Sony is going to be releasing their second generation Digital Paper on June 20th and many people are thinking about purchasing one because of its ability to read and edit PDF documents. Digital Paper is a singular purpose e-reader, it does one specific task really well, just don’t expect it to read your e-book collection. This device has more memory than the DPT-S1 and also has Bluetooth/NFC, not to mention it has an E-Ink Carta screen, which has performance benefits over Mobius.
The DPT-RP1 features a 13.3 inch flexible electronic paper display with a resolution of 2200 x 1650 and 207 PPI. Underneath the hood is a Marvell IAP140 64-bit Quad-core IoT Applications Processor and ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, up to 1.2GHz, and has a separate power low-power Cortex M3. It has 16GB of internal memory , which is the equivalent of 10,000 PDF Files. It also has Bluetooth and NFC.
Sony has created a Digital Paper app for the PC and MAC. It was designed to allow users to establish one folder on their computer to sync to their e-reader. This folder can be a local folder with all of your PDF files, but it can also be a folder on a network. What is most exciting is that this folder can be one that syncs files from Box, Dropbox, Onedrive, Google Docs, etc. Sony told me that you can connect the DPT to your computer via Bluetooth, WIFI or a USB cable.
When Sony released their first generation Digital Paper, it was an expensive proposition. It cost around $1,200 and over the years it came down in price. Sony is marketing the DPT-RP1 for $699, which makes it about as expensive as an iPad Pro or lower end Microsoft Surface. The question is, will you purchase this device?
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.