Sony's new 13.3" digital paper DPTRP1 released

[Avenger]

Originally Posted by betelguese

For that money you can get an Ipad Pro 12.9" , what are the advantages of a dedicated ebook reader over an Ipad Pro?

People like the screen on a dedicated e-reader better. Also the texture for writing tends to be better as well. That being said those smaller companies like Onyx don't ever seem to come through with a good, stable product. That's why I have a doubt that the flavor of the month, the Remarkable tablet will be any better.

[terekkincaid]

I finally got a reply to my post on the Sony forums:

http://community.sony.com/t5/Reader-...p/636128#M1943

Sorry for your trouble!* Yes, we're aware of this issue and planning to add Table Of Contents as well as Go To Page functionality*in a firmware upgrade.* I'll update this post as soon as it becomes available on Sony eSupport.

Sounds like they will be fixing it, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

[Avenger]

Originally Posted by terekkincaid

I finally got a reply to my post on the Sony forums:

http://community.sony.com/t5/Reader-...p/636128#M1943



Sounds like they will be fixing it, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

Thanks! Looks promising.

[xoanohn]

Originally Posted by terekkincaid

I finally got a reply to my post on the Sony forums:

http://community.sony.com/t5/Reader-...p/636128#M1943



Sounds like they will be fixing it, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

That’s great news!

[betelguese]

Originally Posted by Avenger

People like the screen on a dedicated e-reader better. Also the texture for writing tends to be better as well. That being said those smaller companies like Onyx don't ever seem to come through with a good, stable product. That's why I have a doubt that the flavor of the month, the Remarkable tablet will be any better.

I never suffered eye strain with LED monitors, and I work many hours using them daily. That being said, I like eink readers, they are more power efficient, lighter and readable outdoors. Only issue is the proprietary nature of e-ink devices in general, restrictive to just PDF or a few formats at best.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by betelguese

Being that you only use your Ipad Pro as a PDF reader, what made you choose the Ipad over the Sony or any other dedicated e-ink reader?

Speed and storage space are the main factors for me. Having seen videos of the new Sony, sure it's a lot faster than the older model, but it's still much slower than my iPad. I want to have my entire Egyptology reference library at my fingertips, and that's currently about 27GB of files, so I couldn't live with the 8GB (is that right?) of storage offered by the Sony. I also really like the capabilities offered by the "GoodReader" app on the iPad, in particular the ease it brings to rapidly flipping between multiple documents, something which is critical for academic research use, and the ability to easily load documents from virtually any online source or Cloud storage service.

The Sony seems like an excellent device, but it doesn't fit my personal requirements.

[betelguese]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Speed and storage space are the main factors for me. Having seen videos of the new Sony, sure it's a lot faster than the older model, but it's still much slower than my iPad. I want to have my entire Egyptology reference library at my fingertips, and that's currently about 27GB of files, so I couldn't live with the 8GB (is that right?) of storage offered by the Sony. I also really like the capabilities offered by the "GoodReader" app on the iPad, in particular the ease it brings to rapidly flipping between multiple documents, something which is critical for academic research use, and the ability to easily load documents from virtually any online source or Cloud storage service.

The Sony seems like an excellent device, but it doesn't fit my personal requirements.

Thanks HarryT, besides the factors you're mentioning, what about the "optical" experience of reading, what's more pleasant and relaxing to your eye, the Ipad Pro display or any other e-ink tablet that you might have experienced? Thanks for your feedback.
On a separate note, you seem to put a lot of emphasis on the storage capacity. Isn't that easily solved by using a high capacity USB pendrive? Or a NAS unit accessible both at home/office or from the internet?

[ManDay]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Speed and storage space are the main factors for me. Having seen videos of the new Sony, sure it's a lot faster than the older model, but it's still much slower than my iPad. I want to have my entire Egyptology reference library at my fingertips, and that's currently about 27GB of files, so I couldn't live with the 8GB (is that right?) of storage offered by the Sony. I also really like the capabilities offered by the "GoodReader" app on the iPad, in particular the ease it brings to rapidly flipping between multiple documents, something which is critical for academic research use, and the ability to easily load documents from virtually any online source or Cloud storage service.

The Sony seems like an excellent device, but it doesn't fit my personal requirements.

Harry, out of curiousity (I know virtually nothing about egyptology), this reference library is it so large because it contains a lot of pictures or because the text itself is also stored as a picture? If the latter is the case, have you tried reducing the size by OCR'ing the text and compressing the pictures to a resolution which fits that of the display?

In any case it's indeed regrettable that the RP1 has only 8GB of internal storage and no SD card. The latter is particularly hard to understand. Fortunally, I don't require a lot of storage for my documents, so I will be okay with 8GB, but such an SD card would have allowed additional hundreds of GB and taken no weight nor space at all :-(

[LarryNYC]

The RP1 has 16GB of memory, from this specifications page:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/dig...specifications

Sorry it's not 32GB, Harry, but I assume they're trying to reduce to cost of the device.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ManDay

Harry, out of curiousity (I know virtually nothing about egyptology), this reference library is it so large because it contains a lot of pictures or because the text itself is also stored as a picture? If the latter is the case, have you tried reducing the size by OCR'ing the text and compressing the pictures to a resolution which fits that of the display?

Yes, it's because the documents are, for the most part, page-scanned PDFs. OCR really wouldn't work too well, because many of the documents are discussions of Egyptian texts (my primary area of interest), and hence contain a lot of Egyptian hieroglyphs, etc, as a part of the text. Many of the older ones (which are very often the primary sources for the inscriptions) are hand-drawn, because they predated the existence of hieroglyphic fonts for printing! If you'd like to see an example, this document is one of the most important sources, and one I use constantly. Not something that OCR would work too well with! (If you scroll past the printed title pages and introduction, you'll see it's all hand-written.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by LarryNYC

The RP1 has 16GB of memory, from this specifications page:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/dig...specifications

Sorry it's not 32GB, Harry, but I assume they're trying to reduce to cost of the device.

Thank you for the correction - I wasn't sure, hence my use of a question mark!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by betelguese

Thanks HarryT, besides the factors you're mentioning, what about the "optical" experience of reading, what's more pleasant and relaxing to your eye, the Ipad Pro display or any other e-ink tablet that you might have experienced? Thanks for your feedback.

I've never been bothered by reading on LCD screens. I read fiction on my eInk Kindle, but I'm fine with reading PDFs on my iPad.

On a separate note, you seem to put a lot of emphasis on the storage capacity. Isn't that easily solved by using a high capacity USB pendrive? Or a NAS unit accessible both at home/office or from the internet?

Unfortunately the Sony has neither a memory card slot nor a way of directly accessing files stored in the Cloud. I don't really want to have to constantly be transferring files from my PC to a reading device: much more convenient to have it all at hand when I need it.

I've spent many years looking for a solution that works for me for research use, and for me the iPad is - currently at least - the best fit to my needs. Everyone's needs are different, of course, and what works for me is very likely not going to be the best fit for someone else's requirements.

[wmcl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, it's because the documents are, for the most page, page-scanned PDFs. OCR really wouldn't work too well, because many of the documents are discussions of Egyptian texts (my primary area of interest), and hence contain a lot of Egyptian hieroglyphs, etc, as a part of the text. Many of the older ones (which are very often the primary sources for the inscriptions) are hand-drawn, because they predated the existence of hieroglyphic fonts for printing! If you'd like to see an example, this document is one the most important sources, and one I use constantly. Not something that OCR would work too well with! (If you scroll past the printed title pages and introduction, you'll see it's all hand-written.)

Not to veer things off topic, but the younger version of myself is entirely in awe of the fact that you're an Egyptologist. That was my dream job as a youngster. I'm a rare book librarian now, specializing in medieval manuscripts - but man, I was fascinated by Egyptology as a kid - still am. Kudos!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wmcl

Not to veer things off topic, but the younger version of myself is entirely in awe of the fact that you're an Egyptologist. That was my dream job as a youngster. I'm a rare book librarian now, specializing in medieval manuscripts - but man, I was fascinated by Egyptology as a kid - still am. Kudos!

Strictly a hobby, albeit a somewhat all-consuming one. I work in IT in the "real world", but I do spend most of my holidays in Egypt, and a significant proportion of my free time working on Egyptian texts . It is fun, though, and fascinating being able to read the things that people wrote 3 or 4000 years ago. Makes it all seem so much more real, somehow.

[digiflash]

Originally Posted by Avenger

Just to clarify, are you talking about the tablet or the stylus?

Yes the RP1, not the stylus. Maybe not always switching it into sleep mode is a problem? I just leave it on the table. It automatically goes to sleep.