Sony DPT-S1 Digital Paper System

First impressions after playing with it for one day (Fri Jul 15 2016):- writing is GREAT!!! The response is quite fast, and it feels almost like paper (better than the very slippery iPad Pro).- wonderful for reading full page PDFs!!!- web browser is almost unusable. Its very slow, and most sites just get stuck. Not sure why it's so bad- webDAV for file sharing hasn't worked yet, trying to use my Mac as the server, using the WebDAVNav app. Just can't get it to connect and transfer. That makes syncing files with a computer impossible.- transfer via USB cable works fine. The device shows up as drive on the computer, and you can move files to and from at will.- it seems that you can only copy/paste what you write in notes. You can't even copy/paste from a PDF to a note (at least I haven't figured out how yet), nor from a web page, or to the URL input box of the browser (although you can select text from a PDF and 'search with google', or 'open link' if it's a link). It would be useful to be able to copy and paste more freely!I worry that the BACK | HOME | MENU click buttons at the bottom edge of the device will eventually stop working, and then the device will be unusable, because some operations (like going back to the home screen when you are reading a PDF, writing a note, or using the web browser) can ONLY be done with those buttons. Plus they are noisy and not as easy/slick as touching the screen. Thus, I hope that in a future update these buttons are incorporated into the note-taking sidebar (there's plenty of space there for them!) as well as in the pop up of the top edge notification bar, for instance. One way or another, they should be available from the screen!! That would be such an easy and smart thing to do!!!I will update my review as I keep using it.

As June 2016, this is the best reader for technical books and PDFs, period! Look no further. The size is perfect. The weight is perfect. The speed is decent. And the actual design is cool as well.For years I was "forced" to use the iPad Air to read my MSSQL books. The Paperwhite and Oasis (have both) are too small. And the Kindle DXG born dead. So the iPad Air was the closest solution to what my problem was: decent reader for PDF and technical books. The main problem though, is that iPad air is a tablet with LCD screen. While battery is ok, it eventually dies after several hours of intense use. You can barely use it outdoors, and while still light, not ideal for reading in bed. It was my only choice for few years. It worked, but always wanted an eink device. Now with the Sony DPTS1, I no longer need the iPad with a PDF dedicated app. Sony's device does a better job in terms of battery life and actual screen size, moreover, my eyes are not complaining after 30 minutes or so of continue reading.The annotation works fantastic, almost like having a real piece of paper and a pen. This makes it ideal for studying, as you can combine notes with your actual document. The iPad Pro is the closest thing I've seen, but you have to pay for the stylus, included with the Sony's, and you don't have the same type of integration.Now, I don't see myself using this device for any of these:-Reading novels or fiction.-Browsing internetFor the 1st activity, the Paperwhite or Oasis are the best solution. In fact, that's what I have. And for browsing the internet, eink devices are not still a good choice, because the refresh rate and black and white restriction.The price of this device is outrageous though. They started selling it at 1k. Now is at 800 bucks, but still. It was painful to pay that amount of money for an eink device but sadly (or luckily) is the best choice for what I need. But I think anything closer to the 300 would be a more palatable proposition.

Pros:- LIghtweight- Responsive stylus- Big screen- Long battery lifeCons:- Slow-ish- Difficult to connect to network storage- Limited sync options- Limited text contrast.We bought this to be a digital paper solution for television control room operators. The hope was to put files into a share on a Windows server, connect the DPTS1 to that share, and have access to the files simply, as we would do with any Windows device (or Android, for that matter).No dice. The DPTS1 used WebDAV protocol (only... no SMB) which I'd never heard of before. Windows server does has a WebDAV component (not installed by default), and while it works, it isn't good and definitely not simple. To make matters worse is the sync behavior. If we put files in the WebDAV folder on the server. That will sync to the DPTS1 (good), but the automatic sync only checks every 90 minutes (not so good, and not configurable). Yes, the DPTS1 user can force a sync, which helps.Afterwards, we want a network user to be able to delete a file from the WebDAV folder and have that deletion be synced to the DPTS1 (delete the file on that device). Nope. In fact, it's worse: the DPTS1 will see the file missing from the network folder, and will re-sync the file by uploading the DPTS1 copy of the file back to the network folder! Not what we want to happen. So, in order for files to be deleted from the DPTS1, it has to be done locally, on the device itself. That puts the file management burden on the user, not what we want to do.Next: a DPTS1 user can write notes on the local PDF files, and those changed files can be written back to the WebDAV folder. However, they don't overwrite the original file as we expected. They have to go in some other folder (inconvenient), and each version of the changed PDF is saved separately, with a file name changed to show the date of the file. I suppose this can be useful in some situations, but we'd like to option to change this behavior.The text contrast on the screen is okay, but not great. It on-par with pre-Paperwhite Kindle screens. The background is not white enough, and the text isn't black enough (for lower light environments).Everyone who picks it up is amazed at how light it is, and usage is very intuitive. We can deal with the nominal screen performance, but really need the networking and sync behavior to be changed to make this a really suitable paper replacement in our shop.