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Comment by Andrex | Hacker News Reader

Not trying to shill too hard, but it's rare I fall in love with a device the way I've fallen in love with my Remarkable 2.

I can't say it was 100% worth the price (half was paid as a gift), but everything about it is refreshingly elegant and simple.

Great to know recovering from a brick is possible too.

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I had one for a couple weeks right about a year ago. I was very impressed by its ability to mimic paper. Unfortunately, it didn't do much more than mimic paper, so I sold it and bought some nice notebooks.

However, I think that was before the software projects mentioned in this post. I never tried to SSH into it, so maybe it's possible to use it for things that you can't replace with paper.

I mean, this is like saying a Kindle isn't worth it because you can only read books on it. Sure, if you don't value the fact that it is digital (almost inifite capacity, delete without making a mess, backup to computer, send PDFs of the notes that you created, etc.) it's "not more than a notebook" but then you really missed the point of the device...

It goes a little farther than just mimicking paper. Being able to rearranged my notes notes just by dragging and dropping was the killer feature for me.

I'm glad that you enjoy yours. Mine has been sitting in my dead technology drawer since about two weeks after it arrived. The pen is too laggy, the contrast is too low for me to read PDFs comfortably, and the note-taking experience doesn't come close to what I get from a good pen and good paper. Nice try, but meh from me.

I spent the money only to find out I don't actually take notes in any form other than with a keyboard. I have used it to do some sketching though, but I don't really do that much either.

That was my experience after getting an ipad pro. I imagined all the great architecture drawings and design notes I will take on it but in reality typing in Notion is faster and more organised + tools like PlantUML are just plain better for creating diagrams because you don't have to worry about arranging your boxes and arrows in space.

I’ll take it off your hands if you’d like ;)

I thought about selling or donating it, but I have no way to be confident that I've wiped it of all credentials and content.

Could have returned it for a full refund within 30 days. Any reason you decided to keep it in the dead technology drawer instead?

My main gripe is lack of direct bookmarking of pages in ebooks or even listing jump links to highlighted areas. I like writing on it but also want to use for reading large ebooks, highlighting important info, and keeping notes in context. Not realistic to do that if have to scroll through all pages.

I haven't done it yet myself, but I've read it's fairly easy to install KOReader on the Remarkable 2 to provide a better ereader experience. Though when using this software, you wouldn't be able to mark up the text or add notes in the 'remarkable' way.

It is indeed easy and very worth it. The rm2 is the _best_ way to read text books and comics I've ever seen (using koreader), and separately it's great for taking notes. Those two uses don't really overlap for me so it's fine that they're in separate OSes, especially because it's one gesture to switch between them.

The one and only thing that really bothers me about the device is the storage is pretty small. It's fine for books, but not great for comics, you end up having to swap out old ones instead of just having your whole library available.

> The rm2 is the _best_ way to read text books and comics I've ever seen

Comics? I thought it was black and white only. I'd assume an iPad (or other tablet) was better for comics.

The comics I read are grayscale anyway for 99% of pages. YMMV if that's not true for your collection I suppose.

I tried this and promptly bricked it, although in a more recoverable way than the OP. It’s not hard to do it right (I’d got some version of a dependency wrong) but there seem to be few guardrails. I just convert epubs to pdfs now for rm2 reading

I installed koreader and I'm quite happy with reading long books that way.

koreader is my goto reader on RM2 too. If only the device had a smaller size.

I use 2 pages view in landscape mode. It's better, still does not provide the comfort Kindle Paper White offers.

Also some back/frontlight could be helpful.

Bookmarks would be super nice. Also, a more secure way of storing the stylus. When I slide mine into my backpack I have a high chance of swiping the stylus onto the floor because it knocks off very easily. A couple of times, I haven't noticed and ended up going somewhere and being unable to use the reMarkable because it was at home under my desk or couch. One of these days I'm going to do that while I'm not at home and I'm going to be incredibly annoyed that I have to buy another $50 stylus.

I have rm1 with the simple case marker slot. The rm2 magnet approach is something that would have me constantly checking to see if I lost it.

I got one as well, almost mad at myself when I did because I was 90% sure I would use it for a week and then never again.

But I said what the hell. And I'm so glad I did, it's a great device that definitely fills a niche in my workflow. I mostly use it for brainstorming sessions. I like it a lot. I wish it synced more seamlessly but perhaps that'll happen at some point.

Me too! I thought it'd be a paperweight, but I immensely enjoy it. It's esp. nice if you throw a custom calendar on it (via reCalendar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys2fNQu0v0o&feature=youtu.be)

Killer app that I didn't know I needed: its built-in screen-share feature lets you easily and reliably share the tablet's screen with a desktop app over wifi. This has been super useful for whiteboarding/diagramming over Zoom.

(Older versions of the software had a very buggy implementation that has since been fixed.)

You can screenshare the rm2's screen while diagramming on it? Interesting! Any useful links for that?

I used to have nothing but trouble with the syncing features. But it all seems fixed as of the last update--both in terms of notebook/PDF syncing and the new ScreenShare, which replaced the incredibly buggy previous incarnation of live sharing.

I bought one and I don't understand the love. The device itself is wonderful. It's great that you _can_ ssh into it and do whatever. But by default, you can't even hook it up to DropBox/iCloud/GoogleDrive/whatever. The only supported way to get things off the device is by email, so in effect, in order for it to be useful, you _must_ set up rsync or some other custom process and risk bricking it and voiding your warranty. I'm pretty sure I could do that safely, but for almost $500, I shouldn't have to risk that. I returned mine.

> you can't even hook it up to DropBox/iCloud/GoogleDrive/whatever.

Dropbox and Google Drive integration arrived with the latest update earlier this month.

> The only supported way to get things off the device is by email

I think you're forgetting reMarkable's own built-in cloud storage which syncs the device with the desktop and mobile apps. Additionally, you can access a built-in web interface on the device whenever it's connected to your computer via USB.

Oh, that integration does changes things. I admit that I did forget about the built-in cloud storage, but that was more cumbersome than email for me. And plugging in a USB cable seemed particularly low-tech for 2021.

Joining the bandwagon of happy remarkable users. It's the only device I own that respect my attention and focus. I use it mainly to take notes of (paper) books I read and to send web articles to it via its awesome browser extension.

It's a really impressive product. The fact it runs Linux makes it exceptionally interesting.

> Codex — A purposely designed Linux-based operating system for low-latency digital paper displays

I wonder how it works. Are the drivers proprietary?

It's an eInk screen, so yes-ish.

We get around this by just piggybacking on the build in application's screen display routines[0]

https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-framebuffer

I'm just waiting for them to release a bigger one. I want either US letter or A4 size.

It's decent enough for sheet music at least. :) As long as you have good eyes.

Same here! I am generally not interested in shiny new tech. After I had the experience of a v1 TomTom runner watch, I decided I don’t want a v1 of anything anymore. Also new tech makes me too worried about breaking it or losing it or having it stolen. But the reMarkable 2…. I could not resist! I did the waiting list and was genuinely excited about it and use it every day. My partner also loves his, though he is very much a shiny tech person.

I used a reMarkable 1 for my stint in grad school and it was invaluable. A PDF reader that wasn't hard on the eyes. I also really appreciated reMarkable's syncing software that let me see the notes I made on a laptop without the lag of eink.

That said, it seems clear that the reMarkable team is not focused on the "taking notes on PDFs" use case. It works pretty well just because reMarkable is a good reading and handwriting platform, but it could be a lot better.

Would you mind sharing a bit about you use case? Do you use it for any sketching or artwork or primarily notes/etc?

I'm not the OP, but I absolutely love my RM2.

Use case: I work in a publicly funded institution where the contents of my notes are often required for lawsuits, settlements, and general FOIA inquiries on occasion. Being able to carry around 50 different notebooks for various uses, cordon them off from each other, and reproduce them in either original form, or converted to text is a remarkable time saver.

The only thing it doesn't have that I desperately wish it did is to be able to tag pages and search via tag. That would make my life so much better.

It's fun to draw on, but I'm a garbage artist. So it's pleasant to be able to doodle while I'm thinking in meetings and then immediately erase the doodle, but I don't use it for more than that.

Marking up pdf or other files is pretty great, too.

How well does text conversion work for you? Including the search function? It works poorly for my colleagues.

Does it have the option to straighten lines? Say that I draw a box, will it make it square or a circle round?

Are annotations to pdf searchable as well?

So it works better than any other item with written to printed text conversion that I've found. My handwriting is especially bad, and I would say it has an 80-90% correct rate, compared to my last system that I tried (neonotes smartpen) that is light years ahead. That was less than 10% correct.

I have never used the search function. I do not convert to text unless I have a specific use. This is why I wish we could tag pages and search via tag - I had to create my own recordkeeping system via headers that you can see in the gridview to be able to quickly find what I need.

>Does it have the option to straighten lines? Say that I draw a box, will it make it square or a circle round?

When you are drawing, it follows your pen. From what I can tell, there is no 'snap to grid' or whatever option that might be. That might be nice. If you are talking about once you convert to text, it does not convert drawings.

Overall, the search is pretty terrible. Just adding tags would alleviate that, and make this, for me, the perfect tool for work.

I don't have a rm2 but I already love the idea of being able to tag pages (hopefully even multiple tags), and perhaps even to a lesser extent, tag sections of pages. And then search by multiple tags to drill down into specific pages/sections.

My primary use-case right now is storyboarding. The RM2 has dozens of templates (notebook paper, grid paper, etc.) and three of them are storyboard templates at various sizes. I haven't been able to adjust to Wacoms etc., but drawing on the RM2's display feels "right." I can zip through drawing up storyboards and then email the PDF immediately to collaborators. I can choose to send individual pages as PNGs, too. Only small downside is lack of color, but that's the eInk breaks.

I also use it for annotating and displaying PDFs as well as sheet music when practicing piano. I don't read many eBooks on it because I have a smaller Kindle which has a light, making it more versatile when I'm in the mood for reading.

Hope this helps!

It does— thanks. Storyboarding is about the level of graphic capability I'd need. I keep trying to adjust to using my iPad Pro w/Apple Pencil 2. It's an incredibly capable set of tools, but I just can't get comfortable with it.

I can't speak to iPads but the RM2 really almost feels like paper, it's very close to having a real sketchpad.

The iPads feel like... drawing on glass with a plastic pencil. The expressiveness, pressure sensitivity, and tools are all incredible... but it's definitely in the drawing tablet realm of mark making rather than the paper realm of mark making.

My problem with it is that I'd rather have an iPad and a cheaper e-reader to get access to many more apps and functions. If it was 1/2 the price it would be at least interesting but I use the iPad to read ebooks, to browse the web, to paint in procreate, to sequence synths and record using an audio interface, to watch YouTube in the kitchen or Netflix in bed, and with a logitech keyboard work on documents in Microsoft office. As I find new useful apps it becomes more and more useful itself.

The remarkable does cost less than the iPad but it has maybe an 1/8th or a 1/16th of the functionality, and my Kobo reader cost me less than $100 for most of the benefits of having an e-ink reader. It lacks an app ecosystem and seems aimed as a tinker device instead of an end user product.

But I guess if you have to have a larger e-ink tablet the remarkable seems to be the thing.

I absolutely cannot read for any significant period of time on an ipad screen, it kills my eyes. I love my rM2, but agree that not having support for 3rd party apps seriously sucks, its (IMO) the one thing thats really missing from the device.

Turn down the brightness, use something with an inverted colour scheme, adjust the text size to something reasonable, and don't read in the dark if you're doing that

But as I said I also have a Kobo reader for reading on its own, and it was very cheap compared to the remarkable.

The point of a remarkable is to be an e-ink notebook to write in. It has a few extra features, like, it CAN be used as an e-reader, but it's not really its primary focus.

So with that in mind, an e-ink reader doesn't make for a good writing device, and an ipad is lacking the wacom style e-ink tablet.

Is it overpriced for what it is? Yeah, probably, that's the curse of small batch hardware in the world of Google and Apple.

But an ipad and an e-reader don't really replace it's niche. If you're cool with the writing experience on an ipad, then the Remarkable is essentially useless to you.

Personally, I really, really love my Remarkable 2 (I also had the original, but the 2 is way better).

Imho the only thing the iPad loses over Wacom is the shape of the pen (my pro pen 2 is head and shoulders more comfortable to use than the apple pencil). The remarkable pen is not much different than the apple pencil. Wacoms strength is their application support/drivers support which remarkable doesn't have and iPad has its own ecosystem. I suppose also that you can get very large tablet displays with Wacom too while the iPad tops out at roughly 13".

Facebook has been pushing ads for this device at me since it was available and each time I look I can't imagine why anyone would want one except that they have money to burn and time to waste beta testing on something that doesn't have an ecosystem but has a low power screen.

Amazon is already a major consumer of eink screens and could eat their lunch tomorrow and close the whole company down in a year. There's no future for it without an app ecosystem and a more compelling reason to exist

An iPad and an e-reader do much more than a remarkable for not that much difference in cost. I dont see a long term future for their company or product

I don't have a rm2, but I am intrigued by all the praise for the paper-like feel of the pen/screen combination: have you tried it and not noticed any difference, or are you simply talking based on the specs?

Honestly wondering because it's too expensive to be an impulse buy for me, on top of not being available to my country, so I'd have to jump through hoops and pay extra to get it locally, but I am hoping I can replace gobbles of paper with one device like that.

I got a matte screen protector for my iPad with a similar feel. Neither the iPad with the paperlike protector nor the remarkable actually feel like paper, but they do feel better than drawing with a plastic pen on a glass screen. My 16" Wacom display tablet also has something similar applied from factory to provide a texture to it

To further clarify, you have actually compared reMarkable 2 (and not reMarkable 1, which was never equally praised) to all the other devices you mention?

(Basically, that would make me not get a reMarkable 2 before I can try one out, and if my impression matches yours, I wouldn't bother and would instead wait out for PineNote)

Remarkable 1 was pretty similar to the 2 in that respect (most of the wins of the 2 are unrelated.)

I don't really agree with the previous poster. Drawing on a Remarkable really feels much better than alternatives (similar to a Wacom tablet, which imo is pretty unique), no matter which kind of screen protector you put on it.

I've only tried an Ipad Pro once, but it really wasn't close.

There's also the battery that's nice. I only need to charge this thing once in a blue moon (more often than a Kindle, but still). Because of WFH I haven't used it as much (I prefer typing my notes if I can be at my desk. I use my tablet on the go), and using it only a few minutes here and there the battery's at 60% after several months.

it feels like drawing on an ipad with a matte screen protector. depending on the screen protector they have slightly different feels. overall it doesn't feel like paper, it just has more friction than drawing on glass with a plastic pencil tip.

given another poster's post in this page describing their return experience, I would advice you to not a get a remarkable 2 until you can try one in person no matter what people say.

I think the “problem” is that iPad’s hardware / sw quality is so high it makes seemingly similar tech products seem overpriced or shabby or both.

I feel the same way about the kindle oasis. Amazon seems to care less than nothing about that whole product line, it is so neglected.

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