AAAARRRHHH!!! CyBook or Hanlin??!

[helten]

Hi,

I'm interested in buying an ebook reader solely for reading novels (will get an UMPC w. touch for technical stuff in PDF format). The problem is that I can't decide whether to get a CyBook (350€+40€ for a case) or a Hanlin V3 (300€ incl. case). Is the CyBook worth an additional 90€ (~140$) or should I go with the Hanlin?

[HarryT]

IMHO the Gen3 is well worth the extra because of its support for MobiPocket format - one of (perhaps the) most popular format for commercial eBooks. The Hanlin does not support any DRM format other than the wildly obscure "Wolf" format which nobody's ever heard of.

[basschick]

i agree with HarryT. being able to read drm'ed mobipocket ebooks allows me to buy a very wide variety of ebooks from stores like booksonboard.com and fictionwise.com - i'd definitely recommend the cybook

[helten]

Thanks for your responses! Actually I've just put down an order for a CyBook through NAEB for only 375$ (or 236€), which is even cheaper than the Hanlin Now I just hope to receive shortly...

[iterati]

Well, providing that most own one device, if you ask what they recommend then will be that device, if nothing else need to justify their choice

Exchange rate and ordering outside EU looks good too, though have to be careful about chustoms (possibly to ask you for 20-50% the price of device for clearance). And yes, we are fed up from multinational companies that sell goods for the same number of USD and euros, example $500 and 500 euros, yes but that 500 euros are 775+ USD and even if you consider VAT it's still too much of a difference.

About DRM, I don't care much, be DVDs, mp3, e-books, we simply don't want locked content. Now if there are tools that remove that DRM we can re-think it...

Anyway, there are rumours that Hanlin will support mobipocket format shortly (along with PDF, TXT, RTF, WOLF, DOC, CHM, FB2, HTML, DJVU, MP3, TIFF, JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, RAR, ZIP... more coming).

Why I chose the Hanlin.

1) Most important it is the regular software updates. There are at least 3 official different braches for firmware development (jinke, lbook and bebook at least) and many unofficial ones and in addition the OpenInkpot project ( http://www.openinkpot.org/ ).
2) It uses a common replaceable Nokia battery (BL-4C/BL-5C). A failure won't render your device unusable or looking for some obscure battery.
3) Also I think there is the device with the longet battery life.
4) I am uses to file systems, folders, file browser and so on, I have everything sorted in folders. I want a device to support full folder structure. Hanlin V3 it does and very well; Cybook not at all.
5) Of course I want an open device. If I buy FIAT I won't want to limit my gas options to Shell only; similar to e-book devices, I won't like to limit my choises to Amazon or Sony.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by helten

I'm interested in buying an ebook reader solely for reading novels (will get an UMPC w. touch for technical stuff in PDF format). The problem is that I can't decide whether to get a CyBook (350€+40€ for a case) or a Hanlin V3 (300€ incl. case). Is the CyBook worth an additional 90€ (~140$) or should I go with the Hanlin?

I'm getting to this thread a little bit late, but I agree that the CyBook is what you really want. If you were in the USA, I'd promote the Kindle. I'm taking the same approach as you -- Kindle for recreational reading and an EEE PC for the PDFs and Internet access.

Enjoy your CyBook!