Astak promised an E Ink machine with a five-inch screen, some months ago.
It never materialized. But Astak says it will be distributing a six-inch Americanized Hanlin V3, shown here—followed by a Flexi-Screened 9.7 incher next year.
The model name for the six-incher, to be released late this month, will be EZ Reader. It will read a number of formats including nonDRMed ePub.
Chinese company’s pioneeering five-inch E Ink reader
Separately, meanwhile, a different company, Hanvon in Beijing, will sell the Hanvon 510, which does in fact come with an E Ink Vizplex display of five inches.
That’s smaller than the usual six-inch screen but will of course mean a lower price than otherwise, $295.
Pen input on the Shenzhou-7
The 510 was “used in space during the historic Shenzhou-7 space mission” (link added). Other details, from a news release:
This pioneering effort combines the best of electromagnetic pen input and electronic paper display into an ultra portable electronic book aimed as mass markets…
Hanvon’s electronic book development team reports that the N510 consumes very little power, has a paper like appearance, offers 180 degrees viewing and is only 11mm thick. The Hanvon N510 Supports TXT, HTML, PNG, JPG, PDF, XEB, CEB, MP3, MTXT formats on its 167 PPI, SVGA (800 x 600 pixels) electronic paper display. The eBook also features a 1GB SD card and a mini USB port.
Notice the pen input and all that? If you want pen capabilities, this might be a cheaper alternative to the Sony’s $399 PRS-700, which, however, comes with a six-inch screen and ePub capability.
Hanvon is apparently associated with Hanwang Technology.
The Big Picture
Now let’s look beyond the Hanvon e-book reader and consider The Big Picture—in this case, the Chinese spacecraft connection and the symbolism here.
Remember the American space program and the excitement over the astronauts’ consumption of Tang orange drink, in powdered form? How far the United States has slipped. While the original E Ink tech came from the U.S. and E Ink itself is an American company, much of the real innovation in e-paper and e-books seems to be happening in Asia, Holland, the U.K. and France. And guess where Kindles, Hanlins and many other e-book readers are manufactured? China, of course.
Pathetic but typical
From my American perspective—yes, we’re an international blog welcoming all viewpoints—this is pathetic but typical.
Ideally an Obama Administration can reinvigorate U.S. interest in technology and its progenitors: education and basic research. For now, congratulations to the Chinese on yet another interesting product.
Related: Wikipedia on Hanlin.
