[HN Gopher] The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader
___________________________________________________________________
The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader
Author : carlesfe
Score : 207 points
Date : 2021-11-22 09:07 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cfenollosa.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cfenollosa.com)
| geijoenr wrote:
| I am a Remarkable user for almost a year and I have to say there
| is no way back for me. The user interface navigation is built in
| a way that allowed me to build a workflow around it that just
| works.
|
| Is an excellent device and I am super happy with it.
| tristor wrote:
| I have an rM2, and I loved it at first. But honestly, I've just
| gone back to carrying a notepad and a pen. One of the biggest
| issues I have is that for /most/ things when I want to take
| notes, it's because I've found myself in a spur of the moment
| situation and I need something that will fit in my pocket. For
| planned note-taking, I'd rather type than write. I write because
| I can fit a pen in my pocket. I guess it's somewhat of a
| tautology, but in the end my rM2 has sat very prettily on my
| desk, completely unused, for months.
|
| I don't think there's anything wrong with the device itself, I
| think it just didn't fit the way that I take notes. The only
| thing I found as an actual annoyance was that they forced you
| into using their cloud services which I didn't think were very
| good. I would have much rather had it OCR my notes into Standard
| Notes or figured out a way to sync. Syncing to Standard Notes
| never happened, so I just type long-form notes directly into
| Standard Notes and keep a Rite in the Rain pad in my pocket and a
| pen for spur of the moment stuff.
| dkobia wrote:
| I really really wanted one of these for note taking. I settled on
| an iPad Pro + Apple pen + Notes App which have been remarkably
| (no pun intended) good. The fact that I can then consume the
| notes I wrote on my computer or phone and use search as well with
| no extra effort required has been invaluable.
| esel2k wrote:
| Same here, I settled for Ipad and Apple pen, also because I see
| no need to add another device after caring a phone, tablet and
| notebook. May I ask if you found a good note app? I am still
| looking, especially one that gives me cloud sync and
| distraction free reading.
| pantulis wrote:
| The reMarkable dilemma is that they got the hardware right
| --modulo backlighting, but that will come--. It's the services
| around such a powerful device that people will find lacking. Open
| source enthusiasts will state that they want freedom, while
| people who care less about that freedom will get suspicious as to
| what happens if the company ceases to exist. The latter will
| probably consider an iPad a better value proposition, but then
| the reMarkable offers a less distractive environment.
|
| I find the reMarkable a truly interesting device but I feel that
| I do not have time to tinker with it as it currently is, so for
| the moment I am on an iPad (use it for sheet music and PDF
| annotation)
| soledades wrote:
| The lack of backlighting is the one and only reason I went with
| Onxy Boox Note Air 2 over Remarkable2.
|
| Is it really on the way? Is there an ETA?
| pantulis wrote:
| Dont know, just i'm supposing it _has_ to be on the roadmap
| for the next product revision. Otherwise I would be having
| one.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| I'm not sure how the hardware can be "right" when it cannot do
| its most important, touted feature on-device (handwriting
| recognition), it is basically a one-trick pony according to
| Wired (who said it only does note-taking well) and almost
| everything about the device is outclassed by a used iPad new
| enough to run iOS 14 or better and which supports the Apple
| Pencil.
|
| For about the same $400 (the device after a year is going to
| cost you $400 either way; if owned for 3 years it'll have a TCO
| of nearly $600) you can get a used iPad Air 3 and Pencil and do
| everything the reMarkable can do, with your choice of screen
| size...a screen that is color, backlit, higher resolution, full
| motion. Excellent pressure and angle sensitivity from the
| stylus. Cellular connectivity, if you want it. Full multimedia
| capabilities, video conferencing/calling, web browsing, the
| entire suite of iOS apps. If you have a Mac, all the desktop
| integration features. Your choice of private or cloud based
| backup and sync, no device modification needed. And top-notch
| on-device biometric security.
|
| Oh, and an iPad can do on-device dictation and handwriting
| recognition/cleanup. The reMarkable cannot do on-device writing
| recognition - only via their cloud, which costs $8/month. And
| requires storing your documents with a company that is based in
| Hong Kong, which means "freely available to CCP intelligence
| services."
|
| I've used eInk readers for probably close to a decade and a
| half - I started with the original Sony reader - and sorry, but
| eInk still has significant limitations for any sort of
| interactivity. It's better than it was ten years ago, but I
| think "physical pixels being flipped end-to-end in a viscous
| media" has an inherent maximum refresh rate that they'll never
| get past and the technology will never get past static low
| power displays and e-reader devices. I don't even see it
| surviving much longer given how far OLED displays are coming;
| they offer all the same low-power advantages, better contrast
| ratios, and full color / high refresh rates. Not as good full-
| sunlight readability, though.
| tapia wrote:
| The most important feature is not handwriting recognition,
| but the fact that it is a large e-ink screen, where you can
| comfortably read and write. You don't get that with an iPad.
| If you read a lot of documents there is really no comparison,
| because it is a different category of device.
| jessmartin wrote:
| > The most important feature is not handwriting
| recognition, but the fact that it is a large e-ink screen,
| where you can comfortably read and write. You don't get
| that with an iPad.
|
| This
|
| If these are the killer features you're looking for, the RM
| is delightful. I've been using mine for over a year, almost
| every single day. I would love to see the software services
| flesh out a bit more, but honestly, that's icing on the
| cake.
|
| A rock-solid paper note-taking replacement that doubles as
| a highlightable PDF reader and has no "apps" - I'm sold!
| 2fast4you wrote:
| Adding on more praise. I think of it like paper enhanced.
| I loved takes notes on paper, but I needed to be able to
| rearrange my thoughts quickly without erasing and
| rewriting. Remarkable does that really well, and that's
| all I need it for. Worth every penny
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I would really like a color e-ink device though - like
| https://www.theverge.com/21507390/pocketbook-color-review-e-...
| but bigger.
| ijuhoor wrote:
| I've got the boox note 3 color for my partner. It's 7", a bit
| small for me but it's pretty good. She loves it but after
| couple of months she used only the black 'color' and doesn't
| bother to switch to other colors.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I basically only want color for reading comics.
|
| on edit: clarified.
| Loic wrote:
| If you are not sure which gadget could be the one for you, take
| also a look at the Supernote[0]. I have been using one (A5X) for
| the past month with a Lamy EMR and I really really enjoy it. It
| improves my note taking.
|
| I still have 7 Moleskins on my desk right now, but I haven't
| written in them for the past two weeks.
|
| The philosophy of the Supernote is not to replace the notebook,
| but more to improve it. You can create titles which automatically
| go to a table of content, you have tags, all packaged in a very
| nice hardware.
|
| The other very nice thing for me, it works totally "offline" if
| you want. No need to sync with a cloud or whatever. Connect it
| with USB to your computer, sync your folders like normal folders,
| done.
|
| [0]: https://supernote.com
| infinitezest wrote:
| I came here to post a similar comment. I picked up a supernote
| a few months ago and I really love it. The writing experience
| is better than a notebook in my opinion and it also does a
| pretty decent job with PDF reading. In my experience their
| support is really good as well.
| michaelmior wrote:
| I haven't tried Supernote, but FWIW reMarkable can work totally
| offline as well.
| Loic wrote:
| The OCR on the Supernote is offline. This is something very
| convenient for me.
| enduser wrote:
| How does the latency compare to reMarkable? I noticed that
| Supernote is based on Android, which I would expect to have a
| higher level of latency.
| Loic wrote:
| Some people say that it has a higher latency but that the
| coming update (in beta now[0]) is very very close to the
| reMarkable to the point of being hard to see a difference.
|
| For me personally, on the stable kernel and as a first time
| user of such e-Ink writing device, I am very satisfied. I
| also mostly use the Lamy EMR pen because of the button to
| activate the eraser.
|
| [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Supernote_beta/
| m01 wrote:
| Looks interesting. It also looks like they're planning on
| opening it up a bit, but people are still waiting for ssh
| access etc [1].
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Supernote/comments/nhfexf/is_root_a...
| Loic wrote:
| You do not have the same level of access as a reMarkable.
| This is for sure. But they are also very proactive with the
| end-users, listening a lot to the feedback (they have a
| dedicated subreddit). So you do not have an open device but a
| device where your needs are well cared of.
|
| I hope that in the future we will get an SDK to create App
| which integrate nicely into the device to extend it. As it is
| for me a single task device, a bit like a cordless phone or
| my HiFi setup, I do not need it as open as my laptop which
| has been running Linux for the past 20 years.
| vaylian wrote:
| I wish the author wouldn't call it a "notebook", because that
| term already means "laptop". It should probably be called an
| "e-ink tablet".
| spicybright wrote:
| It's not for everyone, but you get full root + ssh access to the
| device. I'm wondering if there's any good apps to fill in the
| gaps.
| epolanski wrote:
| The reMarkable is one of those devices for which I consistently
| feel like "I'll wait for the next one".
|
| Few reasons why:
|
| - backlight
|
| - ocr
|
| - better pen and eraser
|
| In my mind I'd like to make it a "programming sketchbook", where
| every time I save, text get OCRd, compiled and I get some compile
| information out of it.
|
| Obviously I would be just sending the buffer to an external
| computer and get the output, or something like that.
|
| But the current reMarkable and its ecosystem made me think what I
| was looking for was way too experimental.
| wcarss wrote:
| A programming sketchbook sounds great! I imagine having e.g.
| GPT-3 generate syntactically-correct code out of hand-written
| pseudocode
| projectileboy wrote:
| What's so weird is that it already has OCR, but only through a
| weird feature where you're emailing someone a copy and paste,
| or some such. It's like they're sitting on the killer feature
| and can't figure it out. Feels like a potentially great product
| in need of a great product manager.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I bought a physical notebook recently and oh man it's so much
| better than an iPad. Especially when I'm trying to sketch out
| architecture or play around with ideas, a pen and paper is
| unbeatable. Maybe it's all the years of school making me hand
| write code, but I've started to like hand writing an algorithm or
| hand writing potential syntax for a language.
| nicbou wrote:
| I went the other way and I'm really happy I did. I use it for
| anything from thinking on paper to actual art. I'm in love with
| that device.
| punnerud wrote:
| Archived version from yesterday:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20211121224157/https://cfenollos...
| ijuhoor wrote:
| I've been using a Sony Epaper notebook for almost 2 years now and
| considering buying a Boox Note 5 or Air 2 (the remarkable didn't
| make my short list) They are running almost stock android and the
| quality seems better than remarkable. I've watched My Deep Guide
| (https://youtube.com/c/MyDeepGuide) where they test every single
| feature of all note taking devices.
|
| This article says that you have root access on the remarkable,
| but doing so will void the warranty.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| The Sony runs Android? Can you install the Kindle app on it?
| oDot wrote:
| Note that Onyx has problematic software practices:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27513521
| ijuhoor wrote:
| Hum, good to know. I'll stay on my Sony then: it syncs with
| my phone only. I think it was made for lawyers etc...
| cycomanic wrote:
| Have a look at the reinkstone, that looks quite
| interesting. I have a remarkable and a sony. I haven't used
| the sony since buying the remarkable. Despite the larger
| size, it is a much worse device. The writing experience
| really doesn't compare.
|
| An alternative if you want more functionality is to root
| your sony, there was some progress on hacking the sony for
| putting regular android packages on it. I can dig out some
| links if you can't find it.
| AlanYx wrote:
| If you've been using a Sony DPT-RP1 or DPT-CP1, you should also
| consider the Fujitsu Quaderno Gen 2, which is the most
| prominent successor of the RP1/CP1. I strongly prefer my
| Quaderno to my Remarkable 2. Unfortunately My Deep Guide hasn't
| been able to get a review unit yet.
| frodetb wrote:
| I was not able to use this thing comfortably. I think my
| handwriting style might not be optimal for it, as too small
| details and tight loops seemed to disappear on me. My handwriting
| is pretty small to begin with, and only gets tinier with
| subscripts and tiny details in mathematical writing.
|
| There was also a slight input delay that I found annoying. I love
| writing on paper, and so if the experience is significantly
| inferior I won't be sold. I totally disagree with the author's
| claim that this thing provides a superior writing experience,
| unless they've improved on their designs and it now actually does
| feel like paper.
|
| I would instead highly recommend a much cheaper, though dumber,
| yet far superior LCD-slate (like one of these:
| https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-howshow-lcd-writing-t...).
| The writing is instant, and even the tightest loops and smallest
| details will show up as if on paper (though green-on-black). When
| I was in university, I would use this for sketches in
| discussions, rough calculations and drafts, and saved a ton of
| paper that I would otherwise just have thrown away.
|
| The fact that it wouldn't let me save stuff or share my drawings
| didn't bother me at all. Worst case scenario, I'd just take a
| picture of it.
| k3liutZu wrote:
| Which version did you use?
|
| I have a remarkable 2 which I use daily for 6+ months now. It
| does get really tiny details right. Since lines are pixelated I
| can see maybe up to 2px precision.
|
| You have to use a smaller "brush" for this though.
|
| I'm also not seeing any delay.
| frodetb wrote:
| I'm not sure what the version was, and it was probably an
| earlier version if there are multiple. This was around 2-3
| years ago.
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| MyDeepGuide on YouTube has a lot of good reviews on reMarkable
| and other e-ink devices
| chobytes wrote:
| The hardware itself is really nice but the company is awful. God
| help you if you need any support from them at all.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I've seen adds for this thing, and it reminds me of nothing so
| much as the old Will Ferrell skit on SNL about "virtual reality
| reading."
|
| I mean, why not just use paper?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > find myself needing to do the gesture up to four or five times
| until it works
|
| This drives me nuts.
| nicbou wrote:
| I was seriously considering one but ended up buying the latest
| iPad Mini. It was the right decision. It was the Moleskine
| replacement I was looking for. The software is simply excellent.
| I use Notability and Procreate. The software on the remarkable
| doesn't compare.
|
| There are a few features that I didn't know I needed: using a
| photo as a reference, using the camera to pick colors, browsing
| notes like they're pages in a notebook, annotating websites,
| sending drawings with telegram, etc.
|
| I never leave the house without my iPad. I never use it for
| browsing or watching videos. It doesn't show any notifications.
| It's strictly a notebook replacement, and It's brilliant.
| etiam wrote:
| I want a device of this type.
|
| It may be a silly reason to deduct points, but the fact that this
| company are name parasitizing on a real word, and especially one
| in widespread and important use, is already putting them behind
| for me.
|
| Having said that Supernote's ambitions for more
| ruggedness/robustness and Pinenote's openness and overall
| stronger specs would probably have made them higher priority
| anyway once I get around to ordering.
| zaidf wrote:
| My experience with reMarkable was extremely disappointing. If the
| device works for you, it's amazing. And if it doesn't, you're
| basically out of luck.
|
| That is how I would summarize reMarkable from talking to friends
| and my own personal experience.
| kristopolous wrote:
| It's really the "pen computing" from the early 90s in some round
| 2. There were some pretty amazing things that the hardware wasn't
| ready for the first time (I'm thinking GO corp stuff) but when I
| asked the guys at CES 2020 if they had ever heard of it, it was a
| no. (For instance, if I worked there I'd get my hands on one of
| Jeff Hawkins GRiDpads (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRiDPad)
| here's a nice overview
|
| History of tech needs to be more widely studied. I think we'd get
| really great products if people knew their history better.
| romeros wrote:
| why it did not catch on then?
|
| why is round 2 successful?
| evgen wrote:
| In a lot of cases the hardware could just barely keep up at
| the top-end of the market and for devices that were in the
| 'affordable' zone the hardware was just not powerful enough.
|
| An Apple Newton MessagePad 2000 was a sweet device; the
| ultimate note taking tool that was not equalled by any tablet
| for more than 20 years. My handwriting style happened to work
| well for the Newton and as a consequence it was an amazing
| tool that exceeded my expectations, but I knew several people
| whose handwriting was not picked up well by the recognition
| engine and so they struggled with the device. The earlier
| Newtons were also underpowered and the handwriting engine was
| over-hyped so they failed to live up to expectations.
|
| Round 2 has much better hardware, improved connectivity and
| wireless tools, and a larger ecosystem they can try to fit
| into. I think it remains to be seen if round 2 of these
| notebook tools will succeed. I think that the eInk devices
| like the reMarkable are _not_ succeeding in the market but
| regular tablet devices are making progress in this area and
| are more likely to end up the winners in any revival of
| electronic notebook tools.
| kristopolous wrote:
| The two things are certainly a different use case and
| essentially every book on business ever written would
| dictate it'd have different devices but I don't know.
|
| Certainly taking holiday photos, trading stocks, and
| hailing a cab aren't the same things, but the smartphone
| does all _those_ things.
|
| So yeah, Christensen, Moore, Collins, Ries and Trout say
| "different devices, different market" but recent lived
| reality says "nope, same device".
|
| So I've got no idea
| selykg wrote:
| Good luck ever getting a warranty or return done on these. Look
| around at their support. It's awful. I had to file a dispute
| after they wouldn't provide a refund for my return after nearly
| 30 days of non-movement of the return (their label, their
| shipping carrier).
|
| I would strongly caution you run away. Worst customer support
| I've ever experienced.
|
| Edit: I will never understand people that downvote a warning like
| this. But HN, you do you, I have karma to burn and if this
| warning helps one other person I'll consider it worth it.
| bilekas wrote:
| How dare you give a warning based on experience.
|
| I'm always suspicious though of heavy affiliate links and when
| every review on a product (1000+) are all 4-5 stars. I know
| it's not but it screams to me of the dropshipping popup sites.
| rchaud wrote:
| Affiliate sites have ruined product search in the same way
| that Pinterest has ruined image search.
|
| Video reviews/tutorials are often the way to go because they
| tend to be more up to date (you can't fiddle with the Youtube
| publish date the way you can with a blog site). Additionally,
| the tutorials can help demonstrate niche features and whether
| they function as expected.
| selykg wrote:
| What I've heard, and no idea if this is true, but I think my
| experience backs it up somewhat I just have no hard proof of
| it.
|
| If you see a company advertising heavily on social media
| sites, and Remarkable is everywhere for me on social media
| sites, they're basically throwing all their money at
| advertising and all other areas of their business are getting
| the short end and suffering.
|
| With the recent news they're moving subscription for their
| various services I think it's clear Remarkable is likely to
| die in a couple years.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| I can agree. I had a WiFi issue with mine and the customer
| support had me reconfigure my router a few different ways to
| alleviate the issue until an update released. Then they stopped
| responding after the issue wasn't fixed. From other anecdotes,
| I've determined that their policy is to string the customer
| along until an update is released or they've run out of options
| to diagnose the problem, then you're trash. Even opening new
| tickets returned no response.
|
| I advise people review other eink tablet options before
| considering Remarkable.
|
| Addendum:
|
| At some point, months later the issue was resolved via a
| software update. This issue was originally discovered a few
| days after unboxing and using the device. I did not expect the
| return process to be non-existent or refusal.
| zarkov99 wrote:
| To balance your report with something positive, I also had a
| warranty issue, as there was a bad batch of R2's around August,
| and they provided me with a replacement with minimum fuss.
| fouric wrote:
| I would like to say that the device itself, if it works, is
| rock-solid.
|
| With that said:
|
| > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never
| does any good, and it makes boring reading.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Can you provide more details? It's a bit unclear what happened.
| You bought it, asked for a return, and then what? I don't know
| what non-movement means.
| selykg wrote:
| They provided the label and picked the carrier (DHL). DHL
| picked the package up and promptly lost it or forgot about it
| or whatever happens with shipping companies that are trash.
|
| I waited about 2 weeks before I complained because COVID and
| all that. After 3 weeks of absolutely zero package movement
| (stuck in the same location) they refused to give a refund. I
| filed a dispute and finally got my refund after it sat around
| in a shipping facility for over a month.
|
| The entire time Remarkable provided incorrect and misleading
| instructions for my return. Often calling it a replacement.
| At one point their service manager actually said they were
| refunding me and then about 30 minutes later retracted it and
| said they'd only refund me when they had the return in their
| hands.
|
| I provided a full timeline of their horrible support to my
| credit company, I can dig that up if you want the full
| rundown on their awful handling of a simple return.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Nah, that covers it. Thanks.
|
| I was going to say that such things happen, but your chat
| with the service manager sealed my feelings on the matter.
| They could see just as well as you that DHL had the
| notebook, not you, and they should've eaten the loss.
|
| The other comments here are reMarkably negative too. I was
| briefly tempted to get one, but I'll wait for whoever the
| Vive of this space turns out to be.
| selykg wrote:
| I think it's a cool idea but it's very half baked at the
| moment.
|
| A feature I love about GoodNotes on an iPad is it can
| search hand written notes. If I'm going to write a ton in
| something that isn't as easily skimmed as a real notebook
| search needs to be a thing.
|
| The other thing I find annoying is buying the pencil
| tips. Apparently the Remarkable ones need replacement
| often. Sort of mind blowing.
|
| All in all the writing experience was nice. But the
| device and the features were not there. If these things
| survive another 3-4 generations of devices then I think
| we may get to a place they're maybe ready for more mass
| usage. I hope in that time the company that also provides
| reasonable support rises to the top lol.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Apparently the Remarkable ones need replacement often.
|
| Not really. It comes with 8 or 10 tips. I go through a
| tip in a month with very active use. New tips are pretty
| cheap and come in a batch. Sorry don't remember the cost.
| [deleted]
| 6chars wrote:
| Wow, that's a really crappy experience. Personally, I had a
| pretty good experience with their customer service. My stylus
| broke after a few weeks (just stopped working for writing
| entirely). They sent me a new one right away and didn't require
| me to mail mine back.
|
| I think the way they do returns is pretty unfriendly compared
| to other electronic companies I've gone through this with. I
| was going to exchange my tablet after I bricked it, and they
| wouldn't send a replacement until they received and processed
| the return. Based on the label, the return center is in Hong
| Kong (IIRC), so it probably takes a while to get the
| replacement even if everything goes according to plan. I ended
| up recovering the device myself (that ordeal's another story,
| but that's entirely my fault) so fortunately I just had a week
| without use of it, not a month+.
|
| I would expect it to be beneficial to them to send the
| replacement first along with a return box, then charge for a
| whole new device if the return isn't received on time. Maybe
| that only works if you have the scale and resources to build
| such a system that companies like Amazon have.
| selykg wrote:
| That reminded me, they had two different return sites. First
| one they sent me to didn't even recognize my order, and
| because it takes them at least 24 hours to respond to an
| email (sometimes 2+ days) that was 24 hours of me continuing
| to twiddle my thumbs while they sent the second return site
| to me, both of which they included incorrect instructions
| for.
|
| But yes, part of the hassle was the return to Hong Kong I
| suspect. That said though, it shouldn't be on me to foot the
| bill for a product until their shipping company can deliver
| it to them. If I chose the shipping company, then sure, I
| guess I can see that. But it was their label, their return
| site, their rules, and I'm just stuck footing the bill until
| the product gets returned. What would they have done if it
| never actually arrived? Would I still be footing the bill? I
| had to file the dispute because the time period was running
| out on being able to do so AND I was then outside their 30
| day return period because of the lengthy delay in their
| shipping provider moving the product. I sent it back less
| than a week after I got it, but it took another month for the
| stupid thing to end up in their hands.
|
| Anyway, yea. It was entirely self inflicted by Remarkable. My
| assumption is they've been burned by people returning
| incorrect products or something, but if they handle it this
| way they're just upsetting legitimate returns.
|
| I wasn't entirely dissatisfied with the product, it just
| wasn't in a state I could use it right now. Had the return
| gone better I may have purchased a newer version down the
| road. Now however, I will avoid them at all costs, and I am
| being vocal about it ... all they had to do was treat the
| customer appropriately and this all could've been very
| different for them. It just goes to show how important good
| customer support is.
| 6chars wrote:
| I wonder how much this has to do with their being a
| Norwegian company. I have no idea what the expectations of
| customer service are over there. I'm just going on my
| experience working at a Scandinavian company and the
| incredulity I've heard Europeans express about the US's
| "the customer is always right" attitude, so I apologize if
| this is extremely ignorant. Regardless, they have a lot of
| room for improvement.
|
| Have you tried giving feedback directly to the company?
| They feel like a small enough operation that they may
| actually listen.
| selykg wrote:
| I did offer feedback whenever it came up, but it was just
| to whomever I was talking to via support. They
| acknowledged the feedback but they kept repeating the
| same problems over and over so it was clear it wasn't
| going to improve in the immediate term. Some of it was
| simple, like, "please just use the right snippet, or if
| you need separate snippets for this, make separate
| snippets" and some was obviously more complex, like "if
| you are going to say something, like that you'll refund
| me, you should stick to what you said, rather than back
| out of it and not stick to your word."
| tejtm wrote:
| Anecdotal: I right away, broke my screen ** from my perspective
| ** dropped something on the screen, the next time I used it
| there were all sorts of horizontal and vertical lines on it.
|
| My wife got me a replacement because that is how she is.
|
| I contacted the company to see if there was anything I could to
| try and fix the old one ... I am not opposed to opening it up
| an poking around.
|
| They suggested I send them pictures of the damage then replied
| that it should not have happened and exchanged with a
| replacement.
|
| Noting that at no point did I ask them for anything and took
| full responsibility (in writing) for the impact I assume caused
| the failure.
|
| I have nothing but high praise for their "support".
| gusgordon wrote:
| Having used this, it's fine, but not that great compared to
| similar products. I understand some people do like it.
|
| That said, has anyone else noticed the quantity of reMarkable
| posts here (about once per quarter) with hundreds of votes that
| are essentially ads for the product? reMarkable clearly has a
| large advertising budget given the amount of ads I/others see
| from them on social media. Is it possible that they're purchasing
| HN votes?
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| It's possible but I doubt it. It runs linux, is an e-ink
| device, can be sshed into and customized heavily, and it has a
| large following of nerds that write custom tools and reverse
| engineer the software and hardware. And on top of that it's a
| great device out of the box. To me that makes it likely to be
| of great interest to the HN crowd.
| mafro wrote:
| You can buy those? I could use some!
| [deleted]
| throw_ojfs82309 wrote:
| Note that the author receives $40 when you buy a reMarkable using
| the provided link.
|
| I've been using a reMarkable for some weeks on the job, and I'm
| generally satisfied. However, the reMarkable is _not_ a proud
| linux computer. When changing to the subscription model, they
| introduced new Terms of Services. Among others, these prohibit
| reverse engineering the cloud API. Upon request, a customer
| service employee who had clearly never heard of the GPL clarified
| that as a customer I would certainly not be allowed to modify the
| operating system. Their legal team stepped in later to clarify
| that they accept the GPL, but still I should not dare to touch
| their API.
|
| reMarkable gave every customer from before the 12th of October a
| lifetime subscription that is not transferable, should I
| eventually sell the tablet. So, I paid a ton of money for a
| tablet that says "OCR your writing" and "Sync all your documents"
| on the box, but I can not sell it without losing functionality
| that is advertised with on the box. The pricing for the
| subscription is way above reasonable.
|
| As a note to the author, since you mentioned you recommended it
| to a psychologist: Please don't, or at least strongly suggest to
| keep away from connecting it to the internet. A random startup's
| cloud storage is not a place for sensitive medical and personal
| data. There is no option to sync the reMarkable with a self-
| operated WebDAV share or similar.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bennyp101 wrote:
| You can still use the sync feature without a subscription, you
| just can't keep old files forever in the cloud.
|
| "Without a subscription, you can still use the cloud to store
| and sync your notes. However, files will stop syncing to the
| mobile and desktop apps if they haven't been opened in the last
| 50 days. They'll still be automatically stored on your paper
| tablet"[1]
|
| [1] https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/44082491463...
| throw_ojfs82309 wrote:
| On they box it says, sync ALL your work, not sync the work of
| the last 50 days. They did not keep this promise.
| akiselev wrote:
| I just discovered earlier today that my reMarkable 2 screen is
| broken after sitting on a shelf unused for a month or two.
| Suffice it say it was the worst part of my day and I even had
| flashes of conspiracy theory (now, really? right after a 1 year
| warranty expires?) especially since I don't remember touching
| it or placing anything on it in a long while even though I know
| I _must_ have tossed something heavy on it for this kind of
| break.
|
| Learning about this debacle kind of softens that blow, in a
| weird way. I was really enthused about their openness and it
| would have hurt even more if I had gotten back into using it
| only to find out that it's the same shit, different company.
| pjerem wrote:
| > and I even had flashes of conspiracy theory (now, really?
| right after a 1 year warranty expires?
|
| Not sure it could change anything to you but reMarkable is a
| EU company where the minimum legal warranty is of two years.
| Which implies :
|
| - that even if they were evil (which I'm sure they aren't),
| they wouldn't intentionally produce devices that last less
| than two years.
|
| - that it's not impossible that you could get a two year
| warranty, but they probably have different terms for US
| sales. But it's worth checking.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/36000677985...
|
| They repeatedly state that the terms and conditions of
| their services are Hong Kong jurisdiction.
|
| They have no "terms" for sales like refunds, unless you buy
| Connect. They literally say "local laws and regulations MAY
| apply" and tell you to "check your local laws" to figure
| out what return policy applies. What...
| zarkov99 wrote:
| I have one. Paired with their more advanced stylus (with the
| eraser) and with the new integration with Dropbox and GDrive it
| replaces my paper notebooks and most of my physical books. I
| quite enjoy using it.
| rvz wrote:
| The reMarkable 2 comes close but is disappointedly limited and
| expensive for the features it provides and some of the basic
| features now are under a subscription, when I compared it [0]
| with the recently introduced PineBook.
|
| Thus, the reMarkable 2 as it stands makes it a no deal due to all
| of this: [1]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28190987
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28847714
| [deleted]
| rasulkireev wrote:
| I really wanted one ever since they announced the first model,
| but something has been stopping me. Now that I'm a little older
| and mature I realize that my instincts not to buy this thing were
| completely right.
|
| How can a device like this not have an ability to make
| annotations?... What's worse, the highlights you make on the book
| are not indexed. To me, it's insane.
|
| I think one can hack this together with Kobo, I believe. But
| should you really buy a device for $500+ to hack it together?
|
| Once this device supports proper E-Reader features, it will be a
| great iPad alternative, IMHO. And I'll be a big purchase
| candidate.
| nottorp wrote:
| reMarkable is dead. See all the other posts describing their new
| subscription model.
| shove wrote:
| I've had one for about a year now and co-sign the author's
| review. Especially the "broken" OCR that doesn't allow search.
| Nor is there any way to create links to hyperlink between
| notebooks. Doing so would be a total game-changer.
| tiku wrote:
| I have the Onyx Boox Max 3, it is great. Just a normal android
| device with an e-reader screen. You can install apps, listen to
| audio (it has a speaker). I'm wondering why there are not more
| like those devices..
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| Same, I have an Onyx Boox Note Air which is working great. I
| love it at night especially because I don't have to stare at a
| backlight and that I can read technical pdfs more comfortably.
|
| I also wondered why E-Ink devices are not more popular. I think
| it has the potential to rival the iPad but at the moment it is
| just a fraction of the tablet market.
|
| I think one reason that E-Ink is not more popular is probably
| because of the Price and that it is really best as a secondary
| device. Most people would rather purchase a primary device that
| can do a lot of things well rather than a secondary device that
| can do a few things exceptionally.
| Loughla wrote:
| My complaint with the Boox series (I had one of those as well)
| versus the reMarkable is that writing on a boox feels like
| trying to write on plastic. The reMarkable has a texture that
| makes it more akin to writing on paper. It really does
| interrupt my thought process and note-taking ability.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| I always find remarkable interesting and want to try. However, it
| is expensive, costs about as much other tablets with full
| features
| IceDane wrote:
| I bought a remarkable because I was thinking of buying a
| whiteboard. I hoped that the remarkable could be a replacement
| for that, but I was very wrong.
|
| On the surface, remarkable seems pretty great and even feels
| pretty great. But for all it could be doing, it's almost not
| doing anything. The note-taking and drawing tools are extremely
| barebones. There are no line or shape drawing tools of any kind.
| There's no real way of using it as an infinite canvas kind of
| thing, because the canvas isn't infinite, and you can't scroll
| like that. You have to zoom in and out or resize your drawings
| and move them around.
|
| The hardware is extremely hackable, which is the coolest part,
| but also makes it even more weird that the remarkable's software
| is so lackluster, because there are actually tools out there
| already you can use to make up for some of these.
|
| I ended up not using mine very much because it's just not a very
| good experience for anything past simple note-taking, and then
| eventually sold it and bought a whiteboard instead. No regrets.
| lordleft wrote:
| I strongly suspect I'll want like, the 3 or 5th iteration of this
| device
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| After owning and returning v2 I agree. Version 5 at half the
| cost might be a compelling option.
| treenurse wrote:
| I'm looking forward to the https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ .
| ant6n wrote:
| Hardware looks good at first sight. But a device like that
| depends so much on the software.
| treenurse wrote:
| Yeah I'm keen to see what sorts of toolkits and programs are
| developed.
|
| Are there toolkits/programs written by enthusiasts that could
| be used on Pinenote?
| gmemstr wrote:
| It's a shame they've moved to a subscription model - I'm
| personally angling to get a development PineNote and invest time
| into developing for that. It's priced about the same as a
| reMarkable, but does include a stylus and case, so that's nice.
|
| My biggest want is an open device - I was originally drawn to the
| reMarkable _because_ it seemed quite open, but this subscription
| model really makes me rethink things (with what I would consider
| "core" functionality, e.g syncing, locked behind a paywall).
| methyl wrote:
| I have the recent version but I have to say I'm not happy with
| it. While the writing / drawing itself is great, the
| responsiveness of the UI and some actions (like erasing content)
| makes the whole experience super frustrating for someone with
| ADD. It also lacks some features that would make it a worthy
| Kindle alternative, like structured text higlighting. You can
| highlight fragments using Highlighter, but it's not smart about
| indexing and browsing those higlights afterwards, it's just a
| dumb overlay over the document.
| adreamingsoul wrote:
| That sounds frustrating. Have you tried providing feedback to
| them?
| fortran77 wrote:
| I would love it if it seamlessly integrated with OneNote.
| tweakimp wrote:
| What is wrong with using a paper notebook?
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| They run out of pages, there's no copy function, you can't cut
| and paste onto the same page without making the cleared space
| unusable for writing.
|
| On the upside, the paper notebook doesn't crash randomly when
| battery is low, and it can store (flat) physical objects.
| varjag wrote:
| Exactly. No subscription fees and OCR not working just as well.
|
| I understand that botching your perfect brainstorming doodle
| with permanent pen gives a certain degree of anxiety. But one
| can treat those as drafts; you'll use up a lot of Moleskine
| pages before the cost breaks even with this.
| macrolocal wrote:
| For math, being able to quickly erase false starts and
| reorganize lemmas on the fly is surprisingly useful. Compared
| to paper notebooks, it's easily doubled my productivity.
| eatYourFood wrote:
| No password, hard to make copies, takes up more space in my
| bag, can't easily move things around or rework once you've put
| something on the page, end up with a stack of notesbooks that
| need disposing of, harder to file and easily look up things
| from a certain date or category.
| pjerem wrote:
| I'm going to answer with what is cool with a Remarkable against
| a paper notebook when it comes to writing : you can easily
| erase shapes, strokes, undo, resize, copy, paste, add pages
| between... To me that's a lot of advantages only for the
| comparison of the actual "writing tools" even not taking into
| account the "extras".
|
| Disclaimer : I sold my remarkable because I had a tiny but
| noticeable "gap" between the stylus and the "ink" and I wasnt
| able to tolerate it. But I'm missing the edition features.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Are you left handed?
| eiriklv wrote:
| Another lefty here - same issue. Did the pre-order long
| ago. I'm back to pen and paper as I could not tolerate it.
| It would be great if it was possible to calibrate it
| somehow, by hack or not. I've kept it in case such a
| solution surfaces.
| pjerem wrote:
| No. But I acknowledge I may have an "uncommon" way of
| handling a pen, with a really closed angle between the pen
| and the paper. Of course my writing is totally garbage.
| Shorel wrote:
| I have a Rocketbook. It is an erasable plastic paper notebook.
| You write with some special pen, and then erase with a damp
| cloth. The application lets you easily scan all pages.
|
| For the price, I find it better than both the reMarkable and a
| paper notebook.
| eitland wrote:
| I bought the first generation and returned it sometime 2.5 years
| ago.
|
| My takeaways:
|
| - my colleagues who loved it back then still love it and have
| been joined by a few more
|
| - personally I'm still happy that I returned mine and got an iPad
| instead although ideally I had gotten the iPad in addition
| instead of as a replacement.
|
| - the writing experience was fantastic! It feels like writing on
| paper and the results are of similar quality. When someone I know
| who can draw she made a beautiful drawing quickly and was
| impressed.
|
| - the return process (at that time) was a case study in bad ux.
| Not dark patterns as far as I could see (once I contacted them
| they were very helpful and did not try to upsell me or anything,
| but I actually gave up trying to register the return myself)
|
| - what turned me away in the end was that 1.) I didn't have
| budget for both the Remarkable and and iPad and 2.) the
| Remarkable was then too limited on its own (I use my iPad for
| notetaking, udemy, virtual meetings over Zoom and what not that I
| don't want to install on my work machine and probably a few more
| things) 3. at the time there was no Linux sync and it was bot
| clear for me how good ssh support was going to be (I still don't
| know but hear good things). 4. Locking was limited to 4 digit
| pin.
|
| - an unintended benefit of going for the iPad was that I realized
| iOS was sufficiently different from Mac that I could actually
| like it, so I now have a cheap iPhone as well.
| captainmuon wrote:
| I have one, and I find the writing part nearly perfect. But there
| are a couple of downsides mentioned in the article that mean I
| barely use it:
|
| - Searching and organisation is really difficult. I wish
| everything would be OCRed transparently and you could instantly
| search for it (while keeping the original graphics)
|
| - It's unfortunate that the OCR runs on their cloud. It would be
| really perfect if it was a web app that you could install on your
| own servers, if you have hightened security requirements for
| example
|
| - In the UI, there is an on screen keyboard and you have to press
| keys. Why can't you just write in the text fields?
|
| I think most of these problems come down to the fact that the OCR
| is some "secret sauce" provided by a third party. I wonder if
| there is any viable free handwriting OCR one could use instead to
| build a better experience (open source, source available, or even
| just some research papers)?
| wedn3sday wrote:
| I have the same issue with the OCR. I've been using it for
| taking notes for my masters courses, and ironically as part of
| the course just finished making a machine learning model for
| OCR on armv7 devices that works as well if not better then the
| proprietary OCR service they use, and could easily run on the
| device without needing the network at all.
|
| My biggest issue with the rm2 is not any specific feature, but
| the total and complete lack of support for 3rd party software.
| The people behind the device make great hardware, and nice
| device drivers, but kind of suck at user facing software. They
| should stop trying to do the front end stuff, and just give us
| the ability to let the community do it ourselves.
| freeqaz wrote:
| If you made this into an open source project (even just some
| hacked together scripts) I would definitely take a crack at
| helping tweak it! Especially if you're able to do on device
| -- that'd be incredible. Otherwise, I'm happy to just pull
| out the files and do it via SSH.
|
| Seriously though, the value of some scripts that set a
| baseline would be enough for many people to finish the rest
| of the work!
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Wanting your documents and writings to not be fully accessible
| to CCP intelligence services....is not exactly "heightened
| security requirements" to me.
|
| This device is basically completely un-trustable.
|
| Leaking information related to financial stuff, research,
| invention, product design, or legal/government work. For a
| publicly traded company any manner of documents / notes on a
| device like this could spell trouble.
|
| Plus, if they're able to identify something you don't want
| others to know, they have leverage on you.
| avh02 wrote:
| > CCP intelligence services
|
| erm... it's a Norwegian company
| vcmiraldo wrote:
| I bought one, then returned it. For the price they're selling it
| at, the following points were a deal breaker for me:
|
| 1. Custom file system: this means I can ssh into it, but I can't
| rsync my bibliography into it, since it won't display regular pdf
| files whose name is not hashed and registered in some sort of
| index. Moreover, the lack of a Linux client meant it was very
| hard to put my pdfs on it, or extract my notes from it.
|
| 2. Left hand support is ridiculous. They just flip the screen
| left-to-right; which means you lose the nice bevel and it becomes
| very uncomfortable to use in "handheld" mode. Finally, the
| "close" button gets placed on the top-left corner of the screen,
| which is the first place a left-handed writer touches.
|
| 3. The lack of some sort of backlight and slightly gray
| background means I can't read under suboptimal light. Sure, I get
| it, its e-ink; but for the price they charge, it would be a very
| nice-to-have feature.
|
| I ended up returning mine and went for the Samsung Galaxy Tab s7
| and that thing is amazing! Plus, I get to follow through
| bibliography immediately without needing to go back to my
| computer and get another article then do the whole sync'ing dance
| again.
| criddell wrote:
| For me it's the size. I used to say that if they came out with
| a full page (A4 or letter) display I would buy one, but since
| then I've become very fond of the iPad + Pencil + iOS focus
| mode combination. I'm not sure the Remarkable offers much for
| me anymore.
| sasvari wrote:
| > 1. Custom file system: this means I can ssh into it, but I
| can't rsync my bibliography into it, since it won't display
| regular pdf files whose name is not hashed and registered in
| some sort of index. Moreover, the lack of a Linux client meant
| it was very hard to put my pdfs on it, or extract my notes from
| it.
|
| FWIW, rmfuse [0] allows you to mount the reMarkable cloud and
| you have easy access to sync with real filenames.
|
| [0] https://github.com/rschroll/rmfuse
|
| > RMfuse provides access to your reMarkable Cloud files in the
| form of a FUSE filesystem. These files are exposed either in
| their original format, or as PDF files that contain your
| annotations. This lets you manage files in the reMarkable Cloud
| using the same tools you use on your local system.
| vcmiraldo wrote:
| Interesting, thanks, I didn't know this one!
|
| I did find a few similar projects back when I had the
| reMarkable, but none quite worked well for me. I'm sure this
| will help some other people out there though! :)
| raffraffraff wrote:
| 1. I'm with you here. I'd like to be able to just copy files
| directly on/off
|
| 2. Also left handed. I just turn off the menu when I'm
| drawing/writing, so the close button and everything else is
| fine until I need it. However, what annoys me is that the pen's
| mark on the screen is about 0.2mm off from the tip of the
| contract point, to account for the angle of the pen and the
| thickness of the screen glass. While it's a subtle problem, it
| is noticeable.
|
| 3. I don't think this is a cost issue, it's battery life. I'm
| happy with their choice, and you certainly can't please
| everybody
| vcmiraldo wrote:
| > 2. Also left handed. I just turn off the menu when I'm
| drawing/writing [...]
|
| I know, but I often forgot to turn off the menu when
| annotating a pdf, and would close the pdf as soon as I
| touched the screen. After a few dozen repetitions it got
| quite annoying!
|
| > [...] However, what annoys me is that the pen's mark on the
| screen is about 0.2mm off from the tip of the contract point,
| to account for the angle of the pen and the thickness of the
| screen glass. While it's a subtle problem, it is noticeable.
|
| Interesting! I don't think I noticed that
|
| > 3. I don't think this is a cost issue, it's battery life.
| I'm happy with their choice, and you certainly can't please
| everybody
|
| You can always turn the light on or off, preserving the
| battery life. I found that reading something on a rainy day
| could be challenging depending on where I sat on the house.
| For a 500 euro device, I thought it was a bit of a shame.
| intrasight wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but what happened to "smart pens"? 15ish
| years ago,I had a pen that could draw on special paper, and do
| interesting things. I really thought that paradigm would have
| progressed by now. Sort of like the original optical mice needed
| a special pad but now can work on any surface. I like drawing on
| a paper notebook (I use one with a grid of dots). I'd be fine
| with all of the "intelligence" coming from my smartphone. Is
| there any progress/products on this paradigm?
| spicybright wrote:
| Or going back more, light pens on CRT monitors were neat.
|
| How did the pen work in practice for you?
| intrasight wrote:
| It was a gift to my daughter years ago. She enjoyed it very
| much.
| mikestew wrote:
| _15ish years ago,I had a pen that could draw on special paper,
| and do interesting things._
|
| Anoto (https://www.anoto.com) holds the IP on the proprietary
| pattern of dots used on the paper. Sure, you can make your own
| pattern, but Anoto's technology allows the pen to not only know
| where it is at on the paper (allowing it to capture pen
| strokes), but it also knows which piece of paper it is writing
| on...out of the gazillion unique sheets of paper the technology
| allows. So, cool stuff, but all depending on the good graces of
| one company. I used to work for one of their partners (now out
| of business), and a large part of our secret sauce was allowing
| one to print any document, but with the dot pattern printed
| under your Word doc/map/PDF. IOW, print anything and now you
| can write on it. Imagine printing your city map from
| MapGIS/ESRI, mark it up with (for example) fire hydrants, dock
| the pen. Now your GIS database is updated with fire hydrant
| locations, and you didn't have to carry a pricey PC or tablet
| into the field.
|
| You can still buy the technology via LiveScribe, but I don't
| know how it is used in enterprise scenarios, if at all anymore.
| azeirah wrote:
| There are multiple things in this space.
|
| * The Lenovo writing pad device -
| https://www.lenovo.com/nl/nl/yoga-book/
|
| This thing is different from all other devices on the market.
| You can write on the device itself, or you can put a piece of
| paper on top of it and write on that which will simultaneously
| be digital iirc.
|
| * A smart clipboard, I'm sure there are non-kickstarter
| variations of this out there somewhere as well
|
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/clipboard-plus/clipboar...
|
| * moleskine has a smart pen + smart notebook combo that syncs
| live with your phone
|
| https://www.moleskine.nl/moleskine-smart-writing-ellipse-set...
|
| * Modern pen-only solutions look like this, ie the Neo smartpen
| m1+
|
| https://www.neosmartpen.com/en/neosmartpen-m1plus/
| intrasight wrote:
| So still no smart pens that work on plain paper?
| Loughla wrote:
| (ignoring the recent move to a subscription service) The problem
| is you cannot tag pages for easy/effective search.
|
| If they would add meta tags and make pages searchable by that, it
| would be 100% perfect.
| Andrex wrote:
| > The option to connect an external keyboard would be killer. Of
| course, the main use case is to write with a pen. However, given
| that this is a distraction-free device, the option to behave
| essentially like the screen of a typewriter would be much
| appreciated by writers and minimalists.
|
| I've been banging this drum for a while. Yes, please.
|
| I really enjoy my RM2 despite this, though.
| alwyn wrote:
| > Furthernore, the eraser size is too big.
|
| Like pen size, you can also adjust the eraser size!
|
| I'm very content with my reMarkable 1, and while I absolutely
| love it, I'm not sure if I would put down EUR480 for it (I got it
| from my old boss as he wasn't using it).
| blueteam wrote:
| That you can't see the price of the subscription up front is
| damning. I can't stand that about enterprise software, but that
| being opaque in b2c pricing is unforgivable.
| sireat wrote:
| I have a feeling that reMarkable hired some remarkable hardware
| wizards with GPL in their blood and then let some beancounters
| ruin the frontend.
|
| reMarkable is great looking hardware with subpar software.
|
| I should not need to SSH into a device to install Koreader to get
| an acceptable ereading esperience.
|
| I rarely use my reMarkable 2 much preferring an old Kobo HD for
| bedtime reading and the original 13 inch Sony dpt-rp1 for larger
| A4 texts.
|
| As the article says: "If you are familiar with dedicated ebook
| readers, you will miss a dictionary, bookmarks and annotations.
| You can highlight parts of the text, but there is no index of
| annotations anywhere. This makes it unsuitable for some types of
| editing and annotated reading."
|
| Surely those are not remarkable features to ask for?
| turtlebits wrote:
| All the marketing on the site is as a writing device.
|
| I could imagine that the e-reader experience would be sub-par,
| which is a shame. (although I have yet to sideload any ebooks
| onto it).
| cproctor wrote:
| Can anyone recommend for or against buying a used reMarkable2 on
| ebay? I'm interested in this for daily work, happy to spend some
| time in SSH, and have a reasonably high risk tolerance for no-
| warranty. But I don't want to throw my money away.
| janderland wrote:
| I bought mine new. As someone who keeps there todo lists hand
| written, I use it every day several times a day. It's also my
| e-reader for PDFs of research papers.
| cproctor wrote:
| Thanks! Academic here, also thinking about using this for
| notes and lots of reading research papers with not too much
| annotation.
| diegocg wrote:
| Bought one a month ago, I'm very happy with it. I wish they would
| include more features, but apparently they want to keep it
| simple.
| dsirola wrote:
| I have one but it's been sitting in a drawer for a long time now.
| I went back to iPad Pro with Apple Pen as it's much easier to
| navigate around and I enjoy the color screen much more. It also
| allows me to use Miro or similar whiteboard tool. I personally
| regret buying it. The lag is more noticeable on an iPad, but that
| doesn't bother me.
| waiseristy wrote:
| Same experience. Very very disappointed by the software, and
| now they are making it even worse by locking more and more of
| it behind a paywall. The device was nearly 650$ for christ
| sake.
| timvisee wrote:
| What I love about these things, is that you can SSH into it.
| There are various mods for it. And you can run your own software
| on it.
| orcul wrote:
| Meh. A (pricey) solution in search of a problem.
| deniscepko2 wrote:
| Seems like mostly people that are not satisfied with their
| remarkable are trying to do the extra features (ssh, book
| reading, etc.). for me i 99% use it to keep notes, sketching,
| read articles and its perfect. for the first time in my life i do
| actually read my notes
| roody15 wrote:
| Way to expensive for what it is. 600$ plus with the pen and
| accessories ... nope
| laurex wrote:
| My reMarkable 2 is sitting in a drawer waiting for me to get
| motivated to sell it. It completely lived up to all the promises,
| but in the end I couldn't make the migration from a notebook,
| partly because I have terrible handwriting and finding things
| I've written down requires me to use the physical cues of paper
| to go back later. The only other knock was that I couldn't seem
| to get it to import my bullet journal format in PDF in a way that
| made it easy to use as a daily note template.
| Harlan415 wrote:
| Thanks for the information, I will try to figure it out for more.
| Keep sharing such informative post keep suggesting such post.
|
| https://www.njmcdirect.tips/
| extreme_orang wrote:
| Having tried a number of notebook type devices I'll just add that
| the Remarkable (v2) is excellent. It is not a computer, not an
| iPad, just an excellent digital notepad and eReader. Price, yeah
| its high but you get what you pay for and this is something I do
| find genuinely useful for reading and taking notes.
|
| Is it perfect? Far from it. There are lots of silly UI decisions
| that make no sense (e.g. limited pen size) and clunky modal menu
| system. So there is room for improvement. Why they don't
| incorporate the ddvk remarkable hacks into an update in _one_
| _quick_ _update_ I do not know - the ddvk hacks change the
| remarkable from a good device to a great one. See here:
|
| https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable-hacks
|
| But otherwise, I would recommend strongly for these specific use-
| cases. I still have to have a laptop with me occasionally, and
| sometimes an iPad. But if I am reading a PDF it is _always_ with
| the Remarkable.
|
| The battery life is pretty amazing, the lack of eye-strain
| fantastic, carrying a ton of books that I can catch up with
| wonderful. Digital note taking is the best in class due to the
| screen and pen/nib combination. (Yes lack of search and OCR is a
| bit annoying but I don't really use it, even on the iPad in
| Notability).
|
| Anyway, I wanted to offer these thoughts from someone who reads a
| _lot_ on the remarkable and takes notes daily.
|
| Wish it had: More pen sizes, different highlight shades, easier
| syncing, iCloud support, better tools for cropping pdfs before
| sending them, etc.
|
| Would I buy again: Yes.
| jessmartin wrote:
| Almost bought mine again last week.
|
| I've been using mine almost every day for a year now. A week
| ago I left it at Home Depot (it had all of my sketches and
| measurements for the thing I was building) and I despaired of
| finding it again. I was already planning to drop $500 on a
| second one without a second thought when it turned up at the
| customer service counter. Tangible feeling of relief when I got
| it back in my hands.
|
| Do I hope some of the software support improves? Heck yes, but
| the writing and reading experience is exceptional and the
| software is good enough.
| extreme_orang wrote:
| ps. I also own a Boox Note Air, and the remarkable quite simply
| blows it away. When I bought the Boox I loved it, but after
| getting the Remarkable there really is no competition. I do
| like the Boox for its novelty value, running weird things on an
| e-ink display, but I don't use it for notes or reading anymore.
| amcoastal wrote:
| Can you elaborate why? I'm stuck between the two as a
| purchasing decision. I value the android apps but if the
| writing and reading experience is way low I may skip out on
| boox
| rchaud wrote:
| I have a Boox Note Air and frankly every review puts
| Remarkable above it ONLY on the writing experience.
|
| For my use, I have had zero issues with the Boox pen or
| screen latency. Boox is superior on multiple fronts when it
| comes to overall usefulness, as it's running Android, so I
| can use exactly the file explorer I want (Solid Explorer).
| The PDF formatting options, such as increasing ink darkness
| and contrast levels make things like color magazines a lot
| easier to see and read.
|
| The frontlit screen is such an obvious feature that I'm
| shocked that RM2 still does not have it. Boox does.
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| I'd recommend MyDeepGuide on YouTube for e-ink device
| reviews; the channel has pretty comprehensive comparisons
| salamandersauce wrote:
| If reading anything other than PDFs is important the Boox
| is a better choice. Remarkable lags super far behind in
| ePub support, AFAIK it converts an ePub to PDF and then
| displays that. A large book will take a very long time to
| adjust the font size or other formatting because of that.
| General rendering support seems poor and it doesn't support
| any DRM scheme or library system so you're stuck stripping
| DRM off books and monkeying around with their app to get it
| onto the device. Boox of course can just run the Kindle or
| Libby Android apps.
|
| Main thing people like about the Remarkable is writing feel
| which mainly comes down to the surface and the pen nib. You
| can literally use the RM pen and nibs on the Boox Air and a
| matte screen protector. MyDeepGuide on YouTube has
| recommendations on how to get a better feel on the Boox
| Note Air.
| extreme_orang wrote:
| They are both very good. I really liked the flexibility of
| the Boox.
|
| The remarkable does have a superior screen writing feel by
| far. That was much more important to me in the end.
|
| I won't lie, I miss the Boox ability to customise the UI
| and install tons of things.
|
| But I find the simple on/off notes and reading with
| remarkable just works for me.
| krono wrote:
| The lack of screenlighting has long been the only thing
| holding me back.
|
| I so hope they're not ruining their next device with anti-
| customisation and aggressive subscription or partner service
| marketing.
| AlanYx wrote:
| I thought I wanted a frontlight too, but after trying a
| number of these types of devices and purchasing three of
| them (Remarkable 2, Kobo Elipsa, and Fujitsu Quaderno Gen
| 2), I'm convinced that the compromises aren't worth it for
| a notetaking-focused device. (For an e-reader, it's a
| different story.)
|
| With a frontlight layer, there's a greater gap between the
| pen and the e-ink layer, and it makes more of a difference
| than you'd think in terms of pen feel. (Even the Remarkable
| 2 isn't that great here because the non-frontlit protective
| layer feels thicker than it needs to be; Fujitsu did a
| super job with the Quaderno Gen 2; the pen feels like it's
| actually in contact with the e-ink surface.) There's also a
| subtle loss of contrast with the additional frontlight
| layer.
|
| As much as a clip-on reading light feels hokey, I think
| it's a better compromise for when you need to read in the
| dark.
| martin_a wrote:
| > They are moving towards a subscription model.
|
| This is the biggest minus point for me. I want devices that I
| own, that I can use like I want to. I don't want to be caught in
| another cloud and pay monthly for something I don't want to use.
|
| Currently I'm looking into getting a device from Onyx, because
| those support the Android App Stores, so I could set it up with
| Notion or my Nextcloud probably.
|
| Remarkable seems to have better hardware (as in screen and
| writing), though.
|
| edit: lots of people mentioning that you have SSH on the
| Remarkable. Good thing, but fiddling with shell scripts (yeah, no
| big deal for others, new for me) to sync with a cloud service of
| your choice... not sure I want that.
| akavel wrote:
| Notably, and with a disclaimer that I myself unfortunately
| failed to live by ideals in this case and did buy, Onyx seem to
| have their own issue, which is violating GPL:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/p9ztru/lets_help...
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Yeah, it is annoying that there is so little competition. I
| was made aware of this after being a very happy Boox (A4
| size; I use it literally for everything I used paper for
| before when reading, writing, sketching, flow charts, mockups
| etc) user for 6 months. I am not going to toss it away and so
| far, after trying the reMarkable from a friend, I would buy
| the Boox again instead... ...if not this gpl issue.
|
| Edit: also, I believe one of the people in that reddit thread
| might have the correct answer; the eInk drivers (and probably
| more notably the waveform) will be proprietary and they do
| probably worry about losing their license if they publish
| anything they are not allowed to. Which would end their
| business immediately.
| secondaryacct wrote:
| The GPL issue doesnt matter for your buying decision. In
| fact, becoming a client expand your voice: you can now say
| you're even paying support already to listen to you whine
| about why they didnt publish the 5 patches they made to
| some broadcom drivers.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| In good faith, I'll assume this entire thing isn't
| sarcastic.
|
| Buying stuff from entities violating whatever will only
| solidify what they are doing. Support isn't spending time
| any way with gpl stuff. They aren't going to read a
| paying customers complaints any more than any one else.
| zepto wrote:
| If anything, a paying customers voice counts for _less_
| on this issue.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I have another similar device, the Boyue Likebook Mars, and
| it's so close to being great.
|
| In addition to the license compliance issues, I assume these
| cheap Chinese devices are siphoning off all my data to parts
| unknown. The last I checked, you couldn't even root the
| thing.
|
| I trust reMarkable more, so I might eventually buy one to
| replace the Mars. But a device like the Onyx/Boyue e-ink
| tablets that was more open (ideally: running LineageOS) would
| be close to ideal.
|
| Edit: I forgot about the PineNote, which is probably the best
| option on the horizon for those who don't trust these Chinese
| Android distros: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ - I should
| probably go pre-order one :)
| necovek wrote:
| You need to show that you are serious about developing for
| eInk note-taking devices to get in the first developer-only
| PineNote batch: at least serious enough to fill in a form
| describing your note-taking development credentials :). Or
| maybe they'd really let anyone have it who writes
| convincing enough prose about what they plan to develop on
| it. :)
|
| I'd love to develop apps for PineNote (or reMarkable even),
| but I am being realistic when I say that I won't get around
| to it.
| ed_elliott_asc wrote:
| As I understand it, they have a cheaper version that includes
| subscription but if you pay the normal price then there is no
| subscription.
| martin_a wrote:
| Yes, but even with their subscription you are kind of limited
| to Dropbox/GoogleDrive (for 8 EUR/month) or have to tinker
| around with SSH and shell scripts. Still reading how smooth
| you can get it going.
| ithkuil wrote:
| The subscription mode is for syncing your content on their
| cloud storage.
|
| One of the nice features of the remarkable device is that they
| allow you to ssh on the device and run your software on it.
| There is a community who builds various tools that run on the
| device. I didn't check recently but I'm pretty sure you have
| one or more open options to sync your content to your remote
| storage of choice.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > The subscription mode is for syncing your content on their
| cloud storage.
|
| According to the website the subscription model is for
| syncing your content to ANY cloud storage
|
| No Sub: No cloud storage of any kind $5/mo: Unlimited cloud
| storage on their servers $8/mo: Google Drive / Dropbox
| support
|
| https://remarkable.com/store/connect
|
| Thanks but no thanks. I'm not paying anyone $8/mo for the
| privilege of storing my digital content on another platform.
| That's bullshit.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| That's not entirely true, you DO get syncing with no plan,
| just not unlimited syncing. But yes, I agree it is
| expensive for just connecting to somebody else's service.
|
| https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/44082491463...
| newaccount74 wrote:
| "Just connecting to someone elses service" is a pretty
| thankless job in my opinion.
|
| I write software that can connect to 3rd party services.
| It takes a lot of effort to make sure it all works.
| There's always stuff that breaks randomly, and it's
| really hard to debug because you typically get only vague
| error messages when something fails, and you can't debug
| from the server side.
|
| So you end up spending way too much time making sure your
| product is compatible with some service, just so your
| customers can spend money on 3rd party services that you
| don't earn money from.
| ithkuil wrote:
| This is about the features they enable through their easy
| to use UI.
|
| You're free to not like it, but that's not what I'm talking
| about.
|
| I'm talking about the fact that this is one of the few
| platforms where I can ssh onto the underlying Linux host
| and run my damn software and extend it in various ways,
| which includes syncing docs with whatever storage system I
| want. Surely, this is for "hackers" use only. This is what
| I like about this and I'm happy to accept the tradeoff.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| The subscription mode is likely primarily there for syncing
| their bank account with bank accounts of VCs who price
| everything in multiples of monthly recurring revenue.
| Probably not gonna end well.
| sofixa wrote:
| Without a subscription they have no incentive to update the
| software of already sold or older model ( which they
| already do). Considering the price and the niche market,
| they probably can't rely on future sales only to improve
| the software.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| As a relatively fragile portable device with a limited-
| life sealed battery, which is essential to people who
| adopt it, there is a nice replacement market. Being nice
| to your users by providing relative low-cost maintenance
| software updates should more than pay for itself.
|
| No need to include new features, they can be sold for a
| one-off optional fee to old device users. Subscription is
| worse here: it provides weaker feedback from users to the
| developers, who have a harder time knowing if the new
| features are useless or damaging to the user experience.
| Products don't always benefit from constant gratuitous
| updates.
| michaelt wrote:
| A subscription doesn't give someone an incentive to
| update software.
|
| If anything, it does the opposite: if I'll get paid
| whether I add a feature or not, why spend the money to
| add the feature when I could just pocket the money?
|
| That's why companies love the subscription model so much:
| Instead of having to find compelling new features and
| updates to sell new versions or attract new customers,
| they can just sit back, put their feet up and the money
| keeps flowing in.
| sofixa wrote:
| No, companies love the subscription model because it
| makes for a predictable cashflow they can plan around,
| and which they can use to support software long-term.
| ksec wrote:
| I think your parents meant subscription gives recurring
| revenue to sustain a ongoing cost which is software
| development.
|
| It is not an incentive, but a criteria. I often wished
| Remarkable would be brought up by big companies with more
| resources to work on it. But most companies these days
| aren't interested in making better products. Not to
| mention the possibilities of ruining it.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| You're making a lot of faulty assumptions about how
| customers engage with subscription models. When I pay for
| software every month, I'm evaluating the value of it
| every month. That includes things like the update
| frequency, how often I use it, etc.
|
| I know subscription pricing isn't popular around here,
| but these wild speculations about how things work are
| getting a little silly. Especially coming from people
| who, I'm guessing, don't use that many subscription apps.
| fragmede wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but evaluating my subscriptions every
| month sounds like discussing OS upgrades with friends -
| normal people just don't do that. I sign up, and then
| leave it on autopay until they do something I find
| abhorrent enough to cancel my subscription (I'm looking
| at you, NYtimes). Which is why subscriptions are so
| lucrative - people don't regularly check their
| subscriptions on a monthly basis.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Is any thing you said backed by anything? Even anecdotal
| evidence?
| outworlder wrote:
| > The subscription mode is likely primarily there for
| syncing their bank account with bank accounts of VCs who
| price everything in multiples of monthly recurring revenue.
| Probably not gonna end well.
|
| Since subscription has been Wall Street's fetish for a few
| years now, it's safe to say they have aspirations of going
| public sometime in US exchanges.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Onyx make great devices. Running android means it has access to
| all kindle features via the Kindle app, plus anything else the
| android store or internet have to offer (I play sudoku on mine
| often).
| sharikous wrote:
| Or you could do like me, who never felt the urge to "sync to
| the cloud" any notebook, be it paper or e-ink based.
|
| RM2 works great offline and does not need any network
| connection to do its main job. I think you will find you won't
| really need updates if you use it the same way as me.
|
| And yes, as they mentioned it is enough FOSS friendly that
| there is quite a community of tinkerers around it
| jedimastert wrote:
| I think the subscription models are only for cloud integration?
| Which isn't a huge deal for me, I don't know about you.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I don't want to be caught in another cloud and pay monthly
| for something I don't want to use.
|
| Well... isn't that the advantage of subscription? If you stop
| using it you don't have to pay monthly for it anymore.
| akiselev wrote:
| That's not how recurring billing works. You have to remember
| to _cancel_ those, which is half the business model.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You have to cancel something that you don't want to pay? Ok
| I'm not sure that's the huge hardship you think it is.
| HighlandSpring wrote:
| The larger point is that this is kind of like how a gym
| wants paying customers that don't show up too often or a
| flight operator over sells seats betting some flyers
| don't make it.
|
| It's a business that is subsidised by the ever increasing
| busyness of life and rising rates of executive
| dysfunction (there's a population that struggles to keep
| up with admin tasks on a neurological level and it's
| biologically determined)
|
| They have an incentive to get as many paying customers as
| possible but not necessarily turn them into engaged
| users. It can come too close to a racket depending on how
| discerning of a consumer you are
| ekianjo wrote:
| and you end up with a brick instead of usable hardware?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If you're not using it why do you care if it's usable?
| fsflover wrote:
| Not using the subscription does not mean not using the
| device.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If you read everyone else's comments, you can use it
| without the cloud service.
| fsflover wrote:
| But can I be sure that an update can't change that?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Don't install updates then! I don't understand this line
| of logic - you don't want ongoing service but you're
| using the ongoing service to get updates?
| fsflover wrote:
| Do you suggest to also avoid security updates? Does not
| sound like a good advice.
|
| For this reason, I prefer devices running exclusively
| free software. I can be sure that I will always own them
| and that security updates will never end, if the device
| is still used by the community.
|
| Debian clearly separates security and non-security-
| related updates. I wish more projects did that.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I thought you didn't want ongoing service? You want them
| to keep working on updates for your device but you don't
| want to keep paying them?
|
| > I can be sure that I will always own them and that
| security updates will never end, if the device is still
| used by the community.
|
| How do you ensure that someone else will write a security
| patch for you?
| fsflover wrote:
| > You want them to keep working on updates for your
| device but you don't want to keep paying them?
|
| No, I want to _able_ to have updates independently on the
| vendor who may want to stop updating the device. This is
| exactly why free software was created. Experience shows
| that just this ability is enough to have lifetime updates
| from the community for any device. Or, alternatively, one
| can pay to anyone for the updates, if necessary. My
| 12+-year-old laptop runs latest version of Debian and I
| do not expect to stop receiving security updates any time
| soon.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > Don't install updates then! I don't understand this
| line of logic - you don't want ongoing service but you're
| using the ongoing service to get updates?
|
| For example, one might want to get security updates.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > one might want to get security updates
|
| So you do want an ongoing service, you just don't want to
| pay for it?
| fsflover wrote:
| We do not want anti-features preventing us from using our
| device as we see fit (e.g., updating on our own).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't think this subscription service is the thing that
| prevents you from doing that?
| fsflover wrote:
| No, but the proprietary nature of the software, with
| updates that I can't control, might be.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| If it's clear and consensual, and not a means of endlessly
| extracting money for no value. SaaS is almost always rent
| seeking and brings no value to a consumer. Almost.
| eatonphil wrote:
| You either have a SaaS or a support contract. What makes
| SaaS any worse or different conceptually or ultimately than
| a support contract?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The fact that products generally still work when your
| support contract runs out.
| andrepew wrote:
| Usually you don't need a support contract for continued
| use of the software you bought.
|
| I have old versions of a few applications and am happy
| with their current functionality. I can choose to not
| have a support contract and still use them. If I
| encounter problems later, I can choose to pay more for
| the latest.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Usually you don't need a support contract for continued
| use of the software you bought.
|
| I wouldn't want to run unmaintained software these days -
| security nightmare.
| rchaud wrote:
| I've bought Microsoft Office CDs and DVDs for a fixed,
| one-time price. No support contract needed. I mean what's
| changed in Excel or Word that affects the home user?
|
| Same for Adobe Suite. Used to be available for a one-time
| fee.
|
| That they have both shifted to subscription models
| suggests it's a move designed to please equity analysts
| rather than any kind of added value for the customer.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You need ongoing security patches these days, and updates
| for compatibility with platform changes.
| robarino wrote:
| I watch this space and find the new Kobo interesting - syncs
| with dropbox, similar tech
| https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-elipsa
|
| If you want to roll your own you can get an arduino attached to
| a recycled kindle display with wifi - i love this idea (but
| touch support is just emerging) https://inkplate.io/
| wincy wrote:
| Well, from the review it does state that their hardware is
| Linux based, and you have root access. The device is not locked
| down in the way a Kindle is.
|
| So it sounds like you do, in fact, own this particular device
| when you buy it. You could write applications for syncing files
| to your OwnCloud instance or whatever you'd like.
| beowulfey wrote:
| They have USB transfer functionality now too--no need for
| internet connectivity.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| The hardware isn't better on the Remarkable. It's a slower
| weaker chipset than what's used on any of the Oynx devices and
| the screen in the RM2 is literally the same part as what is in
| the Oynx Note Air. Both use Wacom EMR for writing so you can
| use the same pens and nibs on both.
|
| Remarkable has a plastic layer to improve writing feel and
| optimized software to get pen latency down. The Oynx Note Air 2
| supposedly also has improved writing feel but I'm not sure how
| it compares.
| Loughla wrote:
| So I have the note air 2, and the reMarkable because reasons.
|
| The reMarkable feels like writing on paper. The Note Air 2
| feels like writing on a piece of plastic. The reMarkable wins
| there.
|
| The latency on both is about the same, in my opinion. The
| reMarkable might hesitate when you erase something big, but
| then it's completely gone. Switching pages takes just enough
| time to be annoying. On the Note Air 2, erasing is just as
| laggy. But, page switches are almost instantaneous. BUT, you
| will see a shadow of the previous page literally every time
| you switch pages.
|
| For my money, the RM2 is worth it compared to the note air
| series.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| I only have the Note Air 1 and I don't see any ghosting on
| page switches in the notes app. But they are running
| different firmware so who knows. Other apps it's settings
| dependent but you can set it to refresh every page turn if
| you want.
|
| I'm sure RM feel is better but I bring up it's a plastic
| layer/nib feel and not something specifically built into
| the device. It's possible to get a better writing feel with
| a screen protector and a different nib on the Note Air. For
| me, writing is secondary to reading and the RM is just too
| limited in that regard.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| You can go into settings and enable ssh, and put pretty much
| whatever you want on it. Configure your own synchting or
| nextcloud sync, and not pay a penny.
|
| Worth noting that if you bought the device before October this
| year, then you get a free subscription - which is what I am
| using currently, but good to know that I can just swap it out
| if I want to
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > You can go into settings and enable ssh
|
| Until they disable it via an update because their cloud
| offering isn't making them enough money?
| teekert wrote:
| I would be genuinely curious to know how many people do ssh
| based tricks instead of paying for a subscription. Is it
| really worth pushing away your initial tech-savvy crowd for
| those couple of people that are not annoyed enough to
| leave?
| dx034 wrote:
| Often these decisions are much less evil. Some update in
| the future is likely to require work on the SSH
| functionality to keep it working and if not enough people
| use it, they might decide to kill that feature. Happened
| often enough that a "simplification" of the tech stack or
| refactoring ended up killing features that were valued by
| many, but didn't rank high enough in usage stats.
| jcelerier wrote:
| even with the free subscription I still access it over
| ssh aha
| OJFord wrote:
| Surely it isn't, but it would hardly be the first time a
| company did something in that boneheaded vein.
| teekert wrote:
| Yeah, that's for sure. I was once very happy with a
| Fintech app (a bank), very techy, an API, modern and cool
| features, tight community. Then they pivoted and started
| targetting another more mainstream crowd. They
| incorporated their insta-feed into the app, and all kinds
| of social and greenwashing features. Reviews are still
| poor. I keep wondering if they could not somehow have
| kept the techy, early adopters happy and started
| targeting a more mainstream crowd. Is that very
| difficult? Two versions of the app would have done it.
| But maybe the tech group is so small it's worth pissing
| off this small group- that jumps on new stuff eagerly and
| helps you debug and grow in an early stage. Quite
| depressing.
| djur wrote:
| Considering how much trouble it is to lock down devices
| that were intended from the start to be locked down in the
| firmware (Nintendo Switch, etc.), I think it's pretty
| unlikely that this device could be effectively locked down
| with a software update.
| diggan wrote:
| I think sshd has been on the device since the initial
| launch in 2017, the company is publishing all source code
| they modify on their GitHub, the team seems very much pro
| open source and there is a relatively big hacking community
| around the devices already. It would take a lot for them to
| suddenly do a 180 on this when they are so deep into it
| already.
|
| But it wouldn't be unheard of, but as a owner of one, I'm
| not really scared of it happening. Although if it would,
| the device would lose one of it's main buying point (for me
| at least) and I certainly wouldn't buy any more devices
| from them.
| gspr wrote:
| I love my RM2. Been using it without their cloud thingy since I
| got it. If they ever start getting hostile to non-cloud users,
| I'm out.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Just ignore it, it works really well without this stuff. You
| can ssh to it (it's running linux) and stream stuff via ffmpeg
| etc. it's great.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| > edit: lots of people mentioning that you have SSH on the
| Remarkable. Good thing, but fiddling with shell scripts (yeah,
| no big deal for others, new for me) to sync with a cloud
| service of your choice... not sure I want that.
|
| I mean, yeah, as much as it sounds fun, I pay for things like
| this to have more time/ease doing other stuff (drawing, taking
| notes, etc), so this seems to defeat the point.
|
| iPad Pro + paperwhite + concepts and procreate does the job for
| me for that specific reason. I know that otherwise I'd get
| derailed and just start hacking things together instead of
| doodling
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Setting up Syncthing takes maybe 15min, so if that's
| compatible it would be sweet.
| rglullis wrote:
| Yes, syncthing works fine.
| OliverM wrote:
| I have a remarkable v2, and I don't use their online services.
| I just wanted to replace a pen-and-paper notebook, and read
| occasional PDFs on it. It works fine as an ereader and
| brilliantly as an e-notebook. If better hardware is the key
| criterion for you, I'd go for the remarkable and just ignore
| the services.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Same have had it for a few months have not connected to wifi
| texasbigdata wrote:
| The new Google drive intergration also super helps. Great
| tool.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| The cool thing about it is you can SSH into it/do
| whatever you want from what I've read. There are some
| cool repos out there (check the sub). Eventually... I
| would like to mess around with it. It is a cool device
| though, the drawing feeling because the screen is
| textured and it "feels good" writing on it. It's thin and
| lasts a long time. Has it changed my life or anything, no
| not really it mostly sits with my SG2 that I will use at
| some point.
|
| As an aside, I also use this drawing (Krita) graphics
| tablet Kamvas Pro 12 GT-116 as an external monitor, just
| for anyone looking for a "drawing workflow extension" of
| some sort. I have used Sketch on the SG2 that's pretty
| nice too.
| necovek wrote:
| Took me a minute to figure out that SG2 is "Surface Go
| 2", so let me share that for others' benefit :)
| tejtm wrote:
| Yep only turn on briefly when I decide to update the OS. No
| regrets.
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| I bought one and returned it. It did what it said, it's not a bad
| product. However after spending just shy of the cost of a new
| iPad I couldn't justify not having just buying an iPad and having
| 100x the functionality.
|
| The remarkable also has very mediocre note management software,
| on the device, online, and on the desktop.
| gnull wrote:
| I've been quite happy with my Remarkable.
|
| The only thing that annoys me is not having buttons to turn
| pages. Swiping over a touchscreen is counterproductive and
| Remarkable sometimes fails to recognize the gesture.
| deepstack wrote:
| often people want more feature, thinking more is better. iPad has
| color it is better right?
|
| Personally I would pay more to have e-ink. Looking at it is like
| looking at paper! It is easier on the eyes, less drain on the
| battery. And most stuff software development wise, b&w is good
| enough.
| di4na wrote:
| I just want to point out that there are good e-ink color
| display now! It is just that none of the integrators made a
| product/device using it yet really.
|
| There is a whole array of "notebook like" e-ink devices being
| created and released, but they mostly exist in, and target, the
| chinese and japanese market. Not the Western one. Remarkable is
| one of the exception and Kobo recently released one. Hopefully
| we will see more of it.
|
| I personally think that the reason for this lack of device
| targeting the Western market is that the Kindle basically
| flooded the board and killed most of the use case. Sadly :(
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Color e-ink displays are not "good." The refresh rate is even
| more atrocious than regular e-ink.
| Shorel wrote:
| None?
|
| I've had my PocketBook Inkpad Color for over six months
| already.
| alwyn wrote:
| Do you happen to have some links to Japanese/Chinese e-ink
| colour devices?
| eloeffler wrote:
| I'm not a fan of onyx devices due to many reports about
| questionable home-calling.
|
| However, they do have some nice devices like this color
| notebook with a pen and I guess that is what you were
| looking for: https://onyxboox.com/boox_nova3color
| ijuhoor wrote:
| If you live in the us, https://goodereader.com/blog/shop
| has a shop that sells pretty much all the e paper devices
| maratc wrote:
| iPad has silky smooth scrolling and instant reaction to the
| input (milliseconds).
|
| Once e-ink technology advances enough to allow for these, it
| might compete with iPad, but until then the lag is severely
| limiting what the device can do. Reading books (one screen
| refresh a minute) is fine, but not much else.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I personally find an iPad and a apple pencil either with
| Notability or the default Notes application the nirvana for me.
| Looking at paper is overrated, IMHO, a modern retina display
| with at least 69hz refresh rate shouldn't objectively cause any
| discomfort, unless you're using it under really adverse
| situations, like under direct sunlight.
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