Sony Digital Paper DPT-S1 Owner's Thread

[PhilThompson]

Hi everyone. Looking to possibly buy one from shopereaders.com although the difference of 200 USD compared to Sony's site is holding me back right now.

Apart from reading technical PDFs my main purpose of this is to write notes and draw simple diagrams. I previously owned the Note 8 (recently left on a plane) and found it quite responsive but the screen was a little slippery. I imagine the feel is better on the SDP but response is somewhat lacking. Is it something you get used to? What are peoples experiences with the writing?

Oh, and how does it compare to the Onyx Boox M96? A smaller device at 9.7" but with some interesting reflow options and certainly cheaper and easier to get in the UK but wondering if it would be enough for my needs. Perhaps I should ask or check a more relevant thread but comparisons are welcome.

I would probably go with the one that provides the best writing experience.

Thanks,
Phil

[rem736]

i don't know about the M96. but i've used a M92, and the DSP-T1 is by far the clear winner, both in displaying pdf and in note taking. when you draw/write, the result doesn't look quite as good for half a second. but once you lift the pen off the surface to begin the next stroke, the previous figure drawn transforms and looks very good. it would be great if the effect was instantaneous, but this is still better than the M92. though i haven't seen the M96 in action, i assume that it's similar to the M92 in that respect.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ManDay

Oh, well... more bugs Thanks for reporting I hope that's fixed now

I finally got around to trying the -t option, and it died with the following error:

xdgopen: command not found

Web searches failed to turn up xdgopen, but there are lots of hits for xdg-open, which is on my computer.

I've made that change, and andded -L, -D, -S, -w, and -h options.

I made the -w and -h options to independently set width and height for optimum page ratio when the -a option wasn't working, but they may still be useful.

-L sets the optimum ratio for the page to be the same as US Letter, -D for 9.7 inch e-ink screens, and -S for Sony DPT-S1 (or any 3:4) screens.

I think that most of the time -a based on the crop box is best whatever the device, but that does require a bit of arithmetic that may not be worth the bother.

I just double checked, and xdgopen works on my computer typed directly in a terminal, but not from inside a script.

Attached as croppdf.gz (needs to be gunzip to extract).

[PhilThompson]

Thanks @rem736. Confirms what I found. You clearly get what you pay for with the Sony. Bigger, better, stronger, faster (and lighter) (cue Daft Punk).

Definitely going to get the SDP-S1 but the price to ship to the UK is just holding me back at the moment. $800 from Sony direct vs $1100 from shopereaders.com (+ shipping).

But I have been waiting for something like this for years...

[ManDay]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I finally got around to trying the -t option, and it died with the following error:

xdgopen: command not found

Web searches failed to turn up xdgopen, but there are lots of hits for xdg-open, which is on my computer.

I've made that change, and andded -L, -D, -S, -w, and -h options.

I made the -w and -h options to independently set width and height for optimum page ratio when the -a option wasn't working, but they may still be useful.

-L sets the optimum ratio for the page to be the same as US Letter, -D for 9.7 inch e-ink screens, and -S for Sony DPT-S1 (or any 3:4) screens.

I think that most of the time -a based on the crop box is best whatever the device, but that does require a bit of arithmetic that may not be worth the bother.

I just double checked, and xdgopen works on my computer typed directly in a terminal, but not from inside a script.

Attached as croppdf.gz (needs to be gunzip to extract).

Well I guess -w and -h individually don't make much sense since they only set a ratio and are not absolute values. As for xdg(-)open, I don't have it, either, so I never noticed. Always ran it with "-v mupdf"

[Yoni]

It doesn't appear in the tech specs even at Sony's website, did anyone check and knows for sure how much RAM it has?


Thanks

[ManDay]

I wish they'd finally release that update that has been out for the JP version for more than half a year... How hard can it be? I hope they will, eventually, at all...

[PhilThompson]

From Sony's website:

SD Card Compatibility
Internal memory of 4 GB (2.8 usable)
coupled with slot for
a micro SD card.

[PhilThompson]

So I took the plunge and ordered one from shopereaders.com to United Kingdom. They don't have a deal on at the moment but when I asked if they'd do it at the sale price it was no problem. $1300 CAD including postage to UK. About £650. Not bad!

In preparation, I've been getting my Calibre library under control. I read quite a few articles that I scrounge from the Internet and was using Pocket to organise them. However, the Calibre news feed only works through a loop hole in their API which they could close off at any time (although it's been several years so unlikely) and it seemed like extra hoops just to get it on to the Reader. Also, it puts all the articles into a single book which is not what I wanted.

Anyway, I found a great little Chrome extension called Clearly by Evernote that gives an even better article view (so far) than Pocket. Click the print icon and Save as PDF to a folder watched by Calibre and in to the library it goes ready for syncing with DPT-S1 (when I get it). It doesn't even require you to be an Evernote user.

Now I just have to contain my excitement for 2 weeks until the Digital Paper arrives!

[PhilThompson]

Just in time too! It seems Calibre only just added support for the DPT-S1 last month. Nice.

[Yoni]

Originally Posted by PhilThompson

From Sony's website:

SD Card Compatibility
Internal memory of 4 GB (2.8 usable)
coupled with slot for
a micro SD card.

That's the internal storage, but how much RAM does it have?

[PhilThompson]

Sorry you're right. Wikipedia says the RAM is not published currently. Maybe an owner can step in here. Otherwise I'll post when I get mine.

[markom]

Originally Posted by Yoni

That's the internal storage, but how much RAM does it have?

I remember some users here and some on the net (after opening the case) reporting 1 GB of RAM after checking out the serial numbers of the chips therein.

[space_voyager]

Hi everyone! it's my first time posting. I got the DPT-S1 a few days ago and so far I am loving it. Just what I need for the many engineering books I read. I have a few feature requests, however, that would allow me to ditch Adobe Acrobat entirely:

1) The "duplicate tab" feature is awesome, but even better would be if we were able to split the screen into 2 or 3 parts and display different parts of the document in them (this is available in many PDF reader on PC, including Acrobat).
2) be able to edit the table of contents. So far I have to go back to Acrobat after reading to change around the table of contents (I create one with bookmarks where I want them to be such that I can keep track of the important parts of the book).
3) Be able to follow a hyperlink in a document to another part of the document and then go back to where you came from (equivalent to Alt+LeftArrow in Acrobat).
4) More pen and highlighter color options!
5) Improve handwriting in the "writing" speech bubble - it seems more jagged there than when I write directly onto the document of in a notebook.

I so far make up for the above by connecting the Sony to my PC after reading 10 or so pages of a book, making changes in Acrobat on the file, saving it (which saves automatically to the Sony's memory) and continuing to read on the e-reader. I'd like to of course avoid going to my computer and be able to do all this on the DPT-S1 itself.

What do you guys think of these features? And how can I forward them to Sony for implementation?

Best,

Danylo.

[ManDay]

Originally Posted by space_voyager

Hi everyone! it's my first time posting. I got the DPT-S1 a few days ago and so far I am loving it. Just what I need for the many engineering books I read. I have a few feature requests, however, that would allow me to ditch Adobe Acrobat entirely:

1) The "duplicate tab" feature is awesome, but even better would be if we were able to split the screen into 2 or 3 parts and display different parts of the document in them (this is available in many PDF reader on PC, including Acrobat).

That would be nice, but I wouldn't count on it. Frankly, I'm only hoping that we can still get the 1.4 update. I don't expect Sony to push more updates after that. Let alone such a major change.

3) Be able to follow a hyperlink in a document to another part of the document and then go back to where you came from (equivalent to Alt+LeftArrow in Acrobat).

That's already possible. Tap on a link to follow it (even hyperlinks to the web work) and click the page-indicator (bottom left) and choose "Go back to previous" page to return.

4) More pen and highlighter color options!

The 1.4 version has one more "thick" line style for both colors.

5) Improve handwriting in the "writing" speech bubble - it seems more jagged there than when I write directly onto the document of in a notebook.

In the document, the AntiAliasing sets in as soon as the pen is taken out of proximity. In the handwritten notes, the AA sets in when you Save the note but not later than after a certain delay (2 minutes or so) or a certain number of strokes (50 or so).

And how can I forward them to Sony for implementation?

SONY (US) is known not to give a damn about the customer's wishes and provide only by-the-manual customer support. That's because SONY US is tightly governed by the japanese HQ's policy with strict guidelines and little feedback. The most promising albeit not-promising-at-all way is probably to get in touch with SONY JP and get as-close to the actual devs as possible (or impossible, even). But as I said, I don't expect any more updates from SONY. Everything indicates that the DPT-S1 seems to be reaching its EOL.