In the United States there is fierce competition between e-readers, especially between the two biggest names in the business: Amazon and Barnes & Noble. While both the Kindle and the Nook have incredible features and are fantastic e-reading devices, a new contender recently emerged overseas and was just announced at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 10th.
Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs had the pleasure of announcing the thinnest and lightest e-reader at the CES 2012 the other day. It’s called the Hanvon C18 and Hanvon utilized Qualcomm’s new energy efficient mirasol display for their new e-reader.
Mirasol is a technology Qualcomm has been working on for several years and it is a solution to the energy consuming LCD displays that other devices utilize. Mirsol is a type of display screen that utilizes soft indirect light which is then tuned and reflected back at the viewer. Overall the Mirasol display uses 1/10th of the power to create a vivid image than an LCD screen does.
The Hanvon C18 is not the only company to use the new mirasol display; in fact it’s the third company within two months to utilize it in an e-reading device which means we can definitely expect to see Qualcomm’s new display more widespread in the future.
So, back to the Hanvon C18 e-reader, what makes it different from other e-reading devices like the Kindle or Nook? Well, for starters it is incredibly light – it weighs only 300 grams which is just over half a pound! Next, this device is only 10mm thin making it simple to fit into any purse, book case, or incredibly large back pocket!
The display is a 5.7 inch XGA touchscreen that utilizes the mirasol technology as mentioned above. Hanvon C18 runs on a 1.0 GHz Snapdragon processor and it runs on a custom Google Android core Operating System. Thanks to the mirasol display you can also safely assume that the battery will last you weeks and it will also be able to support video as well as other media formats.
A big draw to the Kindle and Nook is the book selection however Hanvon has this covered. The Hanvon C18 will have access to thousands upon thousands of e-books, over a hundred different newspapers, and more than three hundred magazines. Additionally users can utilize the handwriting recognition feature termed Hanvon Input that is unique to this device.
If you are looking to get your paws on this nifty e-reader then you will not have to wait too long. It will be out on shelves around mid February of 2012 however neither Hanvon or Qualcomm have disclosed how much it will cost. Unfortunately for anyone outside of China they will likely not see this device as it is specifically designed for the Asian market, but they could see the mirasol screen being utilized in the near future.
Sad to say the Hanvon C18 will not be available to North American residents – another e-reading device would have been great to have on the market to help lower the prices more for us consumers.
