Kindle VS Hanlin eReader V3 – comparison (Updated)

The following is a detail comparison between the Hanlin eReader V3 and kindle.

FEATURES	Hanlin eReader V3	KINDLE
Photo
Display	6 Inch “electronic paper” display 600 x800 pixel resolution 4-level gray scale Uses E Ink® – technology. The result is a reading experience that’s similar to paper .	6 inch diagonal electrophoretic –electronic-paper display 600 x 800 pixel resolution. 4-level gray scale Uses E Ink® – for sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper
Size	184 mm (L) x 120.5 mm (W) x 9.9 mm (H)	134.5 mm (L) x 190 mm (W) x 18 mm (H)
Computer Requirement	From the PC you download selected content into your Hanlin reader via USB cable	Requires computer to purchase and download content when not in wireless a coverage area
Format	Adobe® PDF TXT DOC HTML MP3 WOLF CHM FB2 Djvu Images (BMP, JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF) Optional: customization to support customer specific content format.	Microsoft Word (.DOC) Structured HTML (.HTML, .HTM) JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG) GIF (.GIF) PNG (.PNG) BMP (.BMP) PDF (experimental ) Text (.txt) Amazon Kindle (.azw), Unprotected Mobipocket books (.prc, .mobi) Audible Audio books (.aa) MP3 Music files (.mp3).
Expansion	SD slot for additional storage up to 4GB	SD slot for additional storage varying capacity up to 4 GB
Connectivity	· No wireless connectivity Download content directly the PC. Use USB cable to transfer content from your computer to reader.	Use EVDO/CDMA Wireless connectivity to shop the Kindle store and download ebooks (only if you are in a wireless coverage area) Download ebooks from Online Kindle store to your computer Use USB cable to transfer content to your Kindle (If you are not in a coverage area).
Content Delivery Time	As fast as internet connection and USB cable transfer will allow.	Less than a minute when done wirelessly. In non-wireless area, its as fast as internet connection and USB cable transfer will allow.
Content	No mention of content store associated with the company. It is therefore assumed that any content that is accessible on your computer in compatible format can be downloaded to the Hanlin V3 form the computer via USB cable.	More than 90,000 books available, including more than 95 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise. Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly More than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day. Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing. Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
Weight	300 g	289 g
Capacity	Internal memory – 32MB holds up to approximately 28 books at a time Additional 2MB NOR FLASH	Internal memory – 180MB(for content) holds over 200 books, magazines, newspaper, and blogs at a time
Power Supply	AC Power adapter Li-ION 950 mAH Rechargeable battery Goes a month without recharging – with an average of about 300 pages of reading per day.	AC Power adapter Long Life Rechargeable Lithium Polymer Battery. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
Wireless Fees	none	Free wireless
Temperature	Operating Temp:0 ºC to 40 ºC Storage Temp : -25 ºC to 55 ºC (without rechargeable battery)	Operating Temp: 0 ºC to 35 ºC Storage Temp: -10 ºC to 45 ºC
Supplied Accessories	Battery Charger USB 2.0 cable Earphone Battery Hand band	Book cover Power adapter USB 2.0 cable

Summary

Display: The same

Size:
Length – Hanlin is longer
Width – Kindle is wider
Height – Hanlin is thinner

Computer Requirement
Hanlin – Assume to be needed for content download on Hanlin, since there is no mention of wireless capability.
Kindle – Needed only when not in wireless coverage area for Kindle.

Format
Kindle – CHM, WOLF, FB2, and Djvu formats not covered
Hanlin- PRC, MOBI, AZW, AA formats not covered (offers customization for unsupported formats)
All other formats are equal.

Expansion
Both offer additional storage up to 4 GB via SD expansion cards.

Connectivity
Hanlin – No wireless connectivity
Kindle – Wireless connectivity when in coverage area.

Content Delivery Time
Hanlin – depends on internet speed
Kindle – less than one minute in wireless coverage areas

Content
Hanlin – No mention of content. It is assumed that content can be download from computer from various sources as long as it satisfies the compatible formats.
Kindle – Numberous content available from the Amazon Kindle store including book, magazines, blogs, Newspaper, plus content from other sites with compatible formats.

Weight
Kindle weighs less

Capacity
Kindle holds a lot more books in internal memory, but both are equal in expansion capacity.

Power Supply
Hanlin – read for a month at a rate of 300 pages per day on a full charge
Kindle – Read for a week on full charge, no specific per day rate.

Temperature
Hanlin – capable of operating in more extreme temperatures than Kindle

Wireless Fees
Kindle offer wireless service without associated fee while Hanlin offers no wireless service thus no fee.

Supplied Accessories
Hanlin- include more accessories.

Overall
Kindle seems to offer more in lot of areas and may be the better buy.

Update I
Here’s a video that gives a little more detail about the Hanlin V3. Information about this device is pretty much hard to come by…you can’t even find anything on eBay or Amazon (at least not yet) and that’s saying a lot. If you want to buy the device, you have to order it directly from the Chinese distributor…Personally, I am very skeptical about buying form overseas companies in this manner. I have to be able to track my money to an from the distributor so that if anything goes wrong, I can get a refund.

Anyway I tried to pull out what I deem the most important points from this video and add it to the comparison I had written a while back. Hopefully you can glean enough from it to help make an informed decision about whether or not to buy. If you buy…good luck… tell me how it goes. I will wait until it becomes available on Amazon or eBay. That said, I can only give you a third party review, since I don’t own the device yet.

So how did it fare in comparison to Kindle? Let’s see

Memory Card
Hanlin V3 comes with 1 GB memory card for content storage….kindle comes with none. If you need a memory card you will have to buy it separately.

Mobipocket Support
Hanline V3 does not support Mobipocket content format so your content access is somewhat limited.. This I think further compounds the content conundrum which I mentioned in an earlier comparison…no specific mention of where to get content.

Kindle, on the other hand, support this format thereby giving you access to a tremendous amount of additional content outside of what Amazon offers.

Battery Power
Hanlin V3 displays approximately 9,000 page with full batter charge…that’s lot of pages. It’s left to be seen if it really does.

kindle must be recharged every other day when wireless is on… Turn the wireless off and you can read for a week or more before recharging. I don’t know what this means in terms of pages. My personal experience tells me that I need to recharge every 4 – 5 hours of reading which amounts to about (never counted)… pages depending on the font I am reading with and the Kind of content I am viewing…photos use more battery power…not to mention the fact that I usually have wireless on. The point is you can never be sure about these battery longevity claims…just read and keep your charger close by regardless of device.

Font Size
Hanlin V3 zooms text to make bigger, larger font is displayed in landscape mode which means you see less content while viewing larger font which account for more page turns.

Kindle offers six levels of font adjustment…no continuous variation of font adjustment here.

PDF Display
Hanlin displays PDF with some difficulty, cannot display every file especially the bigger ones.
Kindle’s PDF file display is still in the germination stage or as Amazon calls it, experimental phase. so not much difference here between the two.

MP3 Music
Both devices plays MP3 music. Hanlin V3 cannot access MP3 music while reading books which means no to background music.
Kindle, on the other hand, allows you to play MP3 music background music while reading.

As we find more information we will keep you updated…

Kindle At Checkout

This is the email I received from Amazon kindle team in regards to a Kindle I purchased for a friend. Just want to share it with those who are wondering about the details involved with giving Kindle as a gift along with the other options you have at at checkout. For more information you may also see How to give Kindle as a gift. Use this information for what its worth as you try make your decision on whether or not to buy Kindle. I have changed the name of the recipient for the sake of privacy.

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From	Amazon Kindle Support <cust.service03@amazon.com>
Date	2007/11/26 Thu PM 01:29:52 CST
To	“JohnDoe@verizon.net” <JohnDoe@verizon.net>
Subject	Welcome to Amazon Kindle

Dear John Doe,

Thank you for your purchase and welcome to Amazon Kindle.

We built Kindle with the goal of creating an exceptional and hassle-free reading experience. As such, we wanted to point out a few details before you get started on Kindle.

Your Kindle is automatically registered to the same Amazon.com account you used to make your purchase. This enables you to shop, purchase, and download books, newspapers, and magazines wirelessly from your Kindle device right out of the box. Your Kindle purchases are made using your existing default 1-Click payment method at Amazon.com. If you wish to change the payment method associated with your Kindle, you can do so by visiting Manage Your Kindle on Amazon.com. The gift recipient can register the device to their amazon.com account right from the settings page on the device.

If you purchased your Kindle as a gift for someone else, you should deregister your Kindle device from your Amazon.com account. You can deregister your Kindle from the Settings page on the device or at Manage Your Kindle on Amazon.com. The gift recipient can register the device to their amazon.com account right from the settings page on the device.

You can start building your library before your Kindle even arrives by shopping for books, newspapers, magazines and more at the kindle store on Amazon.com. Amazon’s unique wireless delivery system, Amazon Whispernet will auto-deliver your purchases directly to your Kindle. Once you receive your Kindle, you can also shop the same great selection directly from your device.

Here’s what you have to look forward to reading on your Kindle:

* More than 90,000 books including New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases for $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
* Top U.S. and International newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Le Monde, and Frankfurter Allgemeine.
* Top magazines including TIME, Forbes, and Atlantic Monthly – all wirelessly delivered to your Kindle before they hit the newsstands.
* More than 300 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including Slashdot, Techdirt, Boing Boing, FOX Sports, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post.

We hope you enjoy reading on Kindle and look forward to hearing about your experience. Send us your feedback at kindle-feedback.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Kindle Team

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So there you have it from the “horses mouth” as they say. As you can see the process is quite simple and straight forward. Which is the main reason why numerous people are presently enjoying their Kindle as we speak and is giving some good feedbacks.If you want to know what questions people are asking, check out the Kindle forum here.

The "New" Apple TV

Back in September 2006, Apple broke the news of its intention to release its new iTV (now Apple TV) to the world in the first quarter of 2007. Its arrival was formally announced in January 2007 at the Macworld Conference & Expo with shipment beginning in March of the same year. But how well did the public received this new product?

To get a feel for this, we first need to take a look at what this device was all about. Apple TV was simply a a wireless router design to stream content from the iTunes Store to your Wide screen TV at the click of a button on a special Apple remote control. The setup required a computer to display the iTunes interface for content download to the Apple TV and later viewing on the Wide Screen. The idea, however, never really caught on because it required too much work to eventually get the content up and running on the big screen.

With that, the device seemed to be on its way to slow but painful death. Steve Jobs – Apple’s CEO, however, never gave up. He felt that he was on to a concept that if properly delivered, would eventually change the way we watch movies in our homes. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get it done so that the public to flock to it. And so, it was time to re-visit the drawing board and re-think the entire concept.

At Macworld 2008, the announcement came. Apple re-introduced, among other things, the re-birth of Apple TV dubbed Apple TV Take 2 – a revamped approach to the internet-TV concept. But what was the difference between the “new” Apple TV and the “old” one?

According to Jobs, Apple had finally figured out what people wanted: “All of us have tried,” he said. “We’ve all tried to figure out how to get movies over the internet and onto a wide-screen TV and you know what? we’ve all missed. No one has succeeded yet…we’ve tried with Apple TV…designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer, that’s not what people wanted. We learned that what people wanted was about Movies, Movies, Movies, and we weren’t delivering that, so we’re back.”

Back

The big change was the elimination of the “middle-man” computer. Movies from the iTunes store were now delivered directly onto the Flat Screen TV. No more booting up and waiting for the computer to download iTunes content to your Apple TV before you could enjoy it on your Flat Screen TV. That part of the process was gone forever. Now what you had was a process so simple that even a moron could do it. Hook up your Apple TV to you Flat Screen TV, turn on both devices and the iTunes interface appears on-screen. Now all you have to do is choose, download, and enjoy.

But, will it attract the masses? Only time will tell.

But, let’s take it closer home for a minute: I come home, wanting to see a good movie, I turn on my flat screen which is hooked up to my Apple TV and immediately sees a screen which gives me access to a wide variety of movies among other content. I scroll to the movie of choice, click a button to download, and within seconds its up an playing on a huge screen in my living room.

Sounds like a winner to me. And, what are some intangibles? Convenience, theater-like screen, high definition, instantaneous movie access, plus more… What’s the cost? I can rent library titles for $2.99, new releases for $3.99, and HD for $1 extra. I rent, get thirty days to view, once I start watching, I must finish viewing within 24 hours before the movie disappears from my TV screen.

Will it replace movie theaters? I don’t think so, but it’s as close to one as you can get.

And What’s the cost of the Apple TV? It’s now $229 for the 40 GB - up to 50 hrs of video and $329 for 160 GB – up to 200 hrs of video. Is it worth my time? Well, let’s do the math. I spend $229 or $329 for the Apple TV depending on my taste, I already have my Flat Panel TV, and I watch on average 3 movies a week. That’s about $15 dollars per week in HD compared to the $19.99 I spend to buy a movie when it is first released on DVD which I might watch one or two more times. And since I don’t need to own the movies I watch, it works out perfect for me. Over time, I will come out on the plus side with a substantial amount of saving. In that case, it’s a no-brainer for me.

That said, I might as well jump-on in and see what the Apple TV can really do. Will it live up to the hype or will is continue on a path to death that it once trodded? Stay tuned.

That said, it’s time to go and check it out.

More later…