time display (as in the Sony Reader hack)
3) File manager (to copy/delete/move files)

Will post some pics later.

[NatCh]

Wow, that's an impressive feature set! Looking forward to the pix when you get time to do them. Thanks for the overview!

[astra]

Originally Posted by zdevil

10) Good support of embedded fonts in PDFs.

12) No file conversion is necessary (unlike the unhacked Sony Reader)

Those two points are not very clear to me.

10 - Sony reader also supports it but then turning a page takes 3-4 seconds instead of less than a sec. So, what does it mean good support?

12 - Sony supports RTF without images, which doesn't require any convertion. You need to convert any format into LRF if you want to use it.
So, what do you mean by No file conversion is necessary ? Does it support HTML, DOC, RTF and LIT natively without any restriction i.e like sony's restriction with RTF?

[zdevil]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Those two points are not very clear to me.
10 - Sony reader also supports it but then turning a page takes 3-4 seconds instead of less than a sec. So, what does it mean good support?

12 - Sony supports RTF without images, which doesn't require any convertion. You need to convert any format into LRF if you want to use it.
So, what do you mean by No file conversion is necessary ? Does it support HTML, DOC, RTF and LIT natively without any restriction i.e like sony's restriction with RTF?

I open some PDF journal papers with special fonts and symbols and characters of different languages. Everything displays fine. No difference in page turning speed.

Yes, V3 has native supports of PDF, Word DOC, TXT and HTML (with images) without the need of conversion.

[fjell_strom]

Hello Everyone!

First time poster, here. I live in Germany and I am leaning heavily towards buying a V3 asap. What is my cheapest - but still reliable - option for acquiring one of these babies? I have heard that there are French, Hungarian/Ukraine, Turkish, and Chinese routes to ordering.

Any sugguestions from the fray? Thank you in advance. I am truly excited about the prospect of ebook readers!!!!

fjell

[zdevil]

I think buying directly from Jinke online is the best solution. The process was mentioned in a few posts up.

[miguel_zaragoza]

I'm thinking about buy a v3, or wait and buy and V9.

Anybody has bought a V3 in Europe?
How much it cost in Euros, with taxes (IVA), etc?

Sorry for my English.

Best wishes from Spain.

[miyami]

Originally Posted by miguel_zaragoza

I'm thinking about buy a v3, or wait and buy and V9.

Anybody has bought a V3 in Europe?
How much it cost in Euros, with taxes (IVA), etc?

Sorry for my English.

Best wishes from Spain.

I bought V3 from their web and cost me $391. I live in Us. I think the total cost to Spain should be under $400. you will like this stuff.

[NatCh]

Your English is fine, miguel_zaragoza, and welcome to MobileRead, by the way.

[Gogolo]

One question: Lets say I have a big html file (in Dimension 3000x2000 Pixels), can I scroll with the V3 like with the scrollbars in Firefox?

Does the V3 supports frames?

Thank you for a answer

Gogolo (who absolutely now wants a V9 and will buy a V3 to shorten the waiting time ) )

[|2eason]

Is the V3 a Vizplex or not? I've seen claims that it is, but no proof of it yet. It would make it the only Vizplex on the market, since the Bookeen isn't out yet.

It would also mean the tag for this subforum should be updated.

[fjell_strom]

It's been over a week since I tried ordering a V3 with Jinke. They simply have not yet responded to my initial mail. Getting a little restless. That being the case, I thought I might ask here on the forum - anyone have a V3 they'd be willing to sell?

If so, let me know. I'd be happy to buy it - especially if you happen to be in the EU.

fjell

[zdevil]

Originally Posted by fjell_strom

It's been over a week since I tried ordering a V3 with Jinke. They simply have not yet responded to my initial mail. Getting a little restless. That being the case, I thought I might ask here on the forum - anyone have a V3 they'd be willing to sell?

If so, let me know. I'd be happy to buy it - especially if you happen to be in the EU.

fjell

Did you order it through Jinke's website? I filled out their electronic order form on Friday evening and received their payment instrucrtions on Monday morning. Wire payment took two days, and express delivery took another three days.

[fjell_strom]

Yeah, I ordered with the electronic order form which simply takes your details. I did so, like yourself, a week ago Friday. But unlike you I heard nothing then on Monday. It's possible that an email was sent but was mistakenly treated as junk mail by Outlook. Anyway, I sent off another "order form" yesterday. We'll see if I receive anything this time on Monday. Thanks for chiming in, zdevil.

One last thing - I'm really still torn between the v3 and the Sony: zdevil, if you had to buy again, which would you go for?

fjell

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fjell_strom

Yeah, I ordered with the electronic order form which simply takes your details. I did so, like yourself, a week ago Friday. But unlike you I heard nothing then on Monday. It's possible that an email was sent but was mistakenly treated as junk mail by Outlook. Anyway, I sent off another "order form" yesterday. We'll see if I receive anything this time on Monday. Thanks for chiming in, zdevil.

One last thing - I'm really still torn between the v3 and the Sony: zdevil, if you had to buy again, which would you go for?

fjell

Check the junk mail folder on your ISP's web based email. If it's filtering it, then you need to tell the system that it's not junk. And at least you will know why you did not receive the message.