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i have been lucky enough to get the bebook mini - for those that dont know its the jine hanlin v5 (the bebook 1 is hanlin v3). I was bit shocked to find the exclusion of a case.
I have a bebook one i purchased a year ago so my initial impression against my old bebook:
the bebook mini is small! Very comfortable in my hands. I was initially concerned the screen may be too small but the viewing area is only just under 2cm smaller in both height & width, and displaying the same rtf book on both devices, I only lost one line in the smaller bebook! The default font is slighty smaller than the bebook one (but I personally like that). The colour of the bebbok is definately darker than the bebook one - my bebook one is a much lighter shade of black.
battery on back is actually much larger but slimmer and higher capacity than the older bebook. Annoyed to find its not standard battery (you can use nokia bl5c and similar on bebook one - the bebook mini has larger slim battery with plug that plugs into a socket in the mini bebook. There is the same sd card slot (currently redundant in bebook one and bebook mini) in battery compartment as well. The back of the bebook mini also now houses a new speaker vent - the bebook one didnt have any obvious speaker holes/vent.
Not sure if a replacement battery will be easy to find, but its early days. The larger capacity of the battery on the bebook mini will definately improve battery performance.
the sd card is a bit more snug in the bebook mini, putting the sd card in and out, maybe a little to snug, but this doesnt detract from the operation of the card.
the screwdriver, lanyard and headphones is still supplied with the minibebook, nice touch as most people wont have mini screwdriver needed to open the battery compartment.
The small flap covering the usb and headphone socket on the bebook one is gone from the bebook mini. The headphone socket remains at the bottomand usb moved to the top - given that the sd card slot isnt covered either (which is the same for bebook one), its a pity these arent all located at the top.
One great feature of the mini bebook is as well as the standard buttons on the side and bottom for flipping pages, it now has a jog wheel on the side for turning pages!!! This is so comfortable to use I wish they had put it on the bebook one.
The bebook mini has the new firmware preinstalled which now moves the bebook away from mobi support - the old bebook one had mobi support until the march firmware update. The only way to read any purchased mobi books on the bebook one is to roll back to older firmware, and roll it forward to read epub drm (the old firmwares only supported mobi drm). For those of us reading drm free books of course this isnt so much of a problem (but it will be for a lot of other users)
The reset button on the bebook mini is still small, but far more accessable than the bebook one. Its small enough not to be pressed by mistake, but big enough to be easily pressed by even a standard biro pen.
bottom line initial impressions: very pleased with the new smaller size. The smaller size hasnt actually detracted that much from the viewable area so in this repsect (imho) its superior to the older bebook. I love the jog switch for turning pages - but then I am easily pleased! The bad points include no case - big let down - I cant even find case I can buy for it on the bebook site. obviously in time the case may become available to buy, but until then you cant really take it anywhere unprotected - it would be too easy to damage the screen or collect dust etc. the uncovered slots are very annoying - you can cover the sd card by permanently leaving an sd card in there. On the old bebook the other ports was covered by a flap so you were good - in the small one this is now open, with extra speaker sockets on the back and more prone to dust/damamge etc.
overall the lack of case lets this product down, especially given how easy it is to break the current family of ereader screens. Otherwise this has some definate advantages over the bebook one.
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