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Sony's smaller, cheaper Digital Paper tablet reaches the US
Was your heart aflutter when you heard that Sony was releasing a smaller version of its Digital Paper E Ink tablet? If you live in the US, you can satisfy your heart's desire... well, almost. Sony has started pre-orders for the 10.3-inch model (the DPT-CP1) through retailers for $600. That's far from a trivial purchase, but the $200 price advantage over the 13.3-inch variant might be just enough to sway you if you don't need the size of the larger model. You're still getting a long-lasting, lightweight tool for annotating documents and filling out your calendar, just in a notebook size that stands a better chance of fitting in your bag.
Sony shrinks its Digital Paper E Ink tablet
Sony is one of the few companies persisting in E Ink stylus devices, despite the fact that they're way less practical than a tablet and surprisingly expensive. It has just unveiled a new model, the DPT-CP1 that helps (a bit) on the latter count. It's much the same as the A4 (13.3-inch diagonal) DPT-RP1 released a year ago, but has a smaller, 10.3-inch diagonal (A5) sized screen instead.
Sony's latest E Ink tablet comes to the US in June
Did you see Sony's second-generation Digital Paper and realize you found your dream e-reader? If so, you'll get to do something about it very soon. Sony has announced that its latest 13.3-inch E Ink tablet (the DPT-RP1) will reach the US sometime in June, when it will sell for the previously announced $700. As mentioned in April, it's really about a lot of incremental improvements: you're most likely to notice the higher resolution (1,650 x 2,200), but the thinner, lighter design and NFC unlocking will also be helpful. The centerpiece remains the ability to read and annotate documents in exceptional detail -- this is aimed at pros and students who need to plow through complex documents like research papers.
Sony's new superthin E Ink tablet costs just $700
Despite being the only horse in the niche race, Sony continues to develop E Ink devices. The company has tried to sell higher-end professionals on edit-friendly displays since it released the 13.3-inch Digital Paper in 2014, which cost a whopping $1,100. The latest version, DPT-RP1, incrementally improves on its predecessors. But its $700 price tag might still be hard to stomach for a device ultimately trying to out-value regular paper.
Sony cuts the price of its 'Digital Paper' and now it's only $1,000
If the only thing keeping you from Sony's electronic paper replacement was the price, you're in luck. According to The eBook Reader, these days anyone can grab the flexible 13.3-inch E Ink display from Sony's online store (previously it was restricted to legal or banking professionals), and the price just recently fell $100. We're still not sure if dropping under the $1,000 barrier is enough to make reading PDFs and signing A4-sized documents is enough to make it worthwhile, but there are probably some folks who will find a use. Sure it doesn't do color, but the display is high res (1,200 x 1,600) and it has a three week battery life. Who needs two Xbox Ones anyway?
Sony's latest target market for its $1,100 'Digital Paper': legal researchers
Sony's still searching high and low for the kind of folks that need a replacement for regular paper and aren't too worried about the cost ($1,100). The latest potential buyers (after lawyers and HR departments) of its 13.3-inch E Ink Digital Paper? Legal researchers. Sony's teamed up with William S. Hein & Co. (which runs the LexisNexis-like HeinOnline database that gives access to documents from legal libraries) so anyone who uses the device can pull from its more than 100 million pages and see them just as they were originally laid out, without zooming or scrolling. It's still a pretty pricey upgrade from tech that's worked effectively for around 2,000 years, but legal librarians and law students can probably do without the reams of paper they've been printing out until now.
Sony's found the perfect use for its $1,100 Digital Paper: HR forms
In case you were wondering who would splurge for Sony's $1,100 Digital Paper, it looks like the company has found another suitor: movie and television studios' HR departments. Sony has already targeted lawyers with the 13.3-inch E Ink Mobius-toting device, but now it's teaming up with Ease Entertainment to make short work of the hiring process for the motion picture and TV industries. According to the press release, "Digital Paper enables crew members to quickly and easily read, fill out and submit all required paperwork, complete with legal signatures" -- all while using less of the thin white stuff, we'd surmise. Ease's part of the workflow is storing and securing the collected documents from wandering peepers. With all of those NDAs and so forth, the duo is sure to save some trees -- so long as they remember to recharge every three weeks, and the set has a WiFi connection for passing along the signed forms.
Sony's 13-inch 'Digital Paper' is just like paper, except it costs $1,100
Despite years of development, E Ink's displays haven't yet replaced traditional paper everywhere. Sony's trying to change that with this 13.3-inch Digital Paper device intended for legal, educational and business environments and after we got a brief demo last year it's finally ready to go on sale in May. The only downside? Its pricetag, currently set at a cool $1,100. To answer the question of who could possibly afford or want such an expensive piece of paper that displays PDFs and accepts handwriting input, Sony is introducing Digital Paper at the American Bar Association Tech Show (which is apparently a thing) in Chicago. The draw for Digital Paper is that it's very light at 12.6 oz and has a high resolution (1,200 x 1,600) / 16-level grayscale display with touch controls, stylus input and no backlight. That helps out easy reading in the daytime and no need to scroll or zoom around documents like on smaller tablets. Sony also claims a three week battery life with recharging via AC or USB, while documents can be loaded over WiFi and stored on its 4GB of internal memory or an SD card. It's still way out of our price range for note taking, but if Mark Zuckerberg comes knocking with a billion dollar deal in hand, it might be good to have around.
Sony's A4-sized digital paper slab gets a business-oriented price tag of 100,000 yen
We've seen it develop from a flexible, skeletal e-ink display into a stylus-friendly prototype and finally, Sony is now ready to sell its digital paper slab -- you might just have to save up a little more. A 13.3-inch touchscreen E-ink display is a pretty rare occurrence and, perhaps because of that, it's attracted a wallet-slamming price tag of 100,000 yen (that's just over $1,000). It'll go on sale in Japan on December 3rd, with a 1,200 x 1,600 resolution e-ink screen and WiFi connectivity crammed into a 6.8mm thick frame that weighs 358 grams. For the sake of comparisons, it weighs less than an iPad air, even if it costs roughly double. Sony appears to understand the cost issue here, because, at least for now, it's spinning the slate as an ideal "digital paper solution" for highly specialized businesses and (presumably well-monied) colleges. It's even thrown off some example situations where financial (or term) papers are uploaded from either a PC or the digital paper device itself, and downloaded for individual reading or scribbling on elsewhere. It also uses E Ink's Mobius display which uses protective film rather than glass, which Sony says will make it easier to write on compared to existing tablet-stylus devices, although we wouldn't go expecting any Gorilla Glass levels of defense against keys and pocket shrapnel.
Paper Four initiative developing talking paper
Interactive billboards and advertisements have been (trying) to catch our eyes for some time now, but a team of Swedes are apparently hoping that adding speech abilities might convince you to take an even closer look. The Paper Four project has reportedly developed a prototype digital paper that uses embedded sensors to detect touch, and when you graze over a certain spot, it actually talks back to you via "printed speakers." Now in the fourth generation of development, the device combines paper with "printed graphic codes and electronically conductive ink that is sensitive to pressure," and it is already being showcased as a way to invite tourists or other customers to get up close and personal with ads in order to hear auditory information. Best of all, the team has hosted up a video showing exactly how this stuff works, so do yourself a favor and hit the read link to catch a peek.[Via BBC]
