The Hanvon N10 Mini is the little brother of the Hanvon N10. This device has a 7.8-inch screen and a proprietary EMR layer, so it is only compatible with the accompanied Hanvon Pen. In fact, there is no touchscreen at all, you need to employ the stylus at all times. Some people might see this as a drawback, but I like the fact that you don’t have to worry about palm rejection or errant touchscreen interactions. The N10 also has a number of physical buttons on the right side, which can turn the pages of an ebook or PDF file, or access the home screen. Most of the buttons can be mapped to launch specific programs or apps in the settings menu, so there is some level of customization. What is most exciting is that this model has an English option, so it is relevant for a large number of people.
Hardware
The Hanvon N10 Mini features 7.8-inch E INK Carta HD e-paper display with a resolution of 1872×1404 with 300 PPI. It supports 16-levels of grayscale which can simulate 256-levels of grayscale effect thanks to the smart algorithms it features. The entire device is constructed out of aluminum and the back platting is silverish gunmetal and the front bezel is white, surrounding the e-paper. There is a cool stylus holder built-in to the N10, which ensures that you will never lose the stylus.
There are 8 physical buttons on the side that are positioned on the left. They can be mapped in the settings menu to launch specific apps or do different things, such as a forward and back button for books or a dedicated home button. There are plenty of choices and it is good that buttons are still a thing in late 2022.
Under the hood, the N10 Mini features an RK3566 processor that is coupled to either 2 GB or 4 GB of RAM along with 32 GB and 64 GB of storage respectively. The device runs Android of an unspecified version. The device weighs just 240 grams and measures 5.3 mm in thickness. Power comes from a 3500 mAh battery which Hanvon said allows for 60-day standby time. On the right edge lies a series of physical buttons for page tuning, returning to Home, and such. The buttons are customizable too as per user preference.
A nice feature of the N10 mini handwritten electronic paper device is that it supports OCR tech developed in-house by Hanvon. This enables the device to accurately recognize handwritten notes, PDFs, and images. The device can convert the notes into editable texts and allows for sharing the same as well easily. The OCT tech comes free, and users have the liberty to convert as many documents as they want to.
The integrated listening module that the device features which includes a dual mic system supports Mandarin, Cantonese, and English languages. Plus, there is support for external playback, and offers the option to choose between male and female voices. Users will also be able to select speech rate, timing, and volume as per their preferences, all of which can be great for listening to audiobooks. There is also one speaker, so you do not have to rely on Bluetooth to listen to TTS or audiobooks.
The retail packaging is impressive. It has this nice black embossed box with a bunch of small black gradients and inlays. It has a mini sleeve that has gold lettering. Inside of the box is your typical quick start guide and warranty information. It has a black USB cable and a really nice stylus. It is a Solanum violet electromagnetic pen was entirely developed in-house and supports 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity. It has a mirrored label clip with the same finish as the back. If you twist off the top there is a nib canister with 2 replacements. At the top is an eraser button. It is really thoughtfully designed.
Software
On the software side of things, it is running Google Android 10 and there is an app store, but most are in Chinese. However, you can sideload in your own apps. There is a optical character recognition (OCR) software, among other things. So in addition to allowing, you draw pictures and take handwritten notes, the tablet includes software that can convert pictures or PDF files into text files that you can edit or annotate and then save and export.
The Stylus is very unique. It is piano black and has an eraser on the top, which can be used to delete anything when editing PDF files or freehand drawing. It has a lapel clip, this can be attached to the device, since it has a built-in stylus holder. There are 4096 different levels of pressure sensitivity, so the harder or lighter you press, the thicker or thinner the lines become. The pen doesn’t need to be charged or connected via Bluetooth.
The home screen is fairly complex and has a ton of UI and navigational entries. On the top right corner is the time, battery life remaining and WIFI signal, on the top left is the time. There is a widget at the very top that has the date and the last book you have opened. Underneath that is shortcuts to your library, memos, bookcase, installed apps, file manager, and at the bottom are UI entries to the App Store, WIFI transfer, Note Pad and settings.
If you tap on the middle of the top, it will bring down a system tray, like most Android devices. This is where you can establish a WIFI connection, pair Bluetooth devices such as headphones. You can cast the screen to your computer, projector or TV. There are various speed modes to increase performance when doing complex actions, such as wanting to turn the pages of an PDF file faster, or using apps. The screen can be rotated from portrait mode to landscape too.
The Hanvon App Store doesn’t have many apps on it and most are in Chinese. You also can’t sideload in your own apps. Maybe this decision was made, because of the lack of a touchscreen.
Reading
The Hanvon N10 Mini does not have a bookstore, so you will have to sideload in your own digital content. Luckily, it has support for a wide array of formats, such as TXT, PDF, HTML, ePUB, MOBI, CHM, FB2, doc, ppt, xls, JPG, PNG, etc. This makes the new N10 Mini a very capable e-book reader device as well. Hanvon said the device comes with the latest generation analysis core which optimizes the reading experience.
The reading experience is fine, the stock Hanvon Reader fits enough text on the screen and has the usual options to augment the line spacing, margins, font size or font type. If you use the stylus, you can edit and draw on books, which is tremendously useful.
The PDF experience is lacking. Page turn speeds is a bit slow and the text is a bit blurry. You can zoom in to get better quality text, however when you turn a page, you lose all of your zooming, and have to manually do it again, which is a kick in the pants. Hopefully Hanvon pushes out an update for their rendering engine. However, you can fully edit PDF files, and even sign contracts. Writing on PDF files is very quick, the latency with the pen, is very low. This results in fast annotations, circling words or writing on the margins. Anything you edit can be saved to the device and either casted on another screen or copied over to your PC or MAC.
Writing
You are spending $399 on the N10 Mini, because you want a very lightweight and portable e-note. This is money well spent, because the note taking experience is the best thing about it. The note taking experience on this model is one of the best in the business and is primarily geared towards business professionals or students. There are plenty of backgrounds you can use as a template, everything from music to college rules.
One thing that really caught our eye about the note taking experience was how white the e-paper background is. It is almost a perfect white, and not grey like most e-paper devices.
The main note taking app has a top UI that includes pen, erase, block, insert, create additional pages, undo, redo, edit, and more. The pen has a number of types which you can select to draw with. This includes pencil, ballpoint pen, graffiti, fountain pen and marker. Each of these writing utensils also have line thickness, with five different levels. This is a good starting point, however the stylus also has pressure sensativity, so you can easily freehand draw and create art.
There is also colors that you can use in conjunction with all of the different pen types; Dark Grey, Black, Mid Grey, Light Grey, Red, Aqua, Blue, Violet, Green and a couple of others. You won’t see the colors on the N10 Mini, because it is a black and white display that is not using Kaleido or Gallery. You will see the colors once you save the note and export it to your PC and you will see the colors. I think colors are useful, since teachers can grade papers while on the go, and use red/green colors.
The N10 also has geometric shapes, which can be used to import into your notes. There are lines, slashes, arrow, arrow slash, oval, circle, triangle, rectangle and polygon. You can handwrite text and OCR will convert it to pure text.
Wrap Up
Hanvon has always tried to stray away from the trail and kind of carve their own path. No more so evident than in this release. In terms of 7.8 in devices, this is as unique as it comes. The N10 Mini features no touch screen, but instead prioritizes an unknown stylus technology that doesn’t use Wacom. It also has very fast pen writing speed, and it is very thin
Build quality Wise It’s gorgeous. With its built-in leather stylus loop and aluminum plated logo at the back. The one-sided bevel on the rear, and the nine mappable key buttons give this a one-of-a-kind appearance
The actual software itself is a mixed bag. It is in English, but only about 85%.
It does have Android 11, but only allows you to download apps from the app store
The reading experience and note taking experience is high quality, but falls short when it comes to PDFs
All things considered this cannot be labeled an attempt, rather, a success as this is an absolutely gorgeous and well-equipped e-note
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.