[church mouse]

I am UK based, but got the chance to buy a new Tolino Vision 3HD (from Germany) for £120 (so a bit more than the Kobo Glo HD) on 30 day approval. My initial impressions are below, in case anyone else is considering looking for an e-reader outside the usual Kindle/Kobo default.

My book collection is managed via Calibre and is all purchased as, or converted to DRM free epub.

The Torino arrived nicely boxed, with the unit, a good quality braided USB cable, and a very small/short "Quick User Guide" (the main manual is loaded on to the reader). The reader feels solidly built and the back and sides have a nice rubbery/non-slip texture.

To get to full charge took about 3 hours.

I selected English as user language, and then set up wifi. It immediately gave me the options to download the latest firmware (1.8) and the English dictionary.

The first start process also wishes to get you to register for the Tolino bookstore, but the options are for Austria, Germany and Switzerland only and it did not want to accept my UK address. (No great loss, though registration does apparently give 5gb upload storage for books).

The unit itself is very slightly larger (though thinner and lighter) than my Kobo Glo. It has a main power button, a light power button, a reset pinhole, a micro USB port and a "Home" touch point on the front bezel. There is no sd card option. The unit is water-proofed.

I connected it to my Mac and opened Calibre. Calibre immediately recognised the Tolino, so I moved over a proportion (281) of my epub books (I have already seen reviews describing how bad is the pdf function of the Tolino, but I have no pdfs anyway). Calibre integration with the Tolino is pretty basic compared to all the extended facilities one gets as a Kobo user (such as collections organisation).

Copying the 281 books via Calibre was simple, though, once the reader was ejected, it took 13 minutes for the unit to process and index the books (but I am used to such indexing delays with my Kobos).

If one loves to do lots of tinkering with an e-reader's settings to get one's experience just right, then the Tolino will give you very limited chances. It is possible to add favourite fonts in addition to the units basic collection (ttf or otf format). However, sizing is limited to about 7 steps and Kobo's advanced options for weighting do not exist. Line spacing is also limited to three sizes. There are 3 alignment options too.

Other user options include: page refresh settings (the default is "never" but options are 1 page, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 pages); auto-sleep mode at 5, 15, 30, 60 minutes and never; an option to set a PIN code security on start; and an option to use the Tap2Flip function (page turns by simply tapping the back of the reader).

My "in use" experiences are:

1. The unit is nicely light and feels pretty balanced in the hand.
2. The screen is wonderfully sharp (better than both my Glo and my H2O).
3. The frontlight is really even with virtually no shadowing/coning – again, better than my Glo and even my H2O).
4. When lit, the screen has (to my eyes) a whitish rather than blueish hue.
5. Navigation through a book and through the settings is quick.
6. Tap recognition has been very good so far.
7. No obvious page flashing.
8. The Tap2Flip function is rather nice to use (a quick tap on the back of the reader) but only goes forward – so one must touch the screen in order to go back.
9. For those users who like minimal screen information when reading, then the Tolino will make them happy – there is just a small area at the bottom for page number/total pages, and a little icon in the top right for bookmark. There is a nice feature that a touch of the page number area not only brings up a navigate slider but also details of the current chapter name and chapter pages remaining. (Coming from my Kobos where I used the Kepub option of "Pages in Chapter", having both page in book and page in chapter information quickly available is pleasant).
10. Font size can be changed by a two finger pinch, but getting to any other information (such as battery strength, time, wifi status) plus all the user settings requires a centre/top tap of the page. So, adjusting the light means tap to get the main options, then tap to get the light slider (oh, how I miss my Kobo slide up/down the left of the screen).
11. The Home page (easily returned to by a single tap of the touch sensitive area centre/front on the bezel) gives 2/3 space to books in your library and 1/3 space to the Tolino bookstore (whether or not registered to it). There appears to be no ability to change this layout.
12. Book organisation is by Title (sorted by either title, author or recent), Author or Collection – however Collection is done entirely manually on the reader itself (reminds me of my old Kindle, and I never used collections on it because of the time taken to maintain it). Contents of the library is shown in a grid or a list, with about 6 items per page, but there is a nice alphabet letter select filter at the bottom, and there is a search facility too.

My early impressions are that I like using this Tolino and that I will be keeping it as my main reader. I know I will miss some of the extended Kobo functionality but I am hoping it will prove less susceptible to the database corruption gremlin.