While I was originaly going to wait for Pocketbook's 13.3" ereader, I got
real lucky and was able to pick up a "used but like-new" one for 600 USD. I would've waited for the pocketbook, but $600 is a killer deal for this device.
I bought it mainly for reading large textbooks--not for school but just for personal interests. I was able to justify it by selling all of my textbooks (which more than covered the cost). And while for my use-case it's well worth it, it's hard not to be too critical of this thing due to glaring missed opportunities.
The positives:
+ Large enough to display all of my textbooks very well. This is my desired use-case--I've wanted this for so darn long...
+ Fast page turning
+ For ePaper, this has extremely responsive stylus input. This really blew my mind--the technology is really improving. Given the rudimentary nature of the software I can't see myself using it much, but maybe it'll be handy to make a note in a PDF now and then.
The negatives:
- (Software - General) No dictionary and only displays PDFs. The latter I can get over (just convert everything to PDF), but no dictionary? Really?! Yes, keeping a dictionary open in a separate tab works, but it's just too unwieldy. Also, the PDF viewer itself is very limited in terms of the variety of display options.
- (Software - Notetaking) In terms of notetaking, for what it
tries to do it does relatively well, but with that in mind the only real use-case is for business professionals that want something flashy to jot notes on in meetings. And in terms of actual utility, even for that use-case you're probably better off with notebook paper as the software doesn't do much else aside from try to emulate notebook paper. See, the real value with digital notetaking is the software itself, since for the foreseeable future the actual physical experience of writing and accessing adjacent pages will be substantially better with pencil and paper. I mean, if it could at least provide the basic features of something like Xournal it might make sense, but it doesn't even come close...
- The thin-ness is nice in one sense, but overall it makes it feel quite vulnerable--I'd certainly be too anxious to take this thing out of the house. The non-rigid "case" doesn't help much either (aside from preventing scratches). I would've preferred a thicker, more robust design with room for more access ports, longer battery life, more powerful hardware, etc etc.
Other things (let's call them "missed opportunities" as it is not normal to expect them from this kind of device):
- No external keyboard support
- Unable to use it as a standalone monitor. I feel like there are a lot of
technical professionals (or hobbyists such as myself) that would love a large ePaper screen with responsive touchscreen input (simply because staring at LCD displays all day is so harsh).
- Why not permit access to the Android Play Store? Really, if you're going to provide a digital notetaking / drawing solution, then this warrants software with a scope that is beyond the capacity of a company like Sony. For instance, OneNote is available on the Play Store. This device would instantly become much more useful if it were jailbroken and set up to run an ungimped Android (from what I've read, the OS is already Android-based)
So given the luck of finding it at this price point and given my particular use-case of just wanting an eReader that can replace my textbooks, I'm quite satisfied. But for $1000+, this device offers so little utility that it's difficult to comprehend Sony's thought process (difficult to comprehend even for Sony!).
EDIT: I've decided to sell this because the Pocketbook website now claims that their 13.3" eReaders will have both Wacom stylus input and run Android.
EDIT2: I've received several PMs about the DPT-S1, but unfortunately I've already sold it
