Sony's 13.3-inch e-ink notepad arrives in the US in May

by Mark Tyson on 28 March 2014, 13:30

Tags: Sony (NYSE:SNE), Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), PC

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Back in 2013, we saw Sony introducing its 13.3-inch e-ink Digital Paper notepad which was aimed at university students in Japan. The slate is now reportedly hitting the US market in May, distributed by Worldox, a legal and financial document management company based in New Jersey. It's expected to be priced at $1100.

Designed for reading, writing and annotating documents, the new Sony device offers a high contrast 1,200 x 1,600 pixel, 16-level greyscale e-ink 'Mobius' display. It is equipped with an active digitiser for use with a digital pen; for taking notes and making sketches in a natural fashion. Weighing in at 358g, which is light considering its dimensions, the Sony notepad also features an optical touchscreen with no backlight, 4GB internal memory, a microSD card slot, Wi-Fi, PDF support and a claimed battery life of three weeks.

As noted by Liliputing, the Sony e-ink slate was developed as a solution to ease paper clutter whilst making document sharing easier for professionals in legal, higher education, government and other enterprise markets - rather than positioning itself as a consumer device.

But $1,100 is a hefty price tag for a device which has limited software running on it and doesn't allow installation of apps or provide additional tablet style abilities; only supporting viewing, editing and managing PDFs but no other formats. It also currently cannot be used for other related office tasks such as emailing despite built-in Wi-Fi. With Worldox not being a retail distributor, it is also unlikely that the device is going to become available in public facing retail stores. Business and institutional customers will be able to purchase it directly from Worldox.



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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Weird - no backlight is a big loss and very limited. PDFs are a poor format for ebook readers too as they don't reflow well if at all. Instant tank IMO unless they can get a publishing/distribution deal tied in to provide end to end book replacement service. And I'm a big fan of high end ebook readers.
This looks good and useful for quick notes but the lag on that scares me.
Looks like a very typical first generation product, I only hope that enough of them sell to justify the subsequent generations as the overall idea does seem to be a good one.
Agree completely with Lucio's comments. You can see where this is going and it's a great first effort, but it's going to need more refinement and a lower price before I'd consider it.
cptwhite_uk
Agree completely with Lucio's comments. You can see where this is going and it's a great first effort, but it's going to need more refinement and a lower price before I'd consider it.

Not just before you consider it, I think before anyone considers it. This will be a big flop for Sony.