The DPT-RP1 offers a similar 13.3-inch display as its predecessor, but dramatically improves the resolution from 1200 x 1600 dots to 1650 x 2200 dots. The screen is a “non-slip” panel, which the company says will improve the experience of annotating documents with the included digital pen. The new design is also thinner, lighter, and faster than the previous version; Sony notes that the entire device is roughly as thick as a stack of 30 pages of paper.
I love e-paper and e-ink displays, but other than serving their purpose on e-reader devices, it seems the technology hasn’t progressed towards more generic use cases such as smartphones and tablets.
I bought into Sonys first e-paper products despite the price. Unfortunately the tech journals touted epaper energy efficiency but actual products were about the same as other technologies.
I’m still waiting for an affordable colour e-ink display. It seems that promising technologies get bought out and sat on (Pixel Qi) or languish in neglect (Qualcomm’s Mirasol). I guess they figure AMOLED is good enough. For smartphones and tablets, yes. For e-readers, not so much. I want an e-reader that can display static colour images and last for weeks between charges. I don’t give a toss about low-latency video (which is what pundits say has kept colour e-ink tech off the market). Where are the products to satisfy my use-case? I’m sure I’m not the only bloke in the world who wants this.
I’m waiting for that too. Would like to read technical PDF stuff comfortably.
I have never held one in my hand but I really like a dedicated and cheap enough e-ink for reading double column texts like academic papers and white papers with ease. I have held the bigger iPad and it is too heavy for such task and I prefer my small notebook better since it is more accessible. Maybe if they lose the pen and just give us the kindle but bigger it would be a game changer but I am not sure how much market it will have.
With respect to color reflective displays, both e-Ink and Gyricon had some concepts in development a number of years ago. Of the two technologies, only e-Ink has remained viable in the market place.
Black and white is still valuable for a number of applications:
With a more reasonable price for the unit this could “replace” the stack of college and university books one has to deal with as a student. However, I doubt this will lead to a reduction in the pricing of the actual content/text books.
The size (13″) and resolution (1650 x 2200) is also conducive to display music scores – although the conductor would likely need two side-by-side.
With a 13″ size (nearly letter size; 8-1/2″ by 11″, this is still too small to be fully usable to display engineering drawings at 100% scale. A compromise between readability and portability is 11″ by 17″. I’m afraid to ask what the price might be for an unit of such size based on the same technology.
Some vendors have offered secondary monitors based on the previous generation technology ( http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2015/01/15/paperlike-13-3-e-ink-mo… ). However, these are essentially mirroring what was on the primary monitor.
What could be an interesting product would be something which could be used as an e-reader as well as a secondary monitor/work space.
I am not too found of a pen input system for annotation as I tend to scribble rather than write. A touch based note locator with virtual keyboard for input might be more practical for me. Even better, and if I had the inclination to hack – a BlackBerry keyboard would do nicely.
As a secondary monitor/work space, I would love a smart user interface – one capable of sending to this secondary display the contents of hyperlinks from the main display as HTML or PDF. I prefer reading black and white text, even with some graphics, on a black and white rendering medium instead of a color rendering one – easier on the eyes.
According to the European representative of Onyx (a Chinese ereader manufacturer), their next 13.3″ ereader will have a HDMI port for this precise purpose.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3504110#post35041…
I think the most promising product in this category I’ve seen is the reMarkable(getremarkable.com). It might actually deliver.
Edited 2017-04-12 10:11 UTC
http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/11/15264394/boox-type…
Can’t help my eyes from reading “tablet” as “toilet” when it’s written next to “paper”.