Sony Digital Paper System DPT-S1 Review
by Ganesh T S on December 17, 2015 8:50 AM ESTConcluding Remarks
The Sony DPT-S1's feature set and pricing make it clear that business users are the primary target market. Posts on various e-reader forums indicate that the device is gaining popularity amongst academics and lawyers. Despite the business / enterprise focus, there is nothing preventing power users from using it as a standard e-reader. In fact, the device, when used in the landscape mode with a two-page thumbnail view (a feature introduced in firmware v1.5.50.1180 released on December 15, 2015), can simulate holding a real book with two pages side by side. The availability of a pen / stylus can also lend itself to some interesting applications for casual users. Writing on the plastic surface of the Sony DPT-S1 feels closer to writing on actual paper compared to glass surfaces in other tablets.
Sony DPT-S1 - Not Necessarily an 'all work, no play' Device
Even though I try to avoid printing out documents / papers and read them on a computer monitor or tablet, I can't totally avoid the usage of a printer. Since purchasing the Sony DPT-S1 a couple of weeks back, I haven't printed out a single document. One of the aims of the Sony DPT-S1 is to reduce paper clutter. I have to say that it succeeds nicely in this respect.
Coming to the business end of the review, we will analyze the pros and cons of the Sony DPT-S1 first.
On the plus side:
- The unit is lightweight, yet solid. The experience is very similar to carrying a folder with a few sheets of paper.
- The unit has great ergonomics and is perfectly size for technical documents
- It is a great vehicle to bring out the advantages of E-Ink
- No strain on the eyes, thanks to the absence of backlighting
- Visibility under bright light / outdoor environments is perfect
- The battery life is great - more than a couple of weeks between charges even with regular use (2 - 3 hours a day with a page or so of writing on each day)
- Annotation capabilities with the pen input is great for note taking and other business uses.
- It reads all PDFs - no messing around with DRM, no proprietary file formats, no 'cloud' accounts needed
- Combination of features make it a very unique product in the market
On the other side:
- The exorbitant pricing ($800) makes it unsuitable for personal use. There exists better value for money if an E-Ink screen is not a must
- The PDF viewer could do with some more features to make it more versatile / suitable for non-business use-cases. (more zooming, adjustable cropping to remove white margins etc.)
- Firmware, in general, could do with some extra features - such as providing additional options for network shares along with the currently existing WebDAV support.
- Limitations of E-Ink
- Low refresh rate can hamper user experience when redrawing the screen during document navigation / zooming
- Absence of color capabilities
- Adding audio capabilities could help expand the addressable market (targeting audiobooks, for example)
- At the $800 price point, the presence of just 4GB (3GB usable) of internal flash is disappointing. Availability of a microSD slot alleviates this issue somewhat.
- A more powerful processor could help in providing a better user-experience with graphics-heavy PDFs.
- Absence of contrast adjustment (something possible in the Kindle-DX) is a bit disappointing
- There is no built-in light for reading in the dark (something available in the Kindle Paperwhite)
- Wear-out of the pen tips could be a worry for heavy users
- Navigation buttons at the bottom could do with a more pronounced feel. The current design (flush with the rest of the frame) is more suitable for capacitive touch-based implementations.
Despite the list of potential improvements and drawbacks being longer than the positives, the Sony DPT-S1 gets my recommendation for being a unique product in a specific niche. Products based on the 13.3" E-Ink Mobius screen have also been shown at tradeshows by companies like Netronix and Pocketbook, but they remain vaporware.
If the characteristics of E-Ink screens fit your requirements and you need a size-for-size replacement for traditional paper documents, the Sony Digital Paper System DPT-S1 is the perfect fit. It does a surprisingly great job despite being the only such product in the market. We hope Sony continues to provide firmware updates for the product and bring the price down even further.
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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.