Some repetition on page 2 (the paragraph is difficult to read in my opinion): "The stylus / pen supplied as part of the DPT-S1 is passive. It doesn't need any batteries. Not recharging is necessary. The Wacom digitizer is passive in nature. According to a forum post on mobileread, it is possible to use non-Sony digitizer pens with the DPT-S1. This indicates that Wacom's EMR (Electro-Magnetic Resonance) technology is in use. The power requirements for EMR are satisfied by the display side, allowing the pen to be passive." Yes, thank you, we know the pen is passive.
But they don't compete with the iPad Anything. The only competition to e-ink displays is... other e-ink displays. Backlit displays are a whole different ballgame. For example, I have a tablet. I also have a Kindle Paperwhite. The paperwhite is great for long reading sessions for a number of reasons such as tremendous battery life (days or weeks) and zero eyestrain. The built in edge frontlight is fantastic. The latest gen Paperwhites (and their more expensive Voyage brethren) are even better. This gets more important the older I get. If you have good eyes you won't regret staring at LCD/LED backlit displays all day and night for a few more years at least. ;)
sure but that kindle is $150... compared to $500 for an ipad mini... granted there are good $200 android tablets. since they exist kindle has stagnated. cause a lot of people just have money for one and willl get the more capapeble option... so i'll get a surface 4 pro... cause thats a $900. sure it's not as perfect for reading but it's a whole lot more versatile...if i can spare another $800 before that surface 4 or my iphone 5s gets obsolete well i'll happily buy one :-)
You know, that's interesting, because a passive-aggressive entity is passive in its aggression. The pen, however, is aggressive in its passivity, which would then make it aggressive-passive.
The writing part is pretty much instantaneous - not that different from writing on paper (I assume some software is involved to refresh only that area of the screen, as whole page refreshes do take up the long time customary in E-Ink devices).
However, the writing aspects needs some getting used to. Additional calibration is necessary to adapt to each user's writing style.
Previous generations have had problem with partial updates - the "pixels" at the rectangle area showed visible artifacting, so the whole screen had to be updated for the sake of uniformity. Maybe this is finally resolved?
At any rate, I think people would rather take a video of the response time rather than someone's word, weighted by someone's standards for latency. The same applies for noise testing - dB is not all, and different frequencies are perceived at different levels at the same sound pressure. Any particular reason AT reviews don't include video and sound samples?
Sure.. the folks at Goodereader have taken a lot of effort in their coverage of the Sony DPT-S1. You can take a look at one of their videos linked below (the writing process on the Sony DPT-S1 starts around 3:30 onwards)
As for our reviews including video and sound samples - it all depends on the device being reviewed, and the amount of effort / time that we can allot to a particular review. Sites like GoodEReader dedicate themselves to covering one particular area in detail. We cover a wide variety of products and try to give details in as much depth as possible within the time constraints.
It looks adequately responsive. I suppose the trickery involved is not even using a rectangle area for the refresh, but going down to the individual pixels, potentially masking the artifacts.
You know what they say - a picture is worth a thousand words. And a video is worth a thousand pictures. Therefore, a video is worth a million words ;)
E-ink screens have several modes of screen update (IIRC YotaPhone's programmers used at least four of them) which dictate the overall refresh rate, color depth, and artifacts (in the form of high-frequency noise and ghosting, i.e. residual afterimage). Tight mode control can work wonders.
Looking at the buttons on the device, I have to ask: Is it running generic linux; or a heavily customized Android fork? I know there've been a few Android/EInk devices made by small tier companies over the last few years; so I know it's technically possible, but an entry by Sony would give much more credibility to such implementations.
I think it is a heavily customized Android fork since there are some Chinese sites offering rooting for this device and allowing installation of external Android apps. Obviously, nothing that I can confirm - so I just left it at 'Linux kernel' in the article.
Interesting device! Make it a little lighter and make it with bigger memory, it would be ideal e-book / A4 document replacement. Just have to hope that there will be somewhat cheaper alternatives in the future though. I really would like to have it, but when weighting what else can be get with 800$...
I think it is light enough. Any lighter, and I think it would get very flimsy. Hopefully, these types of large screen E-Ink devices come to market soon. Competition will definitely help drive down the price of the DPT-S1 further.
yes I have a small one and it's totally fine to read pdf with small pages or slide stacks, but if the documents are A4 you'd have to zoom in and shift around which is simply not possible with the long refresh time unless you want to kill your eyes.
My sony reader which is much older than this actually features the automatic cutting out of the white space, so I'm surprised it isn't included in this one.
Display sizes are reported in inches everywhere. I've never seen a TV, laptop, tablet, phone or a computer display size being reported or advertised in millimeters or centimeters, and I live in Europe. BUT this is only true for the diagonal size of a display. When reporting how tall/wide a screen is, for me it would still be more informative if metric numbers were used.
Oddly enough, the only 3 countries in the world still using imperial units are the US... Burma... and... Liberia. Still cherishing the good old days of colonialism I guess. Gotta use imperial, even long after the empire died and went for metric.
Myanmar (Burma) does not exactly use imperial units. It uses traditional Burmese units (consequence of being detached from the rest of the world for two generations) but is on the way to SI (metric). The legal formalities have been performed, and I expect that over the next few years as infrastructure is added and replaced, all signage will be in metric.
The UK uses a mix, and I'm sure there are plenty of other countries (particularly past colonies) that do. In the UK, some of these are very deeply embedded as well; such as miles.
In the UK, the generation born in the 60s and 70s are pretty entrenched in imperial, anyone born after that is generally pretty au-fait with both. 1 x 1.6 for km-miles, etc.
I still get confused with gallons and litres, but as the only time I see it as at the petrol pumps, I'm more concerned with how light my wallet is getting, and how lighter I should really be pushing the right-hand pedal in the car.
I do use kilos for everything, except my weight, because weighing myself is such a wholly disappointing experience that I've stopped doing it, and that's the only time I used to use stones.
Actually, let me rephrase that - those of us born in the 80s are mathematical freaks.
To really screw things up, though, different countries measure screen size differently.
Canada measures viewable sizes (from the inside of the bezel) while the US measures actual screen size (including any parts of the screen hidden underneath the bezel).
This probably isn't that big of a deal any more with LCD panels, but it was a huge deal back in the CRT days. A 27" TV imported from the US could actually have less viewable area than a 24" TV in Canada.
screen diagonals, case bay dimensions, jack plug length etc. are in inches everywhere in the world because of historical reasons and because they're standard sizes (not the screen diagonals but the other things), so the number in inches could be replaced by any other name just as well, so it doesn't really matter how long it really is for consumers who have to understand if the optical drive will fit in a case. You could call them A and B instead of 5.25'' and 3.5'' but there's no point really.
I'd grab one around $350 to read ebooks / manuals. Not sure if doable if dropping the digitizer / pen input / touch input. Not like there are any available alternatives in Eink.
As someone who suffers from eyestrain something like this is a godsend. But I want it to be able to handle email, run Word and Excel, and have built in sim slot and and cover based keyboard.
I think you are looking for an E-Ink monitor / notebook - maybe something similar to this: http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/06/30/dasungs-1... : I am not sure why these 13.3" E-Ink devices are not coming to the market fast enough.
I think everybody suffers from eye strain if stare at white on a computer screen long enough. Make sure you are using the colour invert feature of Windows magnifier when spending hours in Word, Excel etc. Makes you work white on black instead of black on white and that is a godsend. High contrast for Chrome does the same thing for webpages also.
I am a designer and use AutoCAD most the day. They realise this and work with a black background. Why Microsoft and most websites insist on as much white as possible dumbfounds me.
If you wear glasses, consider getting your next pair tinted yellow. A 10% yellow tint has done wonders for eye strain and dryness at work (staring at a computer screen for 7 hours). I'm tempted to try a 20% yellow tint on my next pair.
I've noticed less eyestrain now that I'm using Redshift to auto-tune the blue out of my screen after dark. I know that's not what it's there for (it's meant to help you sleep better by pulling the blue out of the image - which means you get all melatoniny and drowsy at night) but it seems to help quite a bit.
Redshift is the linux variant, I have Twilight on the Android phone, and I'm sure a Windows/Mac OS X variant exists, too.
Wioshing E-ink in color (i.e. Prism) would be made available in consumer portable products. I'd like to read my huge library of Franco-belgian comic albums on the go more often.
Me too, unfortunately the color e-ink available to us is lacking on saturation. Comics/magazines are just so washed out that it's just not worth the asking price. We'll get there someday.
Full-colour e-ink seems to be a long way off: their existing colour solution (Triton) just sticks colour filters in front of monochrome eInk, and looks terrible even in their marketing. They have a three-pigment solution called Spectra that doesn't look too bad, but it sacrifices grayscale to do it: each pixel can only do full black, full white, or full red. Doing full colour would likely require five pigments (CMYK and white), and it doesn't sound like that approach could do it.
The closest we might ever get is a combination of Spectra with localized pigments, such that you have a pattern of pixels that include some black/white/cyan, some black/white/magenta, and some black/white/yellow: that would let you do full colour in a vaguely similar manner to how CMYK printing does.
The problem is that, as far as I know, eInk has never made a display that is anything other than a single uniform sheet of eInk, meaning that the entire sheet is just tiny little granules (of random size, if you've ever seen a macro shot) that are smaller than individual pixels. Any pixel or segment structure on eInk screens comes purely from the active matrix grid they stick on it...
Mirasol would probably be a better alternative. Has similar properties to e-ink, only needing power to change pixel state, not to retain an image; doesn't use a backlight; etc. But in colour.
I wouldn't hold my breath on such multi-mode display, but I wonder when do we see the first device incorporating both, in 10+ inch form factor. Like, you know, what Yotaphone1/2 does in a phone...
Ouch, that price. If this was around $200-250, I'd strongly consider it since this has a stylus and I take a lot of notes at work. Currently, I use a Surface Pro 2 which works great, but this has much better battery life and works as a fine substitute for a paper notepad.
I'm guessing the expected use model is people who interact with a large number of PDFs and want to carry them around for more or less easy access --- people like physicists and biologists reading lots of technical papers, also architects, musicians, lawyers.
BUT for this sort of usage, the device lives or dies by the quality of the software for organizing and searching the PDF set, and adding/syncing documents, we didn't get a good feel for that.
I'd say the gold standard for this right now is GoodReader on an iPad. You can set up the software to simply mirror a PDF folder hierarchy on some other computer of interest (like a PC or Mac) and press one button to have documents synched between the two. (So you can eg easily arrange the documents on your PC, but then have that arrangement propagate to the device.) You can alternatively import PDFs from many other places (including, eg, email). You can search across documents, or star/favorite documents. You can annotate PDFs. You can also have multiple PDFs open at once (including multiple open views of the same PDF).
What you CAN'T do (which could possibly be useful) is have distinct workspaces comprising multiple open PDFs so, eg, you can toggle between "Work reading" and "Fun reading".
But looking at the Sony SW, from what I can see in the pictures and the review, they don't offer enough to be competitive with my usage for this sort of device (and what I'd expect most of the target users would require). They obvious offer a larger screen than an iPad Air2, and that might be useful for some target audiences (blueprints, music, maybe legal documents); but for most TECHNICAL PDFs it's not as much of a problem as you'd expect because GoodReader offers very good cropping support to strip out margin whitespace. If you need the larger screen or stylus, of course iPad Pro gives you that, at the same sort of price --- but about 1.5x the weight.
The other eInk advantage (longer battery life, reading in sunlight) strike me as mostly irrelevant. If you want to read at the beach or while on vacation away from electricity, a standard Kindle is the more obvious choice. This is (for most users) a working device, to be used inside with electricity available.
My point is to to say how wonderful iPad/iPad Pro is. (The wonderfulness is is GoodReader, iBooks is GARBAGE for the usage model I'm describing). My point is that Sony (yet AGAIN) appears to be starting from "what cool hardware can we put together?" rather than "what real-life problem can we solve?" So they have bolt-on software which looks like it was slapped together in the last month of this project, probably with no update plan (good luck if security flaws are discovered in their browser in three years). They (and most companies) still DON'T GET IT. Software is what makes these devices valuable, and if you're not interested in writing quality software (based on serious usage models, and with a serious plan for long-term software updating) don't waste our time and yours.
The mirroring / synchronization model is exactly the same as you suggest - but, it is two-way : since the PDFs can be modified on the DPT-S1, the changes get reflected in the source folder too.
Only issue is that only WebDAV folders are supported for this purpose - not any generic folder on a PC. It would be nice to have SMB support or something similar - but, it is similar in the sense that there is PC software available to export folders in the computer as WebDAV folders.
The DPT-S1 supports multiple workspaces.
Btw, iPad Pro's 713g should be compared against the DPT-S1's 364g - almost 2x, not 1.5x
Long battery life is not about access to electricity, but more about reading / writing on an office table or in a court room - where people just don't want to be tethered. The lightness factor also plays a role here.
Despite similar features - large screen, stylus support for writing etc. - I believe the iPad Pro and the Sony DPT-S1 target different market segments.
Btw, I do agree Sony makes some consumer-facing products that should never have come to the market and/or are severely locked down with bad user experience. I can tell you that this product is not like those 'typical' Sony consumer products. It comes from the professional division, and the difference in approach really shows. The device is meant for a particular usage scenario and it is able to serve those scenarios pretty well.
Btw, the browser is just for use in an emergency - definitely not for general browsing (the experience with E-Ink screens is not good for visiting websites anyway). Anyways, Sony's has not left this product in the lurch. In fact, they just released a firmware update a couple of days back with more features - this is for a product launched almost 2 years back.
I will definitely agree with you that Sony has messed up a lot of products, but this is not one of them (except for the pricing aspect).
Good Reader provides 2-way synching too. Anything else is not (IMHO) synching! WebDAV means it may have problems with Mac? The very first versions of GoodReader used WebDAV and it sucked (for Mac at least); once they switched to USB life was much better, and I've no idea if El Cap even supports WebDAV out of the box.
For weight I was keying off your "Placed in the supplied sleeve, the complete package weighs in at 496g. " Obviously the sleeve is not essential, but I expect there will not be many case options. while iPad Pro will have a reasonable selection of lightweight cases, like iPad.
Likewise I'd expect an iPad Pro for the sorts of usage models I am suggesting to have around 10hrs or more of battery life --- hardly tethering.
Well it will be interesting to see how this plays out; but as someone somewhat in what I imagine the target market for this device to be, Sony is going to have to work REALLY hard to convince me that this makes more sense than an iPad Pro. (Or, more realistically an iPad Pro 2, since my iPad Air 2 right now meets my needs.)
I am still not clear what usage scenario could be filled with the Sony device that cannot be done better by iPad Pro.
1. Battery life isn't really an issue since iPad Pro will easily last the whole day off of one charge. 2. I guess iPad Pro is heavier, but in what situation would that actually a) be an issue and b) be enough of an issue to offset the greater versatility offered by the iPad.
It's far better for my personal usage scenario than an ipad. As a musician looking at scores for over 6 hours a day, eye-strain is nonexistent with this than with any backlit screen. Battery life becomes an issue when you don't feel like carrying extra chargers while on the road, and being on the road for 2 months at a time.
I use the Sony for sheet music and tire of people parroting iPads as the best solution "for everything". iPads are too small, too heavy, too expensive and too breakable. Now, the iPad Pro is big enough, but the expense factor is even worse.
I use my Sony DPTS1 for carrying four parts x 100 pieces of sheet music to rehearsals. I used to bring my Surface Pro 3, but was paranoid about it getting knocked off the stand, so I always had to strap it on, which was a pain. I'm pretty sure the Sony can survive a fall - it is somewhat flexible, has no glass, and is so light, it won't crush itself on a fall. Page turning is a challenge on this thing, but I find if I turn through the pages when I load a new song, before we start playing, it reacts faster the next time I need to jump. Luckily trombone parts don't have lots of pages.
As for reading, I like to read on this non-glowing device - it is easy on the eyes. I'm sure the lawyers like this too, since they read for 15 hours a day.
I like to use the browser and read articles from the net. I find that the slow response makes me focus on reading one article at a time, and the temptation to switch tabs and follow links is greatly reduced. Something modern humans probably desperately need :)
It seems like there's a majority of folks that want smaller devices, but I would love to have huge 15- or 17-inch e-readers and tablets for music and technical diagrams, so long as they are light and have decent battery life.
I will definitely agree with you that Sony has messed up a lot of products, but this is not one of them (except for the pricing aspect).
Unrelated to e-ink but Sony phones are IMO the best Android phones on the market. Real shame they don't get time on AT. I went Sony a year ago and I've converted a few people from Samsung to Sony now and none have regretted it.
Weight does matter. If the device is going to be used over long periods of time, then even rather small differences in weight can make a huge difference to the level of comfort.
Battery runtime is important for a device like this. Some of the people who may find this useful are the ones who might be away from a power supply for several days at a time (or one day, but with a lot of use). Alternatively they might not have easy access to a power supply, because they are all in use. It may also be the case that they need to charge multiple devices, and don't want to have to charge yet another device.
You can also leave the display on, and not have to worry about power consumption.
Reading in sunlight is useful; even indoors.
As this is likely a secondary, or even tertiary device for most people who use it; don't underestimate the advantage of only having to charge it say, once a month, when you already have to charge other devices as well.
A few things no electronic devices have solved that paper has, are the abilities to: flick through it, quickly reorganise it, and have a double, or even greater spread.
I'm wondering why there aren't more competing products? I definitely want one and I'm assuming there's a reasonably large market out there for this sort of device. I do own a kindle DX but the DPT-S1 would be so much nicer :)
Based on what evidence do you believe that there's a large market for such a device? The very lack of very many competing devices would prove just the opposite.
Actually I think it's due to engineering problems. Large format e-ink displays are still difficult to make, and the fact is unless you're using a flexible system (such as Mobius used by Sony here) they're very much prone to breakage. Mobius is also very expensive (last I heard a 13.3 inch display would cost about $600, but I'm SURE that has come down a bit now), so the combination of price and engineering problems means that this category of products is at its infancy, rather than a lack of demand.
I had considered this but the price of over 1000$ was too much for something that can only display PDFs. Whats more, in Europe, it could only be bought from Japan, with menus in Japanese only. My ipad pro with similar size and aspect ratio, and a mat screen protector, can do much more for a similar price....
Yes. It does weigh more, but the eye strain concept is a lot of hooey. Billions of people use tablets and smartphones without getting eye strain. Billions more use laptops and desktops without having eye strain. The few that do get it are either sensitive to bright light, or simp,y have everything g adjusted improperly.
Medical experts have already said that there's no difference to the eye with reflected or transmitted light screens. People who have the problem should either raise the brightness, or lower it, depending on how they have it set. It will make a difference.
And a tablet, like the iPad Pro, or others, are just vastly more useful than something like this, particularly at the price point.
All I can say is: Give an E-Ink device a try for a week and also repeat a similar workload with a carefully adjusted tablet / backlit display for a week, and you will be sure to feel the difference.
Personally speaking, I tried reading a technical eBook on a tablet and also on the DPT-S1. I was able to read more pages in one go on the latter.
I really think it depends on what you read.... and how... First of all, I think a mat screen is a must. I really don't understand why people don't use them. All my tablets have a mat screen, including the Surface pro 3 (and the pen works perfectly). Then it's also a matter of adjusting brightness... Then there are books where colors are important and this device has no colors... As far as the weight is concerned, I think it depends. I never hold the ipad pro or surface pro 3 with just one hand vertically. Instead, the lower part is on my legs if I am sitting or, if I am standing, I hold it like a pizza. And it's not heavy at all like that. Now my main use was for sheet music. And for that weight is irrelevant. I wanted an A4 format, and Surface pro 3 was a bit smaller than ideal... Ipad pro is perfect, as close to A4 as it gets. Also for a large majority of my ebooks and scores 4:3 works better than 3:2. Now, I am not saying that weight and eye strain don't matter or that this device is not better on these 2 points, but that I believe there are workarounds that make then "less relevant". It's all a matter of trade offs. And at this price point this device means giving up a lot of what an ipad pro can do. Sure the price has come down, but this is IMO an already old device (thats probably why Sony paid for this review) that should probably be refreshed or upgraded and/or sold at a more reasonable price point....
whoa, dude! I paid $800 of my own money for this (Sony is not very liberal with review units unlike other manufacturers, btw) because I saw some value in it for my professional work as well as hobbies (solving crosswords and reading books). I thought AnandTech readers would like to hear the plus and minus points associated with the e-reader, and that is why I decided to write the review.
This type of blanket statement surprises me greatly.
Sorry Ganesh, I thought that a "featured review" was a review paid by the manufacturer. So of course, that means I misunderstood this. Please accept my apologies. Especially sorry that it happened with you. I had already said in the past on this website that you and (the now gone) Kristian Vatto were my favorite reviewers here on Anandtech (well Anand too, but he was already gone at that time). I highly appreciate that you paid this unit yourself in oder to review it. I have been researching this product since 2014 and have found very few reviews. So it was really a nice surprise to find one on AT.
Don't worry about people saying stuff like this. We greatly appreciate the initiative, the effort and the time you put into this review.
There are always commenters on every board that claim the review must be paid for because they can't fathom someone with an opinion that differs from theirs.
If you are referring to what I said I think you didn't read what I added... I was convinced that a featured review was a sort of a sponsored review (by the way what is a featured review?). And nowhere I said that this review wasn't welcome. On the contrary, if you had read what I posted today... So your assumption "claim the review must be paid for because they can't fathom someone with an opinion that differs from theirs" if referred to me, is completely wrong.
Just to be clear, "Featured Review" is the default subtitle in our system if we don't manually set a subtitle. And in that case, it just means it's the review we're deciding to feature today, hence the reason it's at the top of the site.
We don't do sponsored reviews - we accept samples of things we want to review, but not any kind of payment for reviewing them. And if for any reason that changed, it's something I'd let you guys know about.
Thanks a lot Ryan for clarifying that, and sorry for the misunderstanding... This is one of the things I really appreciate about this website, that the authors take the time to reply to readers and, what's more, do it quickly... I regularly follow and actively take part in several tech websites/blogs (in several languages) but yours is really one of the best if not the best in terms of both expertise and interaction with participants. And this has not changed after Anand left, nor after the takeover. Keep up the good work!
So an iPad is best your use cases; great. Most of use aren't like you though, so maybe this Sony will be better. As you use your iPad mainly fro sheet music, I take it you don't often continuously stare at the display for any considerable length of time.
(thats probably why Sony paid for this review)
Ganesh as already put you down; but I suggest taking your tin-foil hat off.
And by the way, Ganesh only replied to a misunderstanding of what is a "featured review", without knowing I had misunderstood it. So nobody has put down anybody and the only meaningless thing here is what you wrote. Add to that, that you don't know more than anyone else what "most of use" are...
I used to read exclusively on an eink screen Nook. I then switched to an iPad haven't switched back because there was no difference. But as the others have said I adjusted the brightness of the screen appropriately to the room brightness.
I've used Kindles for a while, and never liked them. The screens bother me. The brightness changes outdoors depending on whether a cloud passes by. Generally, they're ok, but not great. The disadvantages far outweigh the advantages, which are just two, length of battery life, and..., well, that's just one.
As someone who alternates a lot between substantial amounts of paper and iPad reading (though not eInk) I'd say that, at least for me and everyone in my family, melgross is correct. I have no experience of eye strain or any other issues when reading my iPad as opposed to paper. Maybe this is because I set the iPad brightness at something that makes sense rather than reading at nuclear flare level in a dark room?
And this is especially the case since we've transitioned to LCD tech that doesn't generate image by redrawing it multiple times per second. To me THAT was what caused strain. LCDs don't actually refresh the image unless it changes, which makes reading static things such as text on them a lot easier.
And iPads have some of the best LCDs out there (I am comparing shitty TN panel laptops etc. here, that could conceivably be hard on the eyes cuz they are so shitty).
I think the ipad pro or the surface book are a much better size to be compared with. Surface pro 3/4 is smaller. I bought an ipad pro because I wanted true A4 size, which my Surface pro 3 could not do (ipad pro screen is basically as big as surface pro 3/4 including bezels). Surface book displays PDFs of the same size as ipad pro because of the different aspect ratio (try putting them next to each other and display a PDF full screen)
You know what i am surprised does not exist, a paper notebook, but with Ereader paper inside. I can't tell you how many times I would love to write in a notebook, and it sends it to my computer instantly(or at least when WiFi is near) as text notes to remember later. It would be great for businesses as well, jot down notes, it sends it to certain people or groups of people.
But that is the hardest part of tech like this, figuring out what is PRACTICAL in a work environment. I think the biggest challenge in the next coming years is not tech advances, its UI design and feasible hardware design for the end user.
I work at Walmart, i can tell you they spend MILLIONS every year on tech that is thrown on the next year because it simply does not do what they are sold on. For example, they spent $800 on motorolla handhelds for inventory...for 4000+ stores, around 25 each store. Not a single person in stores like them. They have terrible UI, slow, can't connect to WiFi in stores fast, etc.
I had a chance to try this for about an hour, earlier this year, and I wasn't overly impressed. While it's fine for general purposes, the screen is coarse when trying to read smaller type. It's somewhat unpleasant because that coarseness eliminates differences between typefaces in anything under 8 points, a size that is common, and even somewhat in 10 point. That makes readability less than comfortable at smaller type sizes, even though it's legible.
Another problem is that anywhere the light isn't bright, the screen suffers, rapidly becoming difficult to read at dimmer levels. I found myself snuggling closer to the light, which was an annoying experience. For this price, something should have been done to add side lighting.
It's slow, and anyone used to a decent tablet will be frustrated by that. It becomes old, fast.
Graphics are also coarse when grey shades are present.
I didn't get a chance to try the stylus, so I can't comment on that. But for the money, there are much better choices. As far as eye strain goes, it's been shown that we can't tell the difference between reflected light and transmitted light. A lot of people who get eye strain get it because they have the screen adjusted incorrectly, not because of the screen type.
Can you link me to a PDF that has this problem? I would genuinely like to try out.
The 'smallest text size' PDF I tried to read was this: http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9860/849-850.jpg , and when I had trouble, I could just zoom in and read it properly (as shown in the pic to the right).
I would venture to suggest that if a PDF is having readability problems with this device, things are going to be a lot worse with anything else in this form factor.
My quick calculation is that the DPI is 150, and with only limited grey scale to handle anti-aliasing, rather than the subpixel many-level anti-aliasing available on a color screen. So you're looking at something like iPad resolution not iPad retina resolution. The difference for technical documents between iPad and iPad retina resolution was/is immediately obvious. Take any random modern technical PDF, something like this https://www.spec.org/workshops/2008/sanfrancisco/p...
I don't have access to an old iPad, but I can immediately see the difference between how this looks on my (non-retina) iMac and on an retina iPad, and I suspect that on current eInk it looks like the non-retina version. (Certainly that's what you photo seems to show, though admittedly a photo is a non-ideal way to resolve the issue.)
The paper is similar to the SMR paper that I have in the photograph.
The experience could definitely be better - I think Sony can achieve this right now just by shaving off the white margins.
Ultimately, the device is held back by what E-Ink can provide to Sony. Given that the tech is stagnating for the last 4 - 5 years when it comes to HiDPI in EPDs, I am not sure what the solution will be.
Zooming in is not a good solution. It's annoying, clumsy, and can be confusing at times. At best, it's an unsatisfactory "solution" to a problem other devices simply don't have.
It was rather amusing that the article seemed to claim that low DPI didn't matter for text-heavy documents when one the major selling points of HiDPI displays is crisp, clear text.
Against the display. You don't want the pen tips to be harder than the display, or else they will scratch it.
Having them to same hardness would make it difficult to make sure the display would have greater hardness, and if you pushed too hard with only a slightly lesser hardness pen tip, there would still be scratching.
The hardness of the pen tip also contributes how the writing experience feels. We tend to use writing implements with medium-ish hardness.
Therefore, the pen tips are softer than the display, and gradually wear away. It takes a long time; though that depends on the amount of usage (I've gotten well over a year using some Wacom tips).
One difference between display and paper writing, is that using paper, the paper is the softer material, and that in order to write on it, you need to 'damage' it.
"The e-reader market has lost some of its initial appeal due to the rapid rise in popularity of ...."... TABLETS? Seriously? Oh dear.
Raising popularity of SUBSIDIZED Amazon Kindle killed the market for Sony. Sony PRS 500 Sony PRS 505,300 Sony PRS 600,900 Sony PRS 350,650,950 Sony PRS T1, T2, T3 (android based) => go compete with amazon which doesn't even need to make money on hardware
I am not quite sure what you wanted to say about tablets vs e-readers.
But I can say that I'm never going back to an e-reader. Because I get a full day use from my Surface tablet. It reads Kindle books, PDFs, HTML and Mobi formats. I charge it when I'm done using it.
But of course a tablet can do a LOT more than a simple e-reader. It plays Netflix and Vudu movies, reads Facebook and the rest of the web, plays games, and even does word processing if I attach a keyboard.
If I have to carry just one device it is a smartphone. Two devices, a smartphone and a tablet. Three devices is right out so no e-readers.
It's great to see this device exist. If I was still in university, I'd really be lusting after it.
It's fantastic to see they are using Wacom EMR. Yes, there are edge accuracy issues with it, but I still think it is the best AD implementation (Wacom Feel is stunted a bit by wacom, but an ereader like this doesn't really need tilt sensitivity).
What I think it could do with though, is more hardware buttons. Some for page turning, and some as programmable hot keys. I also take it the document notes are kept on each page? It would be good if there was an aggregation feature for notes; that gathers a copy of them all together in a separate file that has no breaks in. A snapshot of context relevant text would also be good.
Ultimately some colour would be ideal, but that's still some way off I take it.
" A4 and US Letter correspond to diagonals of 14.3" and 13.9" respectively. 13.3" with an aspect ratio of 4:3 is ideal for displaying documents typeset in either A4 or US Letter-sized pages."
This is a large part of the reason why these devices are overpriced and not successful. By insisting on displaying the entire A4 or Letter-sized page, you're wasting expensive screen real estate displaying blank margins. The device already has a bezel which acts as margins. You don't need to waste screen space showing that empty space. If the page has 2cm or 3/4" margins on all sides, then A4 becomes 12.1" diagonal with a 1.51 aspect ratio, US Letter becomes 11.8" with a 1.36 aspect ratio.
Don't try to display the entire page, blank margins and all. Make the device 12" diagonal with a 1.5 aspect ratio and a white/grey bezel. Include a PDF reader which automatically zooms the page to eliminate margins, intelligently clipping lone outliers like the page number at the bottom of the comic book pic in your review. The device's screen area then decreases from 85 sq inches to 66.5 sq inches, or 78%, with a corresponding drop in weight and price, while giving up little to nothing in the size of displayed pages.
Perhaps in the "dead content" world of the Amazon Kindle and other DRM e-readers, a more optimized large format reader without margins could be made. But in the world of more interactive content, i.e. annotating/reviewing PDFs and such, the margins are very useful. Also, having a larger screen size gives the display software more flexibility, i.e. "keep bottom margin" or "keep side margins". For my needs, I wouldn't buy an e-reader like the one you are describing.
So I think Sony is on the right track. The tech world still hasn't produced anything as good as paper yet -- 1200 dpi, full size, high quality pixels that don't kill your eyes, etc. It doesn't mean we should stop trying.
the "better experience" of it's aspect ratio has nothing to do with the e-ink technology. Comparing it with a 4:3 tablet such as an ipad pro instead of the Dell, might have been a better decision.
At $800, there should be nothing held back in terms of on board memory, processing power, and conveniences to make the product uniquely superior to tablets for books, documents and note taking.
Sony doesn't make the best decisions about how far to push the technology. They are learning, but for many years their policy was to self-cripple their hardware in one way or another.
I'd actually be tempted to invest in one of these... except as you say:
"We hope Sony continues to provide firmware updates"
Sony is really bad at letting products rot after the first year. If they don't manage to fix something within that year, they never fix it. And sadly these probably won't be common enough for a hacking community to form, so no modded firmwares to save either.
Which sucks, because this DOES look really nice. Sony's worst enemy always seems to be Sony. *sigh*
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AndrewJacksonZA - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Some repetition on page 2 (the paragraph is difficult to read in my opinion):"The stylus / pen supplied as part of the DPT-S1 is passive. It doesn't need any batteries. Not recharging is necessary. The Wacom digitizer is passive in nature. According to a forum post on mobileread, it is possible to use non-Sony digitizer pens with the DPT-S1. This indicates that Wacom's EMR (Electro-Magnetic Resonance) technology is in use. The power requirements for EMR are satisfied by the display side, allowing the pen to be passive."
Yes, thank you, we know the pen is passive.
nikon133 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
So... from all that is said, I'm under impression that pen just might be passive..? ;)dsumanik - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
800 bucks? suck wang sony.Byte - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
I love my ereaders, had a 3rd gen sony and amazon kindle paper whites now. BUt $800? Just get an ipad pro already.Alexvrb - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
But they don't compete with the iPad Anything. The only competition to e-ink displays is... other e-ink displays. Backlit displays are a whole different ballgame. For example, I have a tablet. I also have a Kindle Paperwhite. The paperwhite is great for long reading sessions for a number of reasons such as tremendous battery life (days or weeks) and zero eyestrain. The built in edge frontlight is fantastic. The latest gen Paperwhites (and their more expensive Voyage brethren) are even better. This gets more important the older I get. If you have good eyes you won't regret staring at LCD/LED backlit displays all day and night for a few more years at least. ;)bernstein - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - link
sure but that kindle is $150... compared to $500 for an ipad mini... granted there are good $200 android tablets. since they exist kindle has stagnated. cause a lot of people just have money for one and willl get the more capapeble option... so i'll get a surface 4 pro... cause thats a $900. sure it's not as perfect for reading but it's a whole lot more versatile...if i can spare another $800 before that surface 4 or my iphone 5s gets obsolete well i'll happily buy one :-)AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
From it's need to be recognized as passive, and that it's stated so many times, perhaps the pen is passive-aggressive. ;-)moozooh - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
You know, that's interesting, because a passive-aggressive entity is passive in its aggression. The pen, however, is aggressive in its passivity, which would then make it aggressive-passive.Tams80 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
I heard it's active.If passive * passive = active and I count eight direct or indirect references to it be passive...
xthetenth - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
How is the lag between writing and stylus input appearing on the screen? That's a major concern I'd have with an e-ink screen.ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
The writing part is pretty much instantaneous - not that different from writing on paper (I assume some software is involved to refresh only that area of the screen, as whole page refreshes do take up the long time customary in E-Ink devices).However, the writing aspects needs some getting used to. Additional calibration is necessary to adapt to each user's writing style.
ddriver - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Previous generations have had problem with partial updates - the "pixels" at the rectangle area showed visible artifacting, so the whole screen had to be updated for the sake of uniformity. Maybe this is finally resolved?At any rate, I think people would rather take a video of the response time rather than someone's word, weighted by someone's standards for latency. The same applies for noise testing - dB is not all, and different frequencies are perceived at different levels at the same sound pressure. Any particular reason AT reviews don't include video and sound samples?
ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Sure.. the folks at Goodereader have taken a lot of effort in their coverage of the Sony DPT-S1. You can take a look at one of their videos linked below (the writing process on the Sony DPT-S1 starts around 3:30 onwards)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyTwNHDJwHY
As for our reviews including video and sound samples - it all depends on the device being reviewed, and the amount of effort / time that we can allot to a particular review. Sites like GoodEReader dedicate themselves to covering one particular area in detail. We cover a wide variety of products and try to give details in as much depth as possible within the time constraints.
ddriver - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
It looks adequately responsive. I suppose the trickery involved is not even using a rectangle area for the refresh, but going down to the individual pixels, potentially masking the artifacts.You know what they say - a picture is worth a thousand words. And a video is worth a thousand pictures. Therefore, a video is worth a million words ;)
moozooh - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
E-ink screens have several modes of screen update (IIRC YotaPhone's programmers used at least four of them) which dictate the overall refresh rate, color depth, and artifacts (in the form of high-frequency noise and ghosting, i.e. residual afterimage). Tight mode control can work wonders.DanNeely - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Looking at the buttons on the device, I have to ask: Is it running generic linux; or a heavily customized Android fork? I know there've been a few Android/EInk devices made by small tier companies over the last few years; so I know it's technically possible, but an entry by Sony would give much more credibility to such implementations.ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I think it is a heavily customized Android fork since there are some Chinese sites offering rooting for this device and allowing installation of external Android apps. Obviously, nothing that I can confirm - so I just left it at 'Linux kernel' in the article.Murloc - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
I have a much older sony reader e-reader and it's a heavily modified Android fork.You can indeed root my reader too and play angry birds on it, I saw a video of that.
haukionkannel - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Interesting device! Make it a little lighter and make it with bigger memory, it would be ideal e-book / A4 document replacement.Just have to hope that there will be somewhat cheaper alternatives in the future though. I really would like to have it, but when weighting what else can be get with 800$...
nico_mach - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
It's such a crazy device and I'm soooo glad someone reviewed it.Samus - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Yeah, GREAT review. This is why I love Anandtech. Engadget and the like would never touch something like this.ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I think it is light enough. Any lighter, and I think it would get very flimsy. Hopefully, these types of large screen E-Ink devices come to market soon. Competition will definitely help drive down the price of the DPT-S1 further.Murloc - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
yes I have a small one and it's totally fine to read pdf with small pages or slide stacks, but if the documents are A4 you'd have to zoom in and shift around which is simply not possible with the long refresh time unless you want to kill your eyes.My sony reader which is much older than this actually features the automatic cutting out of the white space, so I'm surprised it isn't included in this one.
Raniz - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Dimensions in inches and weight in grams? Pick one system (metric)!Kepe - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Display sizes are reported in inches everywhere. I've never seen a TV, laptop, tablet, phone or a computer display size being reported or advertised in millimeters or centimeters, and I live in Europe.BUT this is only true for the diagonal size of a display. When reporting how tall/wide a screen is, for me it would still be more informative if metric numbers were used.
ddriver - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Oddly enough, the only 3 countries in the world still using imperial units are the US... Burma... and... Liberia. Still cherishing the good old days of colonialism I guess. Gotta use imperial, even long after the empire died and went for metric.name99 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Myanmar (Burma) does not exactly use imperial units. It uses traditional Burmese units (consequence of being detached from the rest of the world for two generations) but is on the way to SI (metric). The legal formalities have been performed, and I expect that over the next few years as infrastructure is added and replaced, all signage will be in metric.Tams80 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
The UK uses a mix, and I'm sure there are plenty of other countries (particularly past colonies) that do. In the UK, some of these are very deeply embedded as well; such as miles.Beany2013 - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
In the UK, the generation born in the 60s and 70s are pretty entrenched in imperial, anyone born after that is generally pretty au-fait with both. 1 x 1.6 for km-miles, etc.I still get confused with gallons and litres, but as the only time I see it as at the petrol pumps, I'm more concerned with how light my wallet is getting, and how lighter I should really be pushing the right-hand pedal in the car.
I do use kilos for everything, except my weight, because weighing myself is such a wholly disappointing experience that I've stopped doing it, and that's the only time I used to use stones.
Actually, let me rephrase that - those of us born in the 80s are mathematical freaks.
phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
To really screw things up, though, different countries measure screen size differently.Canada measures viewable sizes (from the inside of the bezel) while the US measures actual screen size (including any parts of the screen hidden underneath the bezel).
This probably isn't that big of a deal any more with LCD panels, but it was a huge deal back in the CRT days. A 27" TV imported from the US could actually have less viewable area than a 24" TV in Canada.
Aren't "standards" wonderful? :)
Murloc - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
screen diagonals, case bay dimensions, jack plug length etc. are in inches everywhere in the world because of historical reasons and because they're standard sizes (not the screen diagonals but the other things), so the number in inches could be replaced by any other name just as well, so it doesn't really matter how long it really is for consumers who have to understand if the optical drive will fit in a case. You could call them A and B instead of 5.25'' and 3.5'' but there's no point really.Levish - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I'd grab one around $350 to read ebooks / manuals.Not sure if doable if dropping the digitizer / pen input / touch input.
Not like there are any available alternatives in Eink.
Amandtec - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
As someone who suffers from eyestrain something like this is a godsend. But I want it to be able to handle email, run Word and Excel, and have built in sim slot and and cover based keyboard.ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I think you are looking for an E-Ink monitor / notebook - maybe something similar to this: http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/06/30/dasungs-1... : I am not sure why these 13.3" E-Ink devices are not coming to the market fast enough.Coup27 - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
I think everybody suffers from eye strain if stare at white on a computer screen long enough. Make sure you are using the colour invert feature of Windows magnifier when spending hours in Word, Excel etc. Makes you work white on black instead of black on white and that is a godsend. High contrast for Chrome does the same thing for webpages also.I am a designer and use AutoCAD most the day. They realise this and work with a black background. Why Microsoft and most websites insist on as much white as possible dumbfounds me.
phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
If you wear glasses, consider getting your next pair tinted yellow. A 10% yellow tint has done wonders for eye strain and dryness at work (staring at a computer screen for 7 hours). I'm tempted to try a 20% yellow tint on my next pair.Also really helps with driving.
Beany2013 - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
I've noticed less eyestrain now that I'm using Redshift to auto-tune the blue out of my screen after dark. I know that's not what it's there for (it's meant to help you sleep better by pulling the blue out of the image - which means you get all melatoniny and drowsy at night) but it seems to help quite a bit.Redshift is the linux variant, I have Twilight on the Android phone, and I'm sure a Windows/Mac OS X variant exists, too.
surft - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Wioshing E-ink in color (i.e. Prism) would be made available in consumer portable products. I'd like to read my huge library of Franco-belgian comic albums on the go more often.nathanddrews - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Me too, unfortunately the color e-ink available to us is lacking on saturation. Comics/magazines are just so washed out that it's just not worth the asking price. We'll get there someday.AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
@surft: "my huge library of Franco-belgian comic albums"Billions of blue blistering barnacles!
Denithor - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
I wasn't sure if he was referring to TinTin or Asterix. Both great memories from my childhood!!Guspaz - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
Full-colour e-ink seems to be a long way off: their existing colour solution (Triton) just sticks colour filters in front of monochrome eInk, and looks terrible even in their marketing. They have a three-pigment solution called Spectra that doesn't look too bad, but it sacrifices grayscale to do it: each pixel can only do full black, full white, or full red. Doing full colour would likely require five pigments (CMYK and white), and it doesn't sound like that approach could do it.The closest we might ever get is a combination of Spectra with localized pigments, such that you have a pattern of pixels that include some black/white/cyan, some black/white/magenta, and some black/white/yellow: that would let you do full colour in a vaguely similar manner to how CMYK printing does.
The problem is that, as far as I know, eInk has never made a display that is anything other than a single uniform sheet of eInk, meaning that the entire sheet is just tiny little granules (of random size, if you've ever seen a macro shot) that are smaller than individual pixels. Any pixel or segment structure on eInk screens comes purely from the active matrix grid they stick on it...
phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - link
Mirasol would probably be a better alternative. Has similar properties to e-ink, only needing power to change pixel state, not to retain an image; doesn't use a backlight; etc. But in colour.Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
So when will we have devices that can swtich between standard display and E-Ink modes?pedjache - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I wouldn't hold my breath on such multi-mode display, but I wonder when do we see the first device incorporating both, in 10+ inch form factor. Like, you know, what Yotaphone1/2 does in a phone...name99 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
That depends on the meaning of "device" and "switch" :-)If you're generous in your definitions, we have that today:
http://www.amazon.com/popSLATE-Second-Screen-iPhon...
Murloc - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
that's pretty much impossible unless one of the screens is transparent and very thin.Shadow7037932 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Ouch, that price. If this was around $200-250, I'd strongly consider it since this has a stylus and I take a lot of notes at work. Currently, I use a Surface Pro 2 which works great, but this has much better battery life and works as a fine substitute for a paper notepad.ironwing - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Can you provide a list of file formats the device can display? The review discusses pdf files exclusively.ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
The device supports PDF only.AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
That sucks in my opinion. Not even .txt files?!?!Murloc - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
older Sony e-ink readers support a variety of ebook formats plus ppt and stuff but this doesn't?name99 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I'm guessing the expected use model is people who interact with a large number of PDFs and want to carry them around for more or less easy access --- people like physicists and biologists reading lots of technical papers, also architects, musicians, lawyers.BUT for this sort of usage, the device lives or dies by the quality of the software for organizing and searching the PDF set, and adding/syncing documents, we didn't get a good feel for that.
I'd say the gold standard for this right now is GoodReader on an iPad. You can set up the software to simply mirror a PDF folder hierarchy on some other computer of interest (like a PC or Mac) and press one button to have documents synched between the two. (So you can eg easily arrange the documents on your PC, but then have that arrangement propagate to the device.)
You can alternatively import PDFs from many other places (including, eg, email). You can search across documents, or star/favorite documents. You can annotate PDFs. You can also have multiple PDFs open at once (including multiple open views of the same PDF).
What you CAN'T do (which could possibly be useful) is have distinct workspaces comprising multiple open PDFs so, eg, you can toggle between "Work reading" and "Fun reading".
But looking at the Sony SW, from what I can see in the pictures and the review, they don't offer enough to be competitive with my usage for this sort of device (and what I'd expect most of the target users would require).
They obvious offer a larger screen than an iPad Air2, and that might be useful for some target audiences (blueprints, music, maybe legal documents); but for most TECHNICAL PDFs it's not as much of a problem as you'd expect because GoodReader offers very good cropping support to strip out margin whitespace. If you need the larger screen or stylus, of course iPad Pro gives you that, at the same sort of price --- but about 1.5x the weight.
The other eInk advantage (longer battery life, reading in sunlight) strike me as mostly irrelevant. If you want to read at the beach or while on vacation away from electricity, a standard Kindle is the more obvious choice. This is (for most users) a working device, to be used inside with electricity available.
My point is to to say how wonderful iPad/iPad Pro is. (The wonderfulness is is GoodReader, iBooks is GARBAGE for the usage model I'm describing). My point is that Sony (yet AGAIN) appears to be starting from "what cool hardware can we put together?" rather than "what real-life problem can we solve?" So they have bolt-on software which looks like it was slapped together in the last month of this project, probably with no update plan (good luck if security flaws are discovered in their browser in three years). They (and most companies) still DON'T GET IT. Software is what makes these devices valuable, and if you're not interested in writing quality software (based on serious usage models, and with a serious plan for long-term software updating) don't waste our time and yours.
ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
The mirroring / synchronization model is exactly the same as you suggest - but, it is two-way : since the PDFs can be modified on the DPT-S1, the changes get reflected in the source folder too.Only issue is that only WebDAV folders are supported for this purpose - not any generic folder on a PC. It would be nice to have SMB support or something similar - but, it is similar in the sense that there is PC software available to export folders in the computer as WebDAV folders.
The DPT-S1 supports multiple workspaces.
Btw, iPad Pro's 713g should be compared against the DPT-S1's 364g - almost 2x, not 1.5x
Long battery life is not about access to electricity, but more about reading / writing on an office table or in a court room - where people just don't want to be tethered. The lightness factor also plays a role here.
Despite similar features - large screen, stylus support for writing etc. - I believe the iPad Pro and the Sony DPT-S1 target different market segments.
Btw, I do agree Sony makes some consumer-facing products that should never have come to the market and/or are severely locked down with bad user experience. I can tell you that this product is not like those 'typical' Sony consumer products. It comes from the professional division, and the difference in approach really shows. The device is meant for a particular usage scenario and it is able to serve those scenarios pretty well.
Btw, the browser is just for use in an emergency - definitely not for general browsing (the experience with E-Ink screens is not good for visiting websites anyway). Anyways, Sony's has not left this product in the lurch. In fact, they just released a firmware update a couple of days back with more features - this is for a product launched almost 2 years back.
I will definitely agree with you that Sony has messed up a lot of products, but this is not one of them (except for the pricing aspect).
name99 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Good Reader provides 2-way synching too. Anything else is not (IMHO) synching!WebDAV means it may have problems with Mac? The very first versions of GoodReader used WebDAV and it sucked (for Mac at least); once they switched to USB life was much better, and I've no idea if El Cap even supports WebDAV out of the box.
For weight I was keying off your "Placed in the supplied sleeve, the complete package weighs in at 496g. " Obviously the sleeve is not essential, but I expect there will not be many case options. while iPad Pro will have a reasonable selection of lightweight cases, like iPad.
Likewise I'd expect an iPad Pro for the sorts of usage models I am suggesting to have around 10hrs or more of battery life --- hardly tethering.
Well it will be interesting to see how this plays out; but as someone somewhat in what I imagine the target market for this device to be, Sony is going to have to work REALLY hard to convince me that this makes more sense than an iPad Pro. (Or, more realistically an iPad Pro 2, since my iPad Air 2 right now meets my needs.)
phexac - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
I am still not clear what usage scenario could be filled with the Sony device that cannot be done better by iPad Pro.1. Battery life isn't really an issue since iPad Pro will easily last the whole day off of one charge.
2. I guess iPad Pro is heavier, but in what situation would that actually a) be an issue and b) be enough of an issue to offset the greater versatility offered by the iPad.
sungamer - Monday, December 21, 2015 - link
It's far better for my personal usage scenario than an ipad. As a musician looking at scores for over 6 hours a day, eye-strain is nonexistent with this than with any backlit screen. Battery life becomes an issue when you don't feel like carrying extra chargers while on the road, and being on the road for 2 months at a time.VisioGuy - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
I use the Sony for sheet music and tire of people parroting iPads as the best solution "for everything". iPads are too small, too heavy, too expensive and too breakable. Now, the iPad Pro is big enough, but the expense factor is even worse.I use my Sony DPTS1 for carrying four parts x 100 pieces of sheet music to rehearsals. I used to bring my Surface Pro 3, but was paranoid about it getting knocked off the stand, so I always had to strap it on, which was a pain. I'm pretty sure the Sony can survive a fall - it is somewhat flexible, has no glass, and is so light, it won't crush itself on a fall. Page turning is a challenge on this thing, but I find if I turn through the pages when I load a new song, before we start playing, it reacts faster the next time I need to jump. Luckily trombone parts don't have lots of pages.
As for reading, I like to read on this non-glowing device - it is easy on the eyes. I'm sure the lawyers like this too, since they read for 15 hours a day.
I like to use the browser and read articles from the net. I find that the slow response makes me focus on reading one article at a time, and the temptation to switch tabs and follow links is greatly reduced. Something modern humans probably desperately need :)
It seems like there's a majority of folks that want smaller devices, but I would love to have huge 15- or 17-inch e-readers and tablets for music and technical diagrams, so long as they are light and have decent battery life.
Coup27 - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
I will definitely agree with you that Sony has messed up a lot of products, but this is not one of them (except for the pricing aspect).Unrelated to e-ink but Sony phones are IMO the best Android phones on the market. Real shame they don't get time on AT. I went Sony a year ago and I've converted a few people from Samsung to Sony now and none have regretted it.
Tams80 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
You make some good points, however:Weight does matter. If the device is going to be used over long periods of time, then even rather small differences in weight can make a huge difference to the level of comfort.
Battery runtime is important for a device like this. Some of the people who may find this useful are the ones who might be away from a power supply for several days at a time (or one day, but with a lot of use). Alternatively they might not have easy access to a power supply, because they are all in use. It may also be the case that they need to charge multiple devices, and don't want to have to charge yet another device.
You can also leave the display on, and not have to worry about power consumption.
Reading in sunlight is useful; even indoors.
As this is likely a secondary, or even tertiary device for most people who use it; don't underestimate the advantage of only having to charge it say, once a month, when you already have to charge other devices as well.
A few things no electronic devices have solved that paper has, are the abilities to: flick through it, quickly reorganise it, and have a double, or even greater spread.
groundhogdaze - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I'm wondering why there aren't more competing products? I definitely want one and I'm assuming there's a reasonably large market out there for this sort of device. I do own a kindle DX but the DPT-S1 would be so much nicer :)JoeMonco - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Based on what evidence do you believe that there's a large market for such a device? The very lack of very many competing devices would prove just the opposite.sungamer - Monday, December 21, 2015 - link
Actually I think it's due to engineering problems. Large format e-ink displays are still difficult to make, and the fact is unless you're using a flexible system (such as Mobius used by Sony here) they're very much prone to breakage. Mobius is also very expensive (last I heard a 13.3 inch display would cost about $600, but I'm SURE that has come down a bit now), so the combination of price and engineering problems means that this category of products is at its infancy, rather than a lack of demand.benzosaurus - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Speaking as an engineering student, I'd buy that thing in a heartbeat to replace my old iPad 2— if it cost, like, $100.digiguy - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I had considered this but the price of over 1000$ was too much for something that can only display PDFs. Whats more, in Europe, it could only be bought from Japan, with menus in Japanese only. My ipad pro with similar size and aspect ratio, and a mat screen protector, can do much more for a similar price....ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Except that iPad Pro weighs a lot more and is bound to result in eye strain under continuous use.melgross - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Yes. It does weigh more, but the eye strain concept is a lot of hooey. Billions of people use tablets and smartphones without getting eye strain. Billions more use laptops and desktops without having eye strain. The few that do get it are either sensitive to bright light, or simp,y have everything g adjusted improperly.Medical experts have already said that there's no difference to the eye with reflected or transmitted light screens. People who have the problem should either raise the brightness, or lower it, depending on how they have it set. It will make a difference.
And a tablet, like the iPad Pro, or others, are just vastly more useful than something like this, particularly at the price point.
ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
All I can say is: Give an E-Ink device a try for a week and also repeat a similar workload with a carefully adjusted tablet / backlit display for a week, and you will be sure to feel the difference.Personally speaking, I tried reading a technical eBook on a tablet and also on the DPT-S1. I was able to read more pages in one go on the latter.
digiguy - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I really think it depends on what you read.... and how... First of all, I think a mat screen is a must. I really don't understand why people don't use them. All my tablets have a mat screen, including the Surface pro 3 (and the pen works perfectly). Then it's also a matter of adjusting brightness... Then there are books where colors are important and this device has no colors... As far as the weight is concerned, I think it depends. I never hold the ipad pro or surface pro 3 with just one hand vertically. Instead, the lower part is on my legs if I am sitting or, if I am standing, I hold it like a pizza. And it's not heavy at all like that. Now my main use was for sheet music. And for that weight is irrelevant. I wanted an A4 format, and Surface pro 3 was a bit smaller than ideal... Ipad pro is perfect, as close to A4 as it gets. Also for a large majority of my ebooks and scores 4:3 works better than 3:2. Now, I am not saying that weight and eye strain don't matter or that this device is not better on these 2 points, but that I believe there are workarounds that make then "less relevant". It's all a matter of trade offs. And at this price point this device means giving up a lot of what an ipad pro can do. Sure the price has come down, but this is IMO an already old device (thats probably why Sony paid for this review) that should probably be refreshed or upgraded and/or sold at a more reasonable price point....ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
whoa, dude! I paid $800 of my own money for this (Sony is not very liberal with review units unlike other manufacturers, btw) because I saw some value in it for my professional work as well as hobbies (solving crosswords and reading books). I thought AnandTech readers would like to hear the plus and minus points associated with the e-reader, and that is why I decided to write the review.
This type of blanket statement surprises me greatly.
AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
(Sony is not very liberal with review units unlike other manufacturers, btw)As someone who's a fan on Sony's quality and style, it totally baffles me why they don't give more people review units.
digiguy - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Sorry Ganesh, I thought that a "featured review" was a review paid by the manufacturer. So of course, that means I misunderstood this. Please accept my apologies. Especially sorry that it happened with you. I had already said in the past on this website that you and (the now gone) Kristian Vatto were my favorite reviewers here on Anandtech (well Anand too, but he was already gone at that time). I highly appreciate that you paid this unit yourself in oder to review it. I have been researching this product since 2014 and have found very few reviews. So it was really a nice surprise to find one on AT.phexac - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Don't worry about people saying stuff like this. We greatly appreciate the initiative, the effort and the time you put into this review.There are always commenters on every board that claim the review must be paid for because they can't fathom someone with an opinion that differs from theirs.
digiguy - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
If you are referring to what I said I think you didn't read what I added... I was convinced that a featured review was a sort of a sponsored review (by the way what is a featured review?). And nowhere I said that this review wasn't welcome. On the contrary, if you had read what I posted today... So your assumption "claim the review must be paid for because they can't fathom someone with an opinion that differs from theirs" if referred to me, is completely wrong.Ryan Smith - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Just to be clear, "Featured Review" is the default subtitle in our system if we don't manually set a subtitle. And in that case, it just means it's the review we're deciding to feature today, hence the reason it's at the top of the site.We don't do sponsored reviews - we accept samples of things we want to review, but not any kind of payment for reviewing them. And if for any reason that changed, it's something I'd let you guys know about.
digiguy - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Thanks a lot Ryan for clarifying that, and sorry for the misunderstanding... This is one of the things I really appreciate about this website, that the authors take the time to reply to readers and, what's more, do it quickly... I regularly follow and actively take part in several tech websites/blogs (in several languages) but yours is really one of the best if not the best in terms of both expertise and interaction with participants. And this has not changed after Anand left, nor after the takeover. Keep up the good work!Tams80 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
So an iPad is best your use cases; great. Most of use aren't like you though, so maybe this Sony will be better. As you use your iPad mainly fro sheet music, I take it you don't often continuously stare at the display for any considerable length of time.(thats probably why Sony paid for this review)
Ganesh as already put you down; but I suggest taking your tin-foil hat off.
digiguy - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
Again another guy that doesn't read what's written after the first post, and writes absolute nonsensedigiguy - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
And by the way, Ganesh only replied to a misunderstanding of what is a "featured review", without knowing I had misunderstood it. So nobody has put down anybody and the only meaningless thing here is what you wrote. Add to that, that you don't know more than anyone else what "most of use" are...JoeMonco - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I used to read exclusively on an eink screen Nook. I then switched to an iPad haven't switched back because there was no difference. But as the others have said I adjusted the brightness of the screen appropriately to the room brightness.melgross - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I've used Kindles for a while, and never liked them. The screens bother me. The brightness changes outdoors depending on whether a cloud passes by. Generally, they're ok, but not great. The disadvantages far outweigh the advantages, which are just two, length of battery life, and..., well, that's just one.name99 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
As someone who alternates a lot between substantial amounts of paper and iPad reading (though not eInk) I'd say that, at least for me and everyone in my family, melgross is correct. I have no experience of eye strain or any other issues when reading my iPad as opposed to paper. Maybe this is because I set the iPad brightness at something that makes sense rather than reading at nuclear flare level in a dark room?phexac - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
And this is especially the case since we've transitioned to LCD tech that doesn't generate image by redrawing it multiple times per second. To me THAT was what caused strain. LCDs don't actually refresh the image unless it changes, which makes reading static things such as text on them a lot easier.And iPads have some of the best LCDs out there (I am comparing shitty TN panel laptops etc. here, that could conceivably be hard on the eyes cuz they are so shitty).
nikon133 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Just wondering... it would make more sense comparing this with Surface Pro 3 or 4... or iPad Pro... than 16:9 Dell, for reading comics.ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I was looking for a 13.3" screen - closest to what the DPT-S1 has.I would definitely provide additional comparative photographs if I had access to a SP3/4 or iPad Pro :)
digiguy - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I think the ipad pro or the surface book are a much better size to be compared with. Surface pro 3/4 is smaller. I bought an ipad pro because I wanted true A4 size, which my Surface pro 3 could not do (ipad pro screen is basically as big as surface pro 3/4 including bezels). Surface book displays PDFs of the same size as ipad pro because of the different aspect ratio (try putting them next to each other and display a PDF full screen)imaheadcase - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
You know what i am surprised does not exist, a paper notebook, but with Ereader paper inside. I can't tell you how many times I would love to write in a notebook, and it sends it to my computer instantly(or at least when WiFi is near) as text notes to remember later. It would be great for businesses as well, jot down notes, it sends it to certain people or groups of people.But that is the hardest part of tech like this, figuring out what is PRACTICAL in a work environment. I think the biggest challenge in the next coming years is not tech advances, its UI design and feasible hardware design for the end user.
I work at Walmart, i can tell you they spend MILLIONS every year on tech that is thrown on the next year because it simply does not do what they are sold on. For example, they spent $800 on motorolla handhelds for inventory...for 4000+ stores, around 25 each store. Not a single person in stores like them. They have terrible UI, slow, can't connect to WiFi in stores fast, etc.
melgross - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
I had a chance to try this for about an hour, earlier this year, and I wasn't overly impressed. While it's fine for general purposes, the screen is coarse when trying to read smaller type. It's somewhat unpleasant because that coarseness eliminates differences between typefaces in anything under 8 points, a size that is common, and even somewhat in 10 point. That makes readability less than comfortable at smaller type sizes, even though it's legible.Another problem is that anywhere the light isn't bright, the screen suffers, rapidly becoming difficult to read at dimmer levels. I found myself snuggling closer to the light, which was an annoying experience. For this price, something should have been done to add side lighting.
It's slow, and anyone used to a decent tablet will be frustrated by that. It becomes old, fast.
Graphics are also coarse when grey shades are present.
I didn't get a chance to try the stylus, so I can't comment on that. But for the money, there are much better choices. As far as eye strain goes, it's been shown that we can't tell the difference between reflected light and transmitted light. A lot of people who get eye strain get it because they have the screen adjusted incorrectly, not because of the screen type.
ganeshts - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Can you link me to a PDF that has this problem? I would genuinely like to try out.The 'smallest text size' PDF I tried to read was this: http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9860/849-850.jpg , and when I had trouble, I could just zoom in and read it properly (as shown in the pic to the right).
I would venture to suggest that if a PDF is having readability problems with this device, things are going to be a lot worse with anything else in this form factor.
name99 - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
My quick calculation is that the DPI is 150, and with only limited grey scale to handle anti-aliasing, rather than the subpixel many-level anti-aliasing available on a color screen. So you're looking at something like iPad resolution not iPad retina resolution.The difference for technical documents between iPad and iPad retina resolution was/is immediately obvious. Take any random modern technical PDF, something like this
https://www.spec.org/workshops/2008/sanfrancisco/p...
I don't have access to an old iPad, but I can immediately see the difference between how this looks on my (non-retina) iMac and on an retina iPad, and I suspect that on current eInk it looks like the non-retina version. (Certainly that's what you photo seems to show, though admittedly a photo is a non-ideal way to resolve the issue.)
ganeshts - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Thanks for the response with the link.The paper is similar to the SMR paper that I have in the photograph.
The experience could definitely be better - I think Sony can achieve this right now just by shaving off the white margins.
Ultimately, the device is held back by what E-Ink can provide to Sony. Given that the tech is stagnating for the last 4 - 5 years when it comes to HiDPI in EPDs, I am not sure what the solution will be.
melgross - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Zooming in is not a good solution. It's annoying, clumsy, and can be confusing at times. At best, it's an unsatisfactory "solution" to a problem other devices simply don't have.JoeMonco - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
It was rather amusing that the article seemed to claim that low DPI didn't matter for text-heavy documents when one the major selling points of HiDPI displays is crisp, clear text.zodiacfml - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Pricey. At this price, Samsung might be able to produce an OLED screen of the same size.JoeMonco - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
Low volume, niche products tend to be that way. Until the market for these devices grows, they'll stay expensive.sheh - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
Why do the pen tips need replacement? What kind of wear is there?Tams80 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
Against the display. You don't want the pen tips to be harder than the display, or else they will scratch it.Having them to same hardness would make it difficult to make sure the display would have greater hardness, and if you pushed too hard with only a slightly lesser hardness pen tip, there would still be scratching.
The hardness of the pen tip also contributes how the writing experience feels. We tend to use writing implements with medium-ish hardness.
Therefore, the pen tips are softer than the display, and gradually wear away. It takes a long time; though that depends on the amount of usage (I've gotten well over a year using some Wacom tips).
One difference between display and paper writing, is that using paper, the paper is the softer material, and that in order to write on it, you need to 'damage' it.
medi03 - Saturday, December 19, 2015 - link
Guys, have you actually used e-reader device?"The e-reader market has lost some of its initial appeal due to the rapid rise in popularity of ...."... TABLETS? Seriously? Oh dear.
Raising popularity of SUBSIDIZED Amazon Kindle killed the market for Sony.
Sony PRS 500
Sony PRS 505,300
Sony PRS 600,900
Sony PRS 350,650,950
Sony PRS T1, T2, T3 (android based) => go compete with amazon which doesn't even need to make money on hardware
Yeah.
Zan Lynx - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
I am not quite sure what you wanted to say about tablets vs e-readers.But I can say that I'm never going back to an e-reader. Because I get a full day use from my Surface tablet. It reads Kindle books, PDFs, HTML and Mobi formats. I charge it when I'm done using it.
But of course a tablet can do a LOT more than a simple e-reader. It plays Netflix and Vudu movies, reads Facebook and the rest of the web, plays games, and even does word processing if I attach a keyboard.
If I have to carry just one device it is a smartphone. Two devices, a smartphone and a tablet. Three devices is right out so no e-readers.
medi03 - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - link
People who read a lot use e-readers not because they need to be charged less often, but because it's much less strain on your eyes.So when anyone claims he just "switched over to tablets" either doesn't really read much, or has extraordinary eyes.
Zan Lynx - Thursday, December 31, 2015 - link
Or knows that you're supposed to set the screen brightness lower than the room. I've never had a problem reading on a phone or a tablet.Tams80 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
It's great to see this device exist. If I was still in university, I'd really be lusting after it.It's fantastic to see they are using Wacom EMR. Yes, there are edge accuracy issues with it, but I still think it is the best AD implementation (Wacom Feel is stunted a bit by wacom, but an ereader like this doesn't really need tilt sensitivity).
What I think it could do with though, is more hardware buttons. Some for page turning, and some as programmable hot keys.
I also take it the document notes are kept on each page? It would be good if there was an aggregation feature for notes; that gathers a copy of them all together in a separate file that has no breaks in. A snapshot of context relevant text would also be good.
Ultimately some colour would be ideal, but that's still some way off I take it.
Solandri - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
" A4 and US Letter correspond to diagonals of 14.3" and 13.9" respectively. 13.3" with an aspect ratio of 4:3 is ideal for displaying documents typeset in either A4 or US Letter-sized pages."This is a large part of the reason why these devices are overpriced and not successful. By insisting on displaying the entire A4 or Letter-sized page, you're wasting expensive screen real estate displaying blank margins. The device already has a bezel which acts as margins. You don't need to waste screen space showing that empty space. If the page has 2cm or 3/4" margins on all sides, then A4 becomes 12.1" diagonal with a 1.51 aspect ratio, US Letter becomes 11.8" with a 1.36 aspect ratio.
Don't try to display the entire page, blank margins and all. Make the device 12" diagonal with a 1.5 aspect ratio and a white/grey bezel. Include a PDF reader which automatically zooms the page to eliminate margins, intelligently clipping lone outliers like the page number at the bottom of the comic book pic in your review. The device's screen area then decreases from 85 sq inches to 66.5 sq inches, or 78%, with a corresponding drop in weight and price, while giving up little to nothing in the size of displayed pages.
10101010 - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link
Perhaps in the "dead content" world of the Amazon Kindle and other DRM e-readers, a more optimized large format reader without margins could be made. But in the world of more interactive content, i.e. annotating/reviewing PDFs and such, the margins are very useful. Also, having a larger screen size gives the display software more flexibility, i.e. "keep bottom margin" or "keep side margins". For my needs, I wouldn't buy an e-reader like the one you are describing.So I think Sony is on the right track. The tech world still hasn't produced anything as good as paper yet -- 1200 dpi, full size, high quality pixels that don't kill your eyes, etc. It doesn't mean we should stop trying.
Tangey - Monday, December 21, 2015 - link
the "better experience" of it's aspect ratio has nothing to do with the e-ink technology. Comparing it with a 4:3 tablet such as an ipad pro instead of the Dell, might have been a better decision.flyguy29 - Monday, December 21, 2015 - link
At $800, there should be nothing held back in terms of on board memory, processing power, and conveniences to make the product uniquely superior to tablets for books, documents and note taking.10101010 - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link
Sony doesn't make the best decisions about how far to push the technology. They are learning, but for many years their policy was to self-cripple their hardware in one way or another.TARRACARTER - Thursday, February 11, 2016 - link
Helpful piece ! For what it's worth , if people is requiring to merge two PDF files , I merged a service here Altomergexrror - Thursday, February 11, 2016 - link
I'd actually be tempted to invest in one of these... except as you say:"We hope Sony continues to provide firmware updates"
Sony is really bad at letting products rot after the first year. If they don't manage to fix something within that year, they never fix it. And sadly these probably won't be common enough for a hacking community to form, so no modded firmwares to save either.
Which sucks, because this DOES look really nice. Sony's worst enemy always seems to be Sony. *sigh*