Sony’s been trying to kick paper to the curb – they have recently showed off their latest digital paper tablet, the DPT-RP1.

The DPT-RP1 offers a 13.3-inch display – not dissimilar to its predecessor. An upside – the resolution has greatly improved from 1200 x 1600 dots to 1650 x 2200 dots. The screen is a “non-slip” panel, which the company says will improve the experience of annotating documents with the included digital pen. The new design is also thinner, lighter, and faster than the previous version; Sony notes that the entire device is roughly as thick as a stack of 30 pages of paper.

While the more commonly known name for e-ink displays are Amazon’s Kindles, you’d be forgiven if you didn’t know Sony’s Librie was one of the first devices to adopt e-ink display. In fact, Librie came out 3 years prior to the emergence of the first Kindle.

A rather disappointing downside is that DPT-RP1 still only works with PDF files. So while it won’tbe your next replacement for Kindle, it kind of makes a lot of sense for businesses, lawyers, and university researchers who are looking to digitise their workflow. In fact, Sony developed a new Digital Paper App for desktop to make it easier to convert websites and documents to PDF form and send them wirelessly to the DPT-RP1.

Another steep hill to climb – the price is not much cheaper than it’s first generation. Sure, it’s not as hefty as the US$1000 range that the original DPT-S1 carry; the latest model is still looking at a retail price of 80,000 yen (roughly USD$719) after being made available on June 5th.