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At a time when all the companies are putting their bets on tablets and that too a smaller one, Sony surprises us in a move of announcing about their next tablet. Except that it’s not, a tablet. The 13.3 inch device that the company is planning to launch is an E-Reader.
The Sony e-reader boasts of 13.3 inch capacitive touchscreen, with a resolution of 1600×1200 pixels, and E Ink display. And it comes with a stylus. It offers storage capacity of 4GB along with a microSD memory card slot. In terms of connectivity, the Wi-Fi is 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz) compliant. It supports the PDF file format. Promises a battery of 3 weeks with Wi-Fi turned off. And the device weighs 358 grams.
The company, as it appears, is mainly targeting it towards the students as it wants the device to be used for educational purposes. Sony is going to demonstrate the e-reader Waseda University, Ritsumeikan University, and Hosei, according to their official blog. It wants the device to be utilized in the classrooms, with the aim to achieve “digital paper solutions”, as they put it.
They also plan to exhibit the prototype at the “Fourth education IT solutions EXPO” to be held at Tokyo Big Sight from 15 to 17 May.
Sony defends, or rather justifies, the 13.3 inch display saying, the reason behind the screen is that, it is equivalent to the A4 paper size. As we can see, Sony is only showcasing the prototype right now. Presuming that the company will proceed with the product depending on the responses from the events and the reviews it garners, it is highly unlikely that the product will actually hit the stores within the next 6 months or even a year as a matter of fact.
Obviously the device won’t have an Android or any other OS. And considering the purpose of the device, the e-reader will surely not support any third party apps or games. Even the college kids today prefer Tablets as not only serves as entertainment but has doubles up as an e-book reader at time, plus the wide range of educational apps that it offers. Even the e-books releasing these days are mostly interactive and require color displays.
So where does this leave Sony. There were no details about how much the product would eventually cost, but assuming is a low cost device, would you want to buy it?
Via: The Verge
Source: Sony JP
I certainly think it’s an excellent option for education. Hope it’s reasonably priced though.