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Mobile Technology

Sony's pricey Digital Paper tablet gets a smaller sibling

By Paul Ridden
April 16, 2018
Sony's pricey Digital Paper tablet gets a smaller sibling
The DPT-CP1 tablet features an A5-sized e-ink display that caters for note-taking and annotation via the active stylus pen
The DPT-CP1 tablet features an A5-sized e-ink display that caters for note-taking and annotation via the active stylus pen
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The DPT-CP1 tablet features an A5-sized e-ink display that caters for note-taking and annotation via the active stylus pen
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The DPT-CP1 tablet features an A5-sized e-ink display that caters for note-taking and annotation via the active stylus pen
Despite its smaller size, Sony's DPT-CP1 has the same 16 GB of solid state memory as its bigger brother, the A4-sized DPT-RP1
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Despite its smaller size, Sony's DPT-CP1  has the same 16 GB of solid state memory as its bigger brother, the A4-sized DPT-RP1
The DPT-CP1 features Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless sharing of documents between the tablet and a smartphone running a newly-developed companion app
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The DPT-CP1 features Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless sharing of documents between the tablet and a smartphone running a newly-developed companion app
Like last year's DPT-RP1 e-ink tablet, the new DPT-CP1 is aimed at professional users
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Like last year's DPT-RP1 e-ink tablet, the new DPT-CP1 is aimed at professional users 
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Back in 2014, Sony released a new tablet designed to allow professionals to read and write documents without using real world paper. The Digital Paper tablet had an eye-friendly E Ink display panel and long battery life – but was pricey. The e-reader/tablet was updated last year to improve screen resolution, squeeze in more storage space and add NFC device unlocking. Now Sony Japan has announced a smaller, more portable version called the DPT-CP1.

The original Digital Paper tablet wasn't a pocket-friendly beast by any means, sizing up to roughly A4 paper proportions. Its RP1 successor shed a few millimeters here and there, and a few grams, and the CP1 is smaller again, this time filling out to A5 dimensions and just 5 mm thin. It's a featherweight addition to Sony's business club too, at 240 g (8.5 oz).

As before, the tablet has an E Ink display up top, which measures 10.3 diagonal inches at 1,404 x 1,872 dot resolution and offers 16 levels of gray scale adjustment. This display technology means less strain on the eyes than using, say, an iPad and allows it to be used in direct sunlight without having to worry about reflection or glare.

The DPT-CP1 features Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless sharing of documents between the tablet and a smartphone running a newly-developed companion app
The DPT-CP1 features Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless sharing of documents between the tablet and a smartphone running a newly-developed companion app

As well as reading PDF documents (its only supported file format), CP1 users can also write notes and annotate courtesy of the supplied active stylus pen. Its brain shapes up as a Marvell 64-bit quad-core processor, and there's 16 GB of internal memory included. Sony reckons that about 11 GB is available for document storage, which translates to up to around 10,000 documents.

Built-in Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi are put to good use thanks to the development of a new companion app for document sharing between the CP1 and a smartphone, with NFC making wireless connection as easy as hovering one over the other. Battery life of up to 3 weeks per charge is promised, depending on how it's used, while the Li-ion battery in the stylus pen should be good for a month of regular use.

The DPT-CP1 will be available from early June in Japan, for around JPY 70,000 (US$650). Sony hasn't revealed any plans to release the Digital Paper tablet worldwide.

Update May 22: Sony's 10-inch Digital Paper tablet has just gone up for pre-sale in the US for $599.99.

Source: Sony Japan

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Mobile TechnologySonyTabletE-Ink
2 comments
Paul Ridden
Paul Ridden
While Paul is loath to reveal his age, he will admit to cutting his IT teeth on a TRS-80 (although he won't say which version). An obsessive fascination with computer technology blossomed from hobby into career before hopping over to France for 10 years, where he started work for New Atlas in 2009. Now back in his native Blighty, he serves as Managing Editor in Europe.

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zr2s10
They won't release it in the US, because nobody here will pay that price for all the more it can do. For that price, you can get a decent tablet that will do a lot more.
Ralf Biernacki
11GB = 10 000 pdf documents? That's a bit of wishful thinking by Sony marketers. A BLANK pdf document produced by Adobe bloatware is already bigger than 1MB. The thing is ridiculously overpriced compared to e-book readers, considering that it can read no formats other than PDF---that's a crippling lack of flexibility, nowadays. Not even plaintext, not to mention e-book, open doc, or office formats. And the only thing it does is let you scribble on them. A dedicated PDF---scribbler, for that price? Cheaper tablets are fully functional computers that let you scribble on whatever as an afterthought. Sony used to be a good, innovative brand back in the days of the Walkman and Discman. The only new things they introduced since then are region-coding and DRM, thank you, Sony! And their hardware, from phones to laptops to cameras, is always second-best, but priced like the best.