Sony faithful that love their Xperia smartphone lineup and PlayStation gaming family would generally not spend over $700 on a device that doesn’t sport much more than a high-resolution E-Ink display and the ability to read and edit PDF documents, but Sony is betting that at least enough people would want to buy it to justify the cost of making it. Primarily aimed at the enterprise and law segments, the DPT-RP1 is a direct sequel to Sony’s previous DPT-S1, which served a similar function, but had a few less features and lesser specs. To justify its high price tag, this tablet boasts a software suite meant to make it easy to convert and transfer documents so that it can work with them, as well as a 13.3-inch display with a 1,650 by 2,200 resolution, along with Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, Wi-Fi, and about 3 weeks of battery life.
The tablet takes about 3.5 hours to get a full charge from a wall charger, or 5.5 hours from a USB connector on a computer. The insane battery life and decent resolution for its size are complemented by a special front panel that makes using the stylus feel like writing naturally on paper. That feeling is enhanced by a thin transparent layer, meaning that there’s only the smallest gap between user input and what’s outputted on the screen. There’s 16GB of internal storage for your documents, with no MicroSD slot, though that’s plenty of space with most types of PDF documents. The whole thing is powered by a specialized processor from Marvell, usually used for IoT devices, which boasts four cores and 64-bit processing.
To make using the tablet a bit easier, a special e paper app is included. The app can link to most phones and computers, and allows you to convert a wide range of content into PDF files, as well as transfer files to and from the tablet. The tablet can also use PDF files converted by other means, of course, such as the on board PDF printing function in Windows 10 PCs, or various Android apps that can turn a screenshot or downloaded picture into a PDF file. The reveal of this tablet comes on the heels of Sony announcing that they’ve officially signed a partnership with E Ink Holdings to make and sell E Paper hardware and displays.
