Sony and E Ink announced this week that they have developed a new 13 inch e-reader. This new device uses a screen called Mobius, which is making the rounds in Japan and SID in Vancouver next week. At a recent event in Japan, Diginfo filmed a brief hands-on of the device, which should give you a sense on how it handles PDF files and making highlights/annotations.
The Sony E Ink Slate will feature a capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1,200 x 1,600 pixels and 150 DPI. This new slate will be aimed at people who need to read technical PDF documents and edit them on the fly with the accompanied stylus. It will also have bundled WIFI and the ability to increase the memory via the Micro SD card from the 4 GB of internal memory.
The one important thing to bear in mind is that this is not the finalized product. It is a prototype that should be available this summer, and by then there will be firmware tweaks and other features will be greatly enhanced. Still, large screen e-readers have the ability to gain some strong traction for people enamored with technical PDF documents.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
