Hanvon HandyBOOK N516 Reviews

It’s very inexpensive and very expandable. I had to convert my ANSI text to Unicode but that’s the only issue I’ve had (I also converted my doc and rtf files to txt but I knew that before I bought it so that wasn’t an issue). I’m really happy with this reader!

I recently purchased an n516 but I was very unhappy with the battery life and decided to sell it. It would last only a few days when fully charged, and as it comes without an AC charger you have to power up a PC or laptop to charge it.

I have the N516 for over 2 weeks now, and am very happy with it. It has no features like touchscreen, wifi or bluetooth. But neither have any of the analogue books I read, so why should I want that now. I has an option to play (and record) MP3 files, but I find this an option I could have done without.
The N516 has a very simple userinterface, good contrast and decent batterylife. I’m through 3 books now, and only down one little segment in the battery-icon.
The N516 has two refresh-modes: full and partial. When full is chosen, every page-turn will flash the screen black before redrawing it. In partial-mode the black is skipped. This makes pageturning faster and friendlier to the eye. However, in full sunlight this leaves traces of previous pages, especially after a few pageturns. A simple click on the OK button refreshes the screen fully.
The N516 comes with a 2GB SDcard and a nice leather-like case, which is an absolute must for every e-reader. This case in particluar is handy as it is very easy to place and remove the reader which is attached with 4 little magnets. The device itself has the same rugged leatherlike cover, which makes it easy to hold.
There a some dislikes: From time to time the devices freezes, in which case you have to reset it. It doesn’t happen that often, but it can be annoying as it takes about 30 seconds to reboot. I would also like a visual progressbar that shows be where I am in the book. It does show on which page you are. Not a big miss, but nice to have.
The device is really small, just a little bigger than the 5″ screen and fits easily in your pocket. The downside of this is that there is little space to grip it. I always wondered why a device like the Kindle had those insane large edges. Now I now, although I prefer the compactness of the N516 of the bulkiness of the Kindle. There is still place to hold it.
I hope these last two issues will be fixed in an upgrade from Hanvon.

And last, but not least is the manual. It is completely in engrish, which makes it a nice read. It’s a good thing the userinterface is so simple (and the english is not as bad as the manual) you don’t need it at all.

All in all I really recommend the N516. Great value for money.