Sony reveals prototype 13.3-inch e-ink slate with stylus

[Dulin's Books]

it's weird but i feel almost personally insulted by the price.

i'm trying to mitigate that by telling myself they are showing pricing per device that includes some backend service hosting by Sony for the digital sharing etc. I hope thats the case.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

are the @$%&!!@# kidding?

seriously Sony can build that exact thing sans mobius display for 120 bucks at volume at most. im over a hundred there because i figured the cost for a 13.3" wacom digitizer will be 50. this pricing is suggesting that the Mobius display alone costs $300-$500 for them to build at volume.

A 13.3 IPS LCD would cost a hundredish. i think the 9.7 inch eink displays are right about $100 now total all in for a whole display. the material itself is less than half. the hi-dpi material at 13" shouldnt cost much more than than the 9.7". The flexible backplane tech cant possibly cost several hundred dollars to produce and then marry to the display material.

brother tried to sell a 9.7" eink reader as a digital printer a few years ago for $1,500 and that went no where. even though this is larger and has the flexible display they cant really believe they will sell any. it cant do anything but allow you to write on a pdf.

i understand they have allot of sunk cost in the development but wouldnt they recoup the cost faster if they sold millions of them at $300 rather than a handful or none at $1k?

Since I don't speak the language, all I have to go on is the Google translation, but I think that the software is a big influence on the price.

Everybody seems to consider this as an object for personal use, but it looks to me like it is supposed to be part of an integrated system for universities and businesses.

The Google translation:

"DPT-S1" 98,000 yen digital paper: market estimated price

※ "market estimated price" is about the pre-launch of the product, we have to estimate the selling price in the market.
The selling price of the actual product depends on the combination of the solutions and services system configuration.

To get an idea of what it is intended for:

Digital paper conferencing solution
Upload to server the conference material that was created on a computer, you can distribute the digital paper to participants at different locations via a wireless network. Also, you can easily find necessary materials by accessing the server, and can upload to your personal folder on the server the handwritten notes. It is an enterprise solutions to help improve operational efficiency of the meeting.

[Dulin's Books]

yeah i get that- see my post above yours. i'd rather they list the devices price separately from the pricing for the services but yada yada yada...

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

yeah i get that- see my post above yours. i'd rather they list the devices price separately from the pricing for the services but yada yada yada...

Why would they do that?

[Istvan diVega]

Silly, silly price. At half the price, or even a bit more, I'd have jumped on this. At a grand there's no way in hell. And I agree it's likely aimed at the business market, but I doubt it'll make anything but a huge loss there too. For that market there are a number of 11.6" tablets available, which while not quite as large will let you do lots of stuff in addition to reading PDFs.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Why would they do that?

to appease me

and to make it accessible to the folks here at Mobileread and beyond that want it without those services

[Barty]

Very strange device. If it is aimed at business, shouldn't it read Word and Excel?

People who can justify paying $1000 for a PDF reader probably just pay somebody else to read boring stuff for them and give them an executive summary.

[charmian]

This is Sony, so I'm not surprised at the price. Don't they claim that this Mobius screen tech, though, is not the same as the normal e-ink, and also significantly larger than a 9.7" size, at 13.3"? (according to their press release, world's thinnest and lightest, blah blah)

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

to appease me

and to make it accessible to the folks here at Mobileread and beyond that want it without those services

But it wouldn't be the same device. The limited storage is fine for a device that is supposed to access files on a server, but not for an independent one. It must have a browser for the server, but I don't get the impression that is has an internet browser.

Originally Posted by Barty

Very strange device. If it is aimed at business, shouldn't it read Word and Excel?

People who can justify paying $1000 for a PDF reader probably just pay somebody else to read boring stuff for them and give them an executive summary.

It's marketed as a paperless solution for business meetings. You can print to PDF so you can easily get any documents you want at the meeting in PDF format.

As for the price, someone can correct me on this, but I thought that things are more expensive in Japan.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by charmian

This is Sony, so I'm not surprised at the price. Don't they claim that this Mobius screen tech, though, is not the same as the normal e-ink, and also significantly larger than a 9.7" size, at 13.3"? (according to their press release, world's thinnest and lightest, blah blah)

You think that someone might disagree with their "claim" that 13.3" is larger than 9.7"?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

But it wouldn't be the same device. The limited storage is fine for a device that is supposed to access files on a server, but not for an independent one. It must have a browser for the server, but I don't get the impression that is has an internet browser.

It does have a browser and it has a micro-SD slot I believe. The 2.8 G is what is left over for the user from the 4 GB memory.

Dale

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It does have a browser and it has a micro-SD slot I believe. The 2.8 G is what is left over for the user from the 4 GB memory.

If it has a browser it can read more than PDFs.

It has a microSD slot, but does anyone know if there are any issues with the fact that CPRM is not supported?

You can use microSD memory card (2 GB or less), microSDHC memory card (32 GB or less), but is not supported in (CPRM) copyright protection function.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If it has a browser it can read more than PDFs.

It has a microSD slot, but does anyone know if there are any issues with the fact that CPRM is not supported?

The S in SD is security which places a special code in a portion of the card not normally reachable by viewing the media. Most devices do not support CPRM which is stored in this secure area. Certain software can be used to support this but I am not aware of its use for PDF.

Dale

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by gamba66

so a price of 1000$ and only meant for business market? Sony Business Solutions indicates that.. If that is true, the pdf-reader will be very hard to come by as a consumer..

Also a japan-only release would be very disappointing, because importing would be useless since even the sony t1 - t3 readers only support japanese language

I am disappointed. For 1000$ you get a 150 DPI last-generation pearl e-ink screen with only pdf support..

I don't think it supports any language per se since it it is all inking and the UI seems based on icon and graphics, not sure if they included an OCR engine though. Also, I don't understand where you guys got the $1000 price point, the document states an "open price"meaning that it should be available at retailers. I'm thinking they are trying a new track here, going through office supply stores rather than electronic stores.

The document states that the device should hold 2.800 large documents (in a footnote defined as a 1MB file), that would turn into 2.8 GB off storage which sounds like a strange number, could the RAM be used for storage? Indicating a 4 GB device?

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It does have a browser and it has a micro-SD slot I believe. The 2.8 G is what is left over for the user from the 4 GB memory.

Dale

It doesn't state that it comes with a browser, but the spec sheet at the bottom says it it's equipped with 4 GB of memory of which 2.8 is available to the user, it a also says that applicable OS are Windows, from XP to 8, and Mac OS X from Leopard to Mountain Lion.