reMarkable 2 | Hacker News Reader

reMarkable 2

remarkable.com

299 pointsspking424 comments

Not sure why this pops up now, nothing new afaik, but I'll take this as a chance to leave a quick review ;)

I bought one during the kickstarter, mostly for note taking; but also as a ereader & perhaps drawing tool. - For note taking: I prefer a simple paper notebook, as my notes are more procedural. I don't really look back often. It's fine. Just not better then paper for note taking imo. - As a e-reader, it is absolute dog shit. period. - If you are not artistic, this will not change that - The subscription model is terrible, I've cancelled my 'grandfathered' account and tried to sell my rm2 over it. - Currently using it as exceedingly expensive notepad, no cloud crap etc. - Battery life is kinda meh, either you have it go to standby and have to wait a few second to use it. Or it is constantly empty when you want to use it. Not the eInk experience I had expected.

You can install custom software, as it is not locked down, that might solve some of these issues. I haven't tried. For me, this is just a notepad. And not a great one at that. I use it mainly because I paid for it tbh.

I have several friend that have one too and enjoy it much more, but this how I experienced it, ymmv obviously.

My review is complete opposite of yours. I also prefer the notepad style of note taking but the remarkable means that my notes are available on my phone or computer whenever I need it. It is the first note taking tablet I've used that actually feels like I'm writing on paper. It's writing and drawing latency is fantastic and the matte surface with the pen replicates the feel better than anything else I've tried.

As an e-reader for general reading it may not shine but when I'm reading a PDF for research and need to underline/mark it up as a part of my study it's fantastic. I find the battery life to be excellent and I don't mind occasionally starting it back up.

It sounds like the remarkable doesn't really fit your way of working but it absolutely fits mine.

> My review is complete opposite of yours

Have you tried other devices? The remarkable is about bottom of the barrel, with its only good point being a low latency.

For everything else, you'd be better served by a Sony Digital Paper or a Fujitsu Quaderno, and their latency is low enough to not bother me

> I don't mind occasionally starting it back up

Something that's not stable/trustworthy can't be my notetaking device

I share your review 1000x. I pretty much exclusively read PDFs, mostly OCRd but sometimes not. reMarkable is the only ereader I’ve ever found usable. I do agree that the subscription model feels tacked on, but there’s good tooling otherwise (I don’t use the cloud service myself). I highly recommend it as an ereader if you want one predominantly for research, actively taking notes on your documents at home and on-the-go while wanting to sync that with your PC note apparatus.

Shocking to hear because it can’t even do OCR so you can search your own notes.

So, you flip through page by page to find your notes?

I’d rather buy an iPad for GoodNotes which lets you search your hand written notes

The e-reader is alright, they have been adding features to it on a regular basis and now it's decent. But it has one big advantage in that you can drop PDFs onto it with no changes and then you can scribble all over them with the pen. (I am not a big fan of MOBI/EPUB and most of my content is in PDF.) My amazon ereader couldn't do that.

I love mine! It's a fantastic device and I am glad I got on the bleeding edge of this tech.

I do wish it would sync with Calibre, I don't like having to maintain two ebook libraries

I also wish it had a touchscreen calibrator, as the pen is slightly off around some of the corners

It still doesn’t have bookmarks. Still. This isn’t even just missing reader functionality but would be really helpful in notes as well. Yes, you can get around this with hacks… that are wiped out along with your custom templates as soon as you update.

The web interface fails to upload for me about 80% of the time.

The hardware works brilliantly. Aesthetically, it is an objectively beautifully designed device.

Connect subscription is useless to me, and I’ve never used it.

I’m still torn on the purchase, about a year later. It’s… ok, and I like having it around as it scratches the “want to write but I don’t like having 40 notebooks” itch. It would be nice to have a backlight as well, but most of the time I’m alright without.

Try installing koreader - it works great with calibre

IMO, the whole point of the Remarkable is that it's simple to take notes and annotate PDFs. It doesn't try to do everything, and it's a great single purpose device. The EPUB/e-book reader functionality is very basic, but it's great for reading PDFs.

I've had a different experience with the reMarkable. I love this thing. It's a notepad of course, but I read a lot of books on it. Battery life has worked fine for me.

I use it daily.

My experience is almost the opposite but I understand what you say. I use it for note-taking only and it's almost like paper in the feeling. But it hasn't got the downsides of paper as compared to digital media: weight, the difficulty to copy it, the fact that it deteriorates easily, that you cannot erase pen marks easily, etc...

This is what basically removed my need for paper in note-taking. And since in 2022 that was the last thing that I still used paper for, this changed my life and that's an understatement.

Paper went for me from a routine need to something like snail mail (contracts, the few things I really care about and want a hard copy of and very few other uses). I haven't bought a notebook since and I used to do that almost monthly before I had this device.

I feel it's just designed to be a notebook replacer and nothing more. I agree that as an e-reader it's horrible but we have Kindles and tablets for that. Not everything has to be in the same device.

What I am really missing from paper, however, is some color. Even having a way to draw in, say, red and black only, would be amazing. No need for the whole RGB spectrum, just that the feeling of drawing with different pens is something I had unfortunately to give up on.

Re: reading: try KOReader. It was a straight upgrade from the reader app on my Boox device and I wouldn't switch back if you paid me. I only dip into the stock apps for note-taking now, all of my reading happens in KOReader; It took reading from "pretty good but often annoying" to excellent.

Agreed on the other points though. Personally I think we're a good two generations of color display tech away from general availability of really good e-ink hybrid devices that have color displays, high PPI and low enough display latency to feel responsive during markup. If you're okay with slower refresh the kaleido 3 stuff hitting the market this year might satisfy your desire for highlighting and color markup. Personally I'm waiting a bit, 150PPI just doesn't do it for me.

I had a similar experience, bought Remarkable 2 just to have it sit on the shelf next to similarly disused GDP MicroPC.

I wanted a nice notetaking device which would also be a decent e-reader.

Remarkable is a decent notetaking device but that's about it.

The way books/documents are uploaded is such a fail, why do you need a web interface?

It is a well built hardware device with a horrible e-reader. I did install Koreader. That helps but with KoReader you lose the notetaking integration.

As a company, it seems Remarkable is caught between Linux hardware graybeards(thank you for SSH!) and marketing cloud upsells.

Meanwhile I use my old waterproof Kobo H20 nightly, while using similarly old Sony DPT-S1 for larger PDFs.

Why is it 'dog shit' as an e-reader? I mean, how badly can you fuck that up? I feel like that should be a pretty simple feature.

I'm not the OP but also have a reMarkable 2: the reMarkable 2 doesn't appear to mount as a standard USB external disc on MacOS (Kindles do, however). This makes it hard to manage a library via Calibre or a similar system. The reMarkalbe 2 really, really wants users to sign up for subscription services that manage the device through reMarkable's servers, which adds a bunch of unpleasant and difficult-to-manage steps, relative to the simple strategy of "plug in, send to device" that Calibre enables.

In addition, I often download articles from https://www.instapaper.com/u; the reMarkable 2 often malforms them, in ways other e-readers, including Kindles and iPads, don't.

I infer that reMarkable's scheme and hope is to sell monthly sync software, but this plan works poorly with my e-reader workflow and, I'd guess, others'.

Probably there are ways to get around these limitations (and, reading the thread, I see some people listing rsync and such), but they're so annoying out of the box that I wish I'd not bought mine.

It works well as an e-reader if you're loading it with PDFs. If you're loading it with ePubs, it converts these to PDF behind the scenes, but the internal converter is terrible (although it has improved). It also has a very peculiar/frustrating way of highlighting text; if you're trying to highlight a paragraph, usually at least one of the lines won't "snap" to the text and you'll have to hit undo and try again.

You can install koreader or plato on it, which turns it into more of a traditional ereader, with good ePub support. But occasionally you'll have to reinstall the launcher you use, because there is no officially supported launcher and the option to disable updates doesn't always work.

I wouldn't personally recommend an RM2 as an ereader; there are better options.

Awkward to hold, slow page turns, bad battery life. A kindle is a million times better for epub reading. For PDF e-reading it's no good either because it's slow, and you can't read charts on a low resolution grayscale display.

I am one of the original kickstarter backers and got mine at a very favorable price compared to what they are selling it for now. As a original kickstarter backer they also provided me with a free tier for their subscription service so I am not paying anything extra to have full functionality, this is very important to me because I am not very excited of subscription based software features - remarkable please take note of this!

The remarkable unit is still a thing of beauty. It excels at what it does, and I bring it with me everywhere. I use the cloud features to pick up documents and use it to hold my PDFs and eBooks and it is an important device for my note taking. I have modded the unit a little bit by replacing the original back-ground pictures. To be able to access this device as root appeals very much to me, I very much feel in control of my device.

From a security point of view, they still have some work to do. It is embarrassing when the unit goes into sleep mode and private notes are kept visible to everyone. I created a ticket in they support system, but they don't seem to take it seriously. There is also the issue with only having a 4-code pin to unlock the device. This means that you must be very careful with what you write and store on the unit. Sensitive notes should not be stored on the unit.

There is also no way to deprecate the unit and the content if it is lost or it hasn't check in against the cloud.

The software that is installed on your PC/Mac has very basic functionality.

Overall, would still strongly recommend, 8/10.

To me it's the opposite: I expect to be able to read the note which is on screen indefinitely, that is: exactly how I leave a notebook open on a page.

Physical security is a non-issue in this class of device IMHO. It's the same security I expect on a physical notebook. If that gets stolen, it's stolen. If we can get something better (like full encryption with pin unlock - so that the other non visible pages are safe) than I would be more happy, but the current status is still perfectly fine.

What's NOT ok is the reliance on the cloud features. There's no encryption. No control on sharing. It's either all or nothing. You can turn this off, but then you cannot send the notes elsewhere (it's fine if I'm intentionally sending one page to somebody I know he can receive it). Screenshare also stops working, despite being a dumb vnc connection wrapped in ssl, just because the central randevouz point becomes inaccessible.

This is also why this makes this device unfit for company use IMHO: your users cannot be compliant with any sort of security policy unless they disable everything and just use it as a dumb notebook. Getting it stolen is a non issue: you can get a notebook stolen, it's your fault. But if I cannot control the cloud features in a fine-grained mode, then it's outside of your control and that's what makes the device really unfit for corporate use.

I hope remarkable is listening. I opened several tickets for this: just allow me to disable sync for a folder or everything (without killing send by email) would already be a start.

It's otherwise an amazing device, but a device you cannot trust with the cloud features, which is a major shame.

With regard to security, it seems to me that the most obvious comparison for the ReMarkable would be a paper notepad which would also be compromised if you had physical access?

Saying this as a former ReMarkable owner (and kickstarter backer) who ended up only using the device as a notepad, after learning that I read in a non-linear fashion which doesn't work well on the relatively slow screen. And for notes, I ended up deciding that paper is simpler that dragging yet another device around.

Still, I highly recommend the ReMarkable and my device happily lives on as a school notebook for my son.

> With regard to security, it seems to me that the most obvious comparison for the ReMarkable would be a paper notepad which would also be compromised if you had physical access?

No that doesn't sound like an obvious comparison at all. It has a feature that it feels like a notepad when writing, but that's where the similarities end. Imagine if you compared a phone security to a flashlight because phones have a torch feature.

It's still a device with digital and connected capabilities, a completely different security context.

I think the security concerns are a lot closer to a notebook than they are to other digital devices. It really doesn't do many things. It writes notes, and has ebooks and pdfs.

A smartphone requires different security concepts than a flashlight because access to a smartphone can open up all sorts of risks- identity theft, bank account access, etc. But that's not true for the reMarkable. It offers roughly the same capabilities as a notebook. If someone got into my reMarkable they would have access to exactly the same stuff as if they got into my old notebooks.

fellow nonlinear-reader here. random access to an otherwise rather linear content format is so key for me, and the responsiveness and user interface are maddening. now i can't stop marveling at paper as a medium -- it got so many things right. it certainly wasn't the first try by humans. we tried clay plates and sheep skin and bamboo chips, until we hit upon paper. but nonetheless it's amazing that paper is still not surpassed after more than a thousand years.

> after more than a thousand years.

A lot more than a thousand years[0].

I have an iPad Mini with a PaperLike screen protector, and Pencil 2. Works wonderfully. I have a number of apps to convert input, and they work quite well. Apple did very well, with Pencil 2 (don’t get me started on Pencil 1).

I still prefer a paper notepad, most times, though.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus

> i can't stop marveling at paper as a medium -- it got so many things right. it certainly wasn't the first try by humans. we tried clay plates and sheep skin and bamboo chips, until we hit upon paper. but nonetheless it's amazing that paper is still not surpassed after more than a thousand years.

Does paper have any advantage over vellum ("sheep skin") other than being cheaper?

Most of the media you mention are superior to paper in various ways, but either logistically difficult (clay) or expensive (vellum). Paper is the "my car's turn signal stopped working, so I bought a new car" of recording media. It is cheap to manufacture, it rots quickly, it is easily destroyed, and it's cheap to replace.

I also only use it for notes but I have the tendency to not be too nice to paper notes making them less readable over time so it's definately a plus. A bit too expensive since there are simpler alternatives but for a premium device and price I like the feel of it. The slowness doesn't bother me too much, I also use it for going through several specification files and it's not too slow that it's unusable.

Funny, I often wish to leave the note on screen while in sleep mode. I kinda wish there were two actions, one for lock and another for sleep... or something.

I had a ticket on this. There's no reason not to write "device is off" on the banner which is already there in sleep mode.

A notebook doesn't make the note disappear.

mine has "remarkable is sleeping" shown when it's sleeping, and I need to unlock it to get it to show anything.

Our (multi billion dollar) company had to tell the exec "no" for these because of the weak security.

They just dont seem to care. Other wise we would have hundreds in the business.

What kind of security are they lacking? I compare it with a notepad, which you lock away in a drawer when you don’t want people to access it.

MDM

We want to be able to restrict what gets synced to where. (eg, not dropbox or box or google etc)

We want to enforce passwords and screen time outs. We'd prefer to use intune to do this but are open to other possibilities etc etc

None of this is possible and remarkable don't seem interested in this.

A notepad doesn't sync to the cloud.

  > The software that is installed on your PC/Mac has very basic functionality.

Is there Linux software? What do you need the software for anyway?

It works with wine. It syncs books and notes to/from the cloud account to your local device.

I bought a rm2 a while back but abandoned it when I discovered it had extremely weak security: no fde, a weak remotely-resettable 4 digit pin, no local file syncing (doesn't appear as a mass storage device when plugged in as a usb, doesnt support standard file transfer protocols), non-e2ee (!!) cloud syncing (their company can see my notes unencrypted).

Now I use an android tablet that I locked down + synching and i couldn't be happier. The only thing I'm missing now is a good note taking app that writes my notes to a directory that can be synced with synching. Recent versions of android broke this for all apps except Google's Files app unfortunately.

Like it or not, they're pitching it as an appliance to replace a notepad. I think the marketing is quite clever, and I applaud their focus.

But it does mean that they deliberately exclude bells and whistles that you would expect from a general-purpose software device. Though IMHO with every added feature, they are scope-creeping away from the spartan value prop.

FWIW the USB exposes it over a virtual network which lets you do fun stuff like SSH. But that's for fun, not serious.

You still cannot simply rsync (+ some processing?) the files contained on the device though, because PDFs and their annotations (your scribblings) are stored as separate files and their rendering software is proprietary

Is it? I think this will doom the device and the company. They exclude a lot while not being cheaper than competitors and they shove basic functionality into a subscription. And yet this notebook replacement doesn't even come with the pen in the box either.

Why would anyone spend $300+$80 for a Remarkable 2 when a Kobo Elipsa or Kindle Scribe is less and they are better at book reading, have features like a screen light and don't need a subscription to do things like cloud sync? Marginally better note taking feel?

I keep mine in airplane mode unless/until I want to transfer stuff or update it. I don't even use the PIN at all.

It's a replacement for my notebook - it's at least as secure as a physical notebook, and several times lighter (I'd need about 5 notebooks for everything I've got on it).

I keep it in front of my keyboard in landscape mode, like a large trackpad. I've scribbled over 2000 pages since I bought it. Meeting notes, planning, algorithm design, mind maps... I usually never read again what I doodle on it, only sometimes it helps me refresh some data. So it's like unlimited paper.

Don't get it. If I ever buy a device like Remarkable it's because of its display (easy on the eyes, reads like paper, etc.). If you couldn't be happier using a normal Android tablet (which has a normal display), then why did you go for the Remarkable in the first place?

If someone wants the flexibility of android but the experience of an e-ink reader, I can vouch for the Boox Note models (I have the note 2).

boox make ereaders that use android as the OS

I have the best of both worlds: my Boox Note 2 is an android tablet but is a 10” e-ink Wacom note taking device too. It’s been brilliant, albeit less polished in some corners than the RM2 of course — but the note taking experience (and reading experience) is not one of them: it’s fantastically polished and performant. And got crazy good after sales support with firmware updates too to add new features to their notes and reading apps

> it’s fantastically polished and performant

Except when you want to zoom, pan, not zoom/pan while writing or want an infinite canvas (I do). Or if you don't want your page's content to completely shift away from its background (irreversibly) when rotating the device. Those are just the most prominent bugs I remember, there were more.

I love the writing feel of E-Ink; the software makes it unusable.

You may be thinking "just use another app and hack up the SD to enable scribble mode when using it": Well - With Squid, anyway, pen strokes get lost due to suboptimal palm rejection (what the SDK reports seems to be different from what Android reports). Besides, the SDK only sends the stroke after it has been finished, which would be sub-optimal for potentially collaborative applications like Excalidraw.

Such a letdown. Software updates are great, you can even root it, Syncthing works well. But I mainly use my Nova 2 as a slightly fancier alternative to my Kindle that I'm much more worried about breaking.

I'm still excited about the potential. If anyone reading this is also interested in hacking around on Boox devices, let's talk, maybe: https://gitter.im/boox-users/community

I came to a similar conclusion after looking into rm2 and trying one of the similar Boox tablets. They may run android, but security and OS updates seems to be a low priority for these eink tablets.

I ended up getting an iPad Air with the pencil, and one of those matte screen protectors. The OS may be locked down, but I can still choose from a wide variety of note apps/clouds (currently use GoodNotes), and security is obviously top notch.

How is the feel of writing on the matte screen protector? I've tried the pencil on the screen and the friction and "tap tap tap" sent me back to pencil and paper.

> doesnt support standard file transfer protocols

If sftp isn't standard enough, I'm not sure what is.

what note taking apps have you tried? just off the top of my head, obsidian and joplin both let you choose a custom directory. logseq too but the android app is in beta. i haven't been keeping up to date with note taking apps though so there could be lots more

> weak security

I think security is important, but unless you're going up against a state actor with physical access, I think this isn't a credible threat at this time.

Or you know, their servers get hacked and everybody's notes are leaked. Or you get a nosie employee that just has raw access to your files.

re2 has been on my radar for at least a year at this point, but given the lack of features, price point, and the not so ideal size for PDF reading I'm still on the lookout. It's a nice looking device, but not quite there yet.

Have you really never had any of your data leaked and plastered all over the internet for all eternity? Of course it's a credible threat. Cloud service operators should finally get it into their heads that they can go E2EE or GTFO.

I’ve bought myself a reMarkable 2 with the approach that „I’m just getting an expensive toy” (ie not an everyday work tool, just a nice gizmo). And it’s been great, if a bit pricey. (On the flip side, I have a free subscription.)

Some things I’ve used it for, so far:

- To write handwritten.blog.

- As a notebook. Nothing much to mention here. Being able to pick a page template (plain/dotted/lined/squared) is nice.

- Reading PDFs. Kindle won’t quite cut it, even with k2pdfopt – the screen size makes a difference. Plus, you can annotate them!

- Reading code. `npx repo-to-pdf some-repo` and then proceed as above. Great for getting oneself into a full-focus mode.

- Live-sketching at conference calls. I just share the reMarkable screen to my Mac and then share the companion app’s window on Zoom. Tried it out twice during internal brown-bags, worked very nice.

- As an actual toy. Getting grandma’s picture onto an e-ink screen and being able to draw a moustache lights up a big smile on my 8yo niece’s face.

I love your blog, but I must say I can't read it for longer than 1 or 2 minutes. That probably says more about me than your blog for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a common experience.

Hey there, does sharing the screen to Mac require some kind of cloud sync? If so, is there any noticeable delay from sketching on the device to appearing on Mac?

I wrote pipes-and-paper[1] which sort of shares your screen without any cloud. Getting to what the display puts out is difficult, but recording the pen strokes isn't. So what I wrote is a small webserver that runs on the reMarkable (1 and 2) that sends the penstrokes to the webbrowser via Websockets. It draws all penstrokes on a camvas in the browser and also deletes strokes when the eraser is used.

[1] https://github.com/AnyTimeTraveler/pipes-and-rust

> handwritten.blog

This is so cool!

Clickable https://handwritten.blog/

Is it easy to use for reading daily news, or would that require some hacking to get my news content to transfer to it automatically?

There's nothing in the main ecosystem for getting news content on the device (besides manually sending individual articles to the rM via the chrome extension).

I'm working on a project that pulls from RSS/Twitter/Reddit, formats all your subscriptions into a single pdf, and syncs to Google Drive (which the rM can sync with). It's working great for me so far but is the closest to "automatic" I think you can achieve with the device right now.

Also have a remarkable. While hacking it is reasonably easy, you would need to do a bit of it to make this work smoothly I think.

The HN GPT-3 summarizer is cool. How is the accuracy?

The rm2 is a really nice device but you also have to take into account the price for their subscription service. IMHO they totally ruined it with their subscription service. On the other, I assume this is the only way they could raise the money to keep going. Times don't get better for them with more and more e-ink devices that support note taking etc.

Worth noting they actually announced changes to subscription that basically cancels the whole thing. Subscription still exists, it's cheaper, but basic functions that we (clients) were told comes with device itself are again not tied to subscription.

That move of theirs was insane, this change must be a direct reflections of clients correctly voting with their wallets.

If you were told it comes with the device as a client then it comes with the device. They were transparent about the switch to subscriptions, anyone who bought before subscriptions has all these features for free, anyone who bought after would have been able to read about the subscription model before buying.

That is not exactly true, but they sure made it look that way.

First we (those before-subscription buyers) lost possibility to resell the device with same functionality. Before that they eagerly let switch an email and RM account to new users.

Secondly there was no clear information if free subscription will last. If it was permanent, then why not stating it clearly or replying to tickets about that issue.

Lastly warranty was suddenly limited to one year and users with subscription. If you resigned from subscription but later changed your mind, the warranty was lost anyway. How that even got through their legal team is a mystery to me.

>this change must be a direct reflections of clients correctly voting with their wallets.

This sentence irks me on so many levels...

"Voting with a wallet" doesn't work, doesn't exist and is never taken into account anywhere, except in the mind of the American Consumer. Not buying a Remarkable when the subscription was added means your opinion on the matter just never showed up during product decisions, planning or analysis.

Instead, it got changed because Remarkable listen to what its users say and EXISTING users actively disliked that subscription. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with potential buyers avoiding it.

Returns, on that matter, are active users expressing their opinions. Not imaginary buyers "voting with their wallet".

I bought a Remarkable 2 just before they imposed subscriptions. It’s grandfathered into the old plan (free unlimited storage). Anyone looking to buy it with case, stylus, extra nibs, etc please contact me in my profile email address. Love it but don’t use it.

My guess is that the handwriting translation (ICR) stuff requires cloud processing?

Lots of hate but I really like mine:

  - Drag and drop PDFs from the browser to upload
  - Read a ton of books I wouldn't normally read (yes can do this on a kindle but it has a much bigger display)
  - Journaling with my own templates
  - Kids can scribble and play hangman etc on planes
  - Gets rid of the stacks of notebooks in my house
  - Has that wow factor when people/clients see it
  - Natural writing feel
  - Pretty robust (knocks around in my backpack)

Really nice tech purchase. I got it before the subscription but paid more for it as a result.

Before buying remarkable, compare remarkable to a BOOX device. I did just that and my conclusion was that remarkable is an overpriced piece of tech at risk of being abandoned.

For example, just the reading software on BOOX is leaps and bounds ahead of Remarkable. Similarly, on BOOX, you've got Android, which opens up a number of possibilities, while remarkable uses Linux (which sounds awesome until you realize that nobody's going to custom-develop apps for a very niche device in a very niche ecosystem). Technically speaking though, this means that once abandoned, Remarkable will not be completely dead.

A comment in a comparison video I'd recommend you watch [1] summed it up pretty nicely: " The Remarkable is remarkable for the amount of stuff it doesn't have." The only thing that Remarkable wins at is the actual writing experience (which you can top with a $30 fountain pen).

I was seriously considering buying Remarkable. I've bought a BOOX Lumi instead, and it has been a great experience.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQp1o6qPj8

The Remarkable is intended to primarily be a digital notebook and their advertising is very clear on that. It's not intended to run apps, it's not intended as e-book reader (though it has some limited capabilities), it doesn't have a browser, etc., nor do they intend to add such things.

The parent is correct that people who are looking for those things should not be considering the Remarkable, but that is not a demerit of the device.

Essentially, what I'm claiming is that the only thing RM2 does better than a device like BOOX is that the writing feels better. It's not even better organized, the note app is not better in any way AFAICT, it just feels slightly more like paper.

In other words, the RM2 marketing can dress this up as whatever it wants. In the current market, the only person who's better served by RM2 than by its competitors is a person that loves the feeling of writing on a paper and is willing to trade it for a number of features.

You can have a BOOX full-on digital notebook as well.

I very much agree.

While of course Remarkable positioned itself as a notebook. But in practise it is not. You really want to use these 300-500$ devices for something other than just expensive notebooks. Some people want to write on whitepaper pdfs, others want their comic books and then there's notetaking. And you can draw, yes, if you really, REALLY want it.

But it just doesn't feel like real drawing, even Remarkable is... okay at best. And not okay, given the price and the limited feature set.

So I went with a 10.3 inch Boox Note instead of Remarkable a couple of years ago. Never regreted it! I read my whitepapers, write on these, easily navigate multicolumn docs. My daughter loves reading her comic books, writing on them, etc. I also do some notetaking.

But that's just a perspective who dives into sci-oriented writing a lot. For other people Remarkable's slightly better writing is totally worth it - and that's ok.

Fan of remarkable 2 here when it launched.

Boox is a next gen version. And it is incredible. Just don't compare it to remarkable. Remarkable was always hobbyist turned company product. And it was great.

But this onyx Boox is several iterations better.

The ReMarkable 2 tablet has been out of awhile and is a well known device, this post just links to the main homepage as far as I can see, what am I missing?

Something new announced?

This link is likely advertising, but they are on the verge of their 3.0 system software release which substantially adds to the functionality of the device. It goes from page-based notetaking to an optional infinite size canvas, and text boxes are now allowed that can be edited on desktop. Users in the beta stream already have the update.

No. You're just watching modern advertising at work.

Is there a reason this is trending, I can't see any changes recently?

I played with the RM1 at work and quite liked it, but the locked down experience is a deal breaker. I want to be able to work with Obsidian (Onyx Boox might do this).

Amazon recently announced a similar product and it seems like Remarkable has increased their marketing budget because of this.

Yah HN is gamed big time. Must be easy to get stuff to the front page.

How does Onyx Boox work with Obsidian? Is it because it runs Android?

My Note Air 2 is just an android tablet. You can install any android app on it. Depending on what the App wants to do with the screen it works somewhere between really well (very rarely needs refreshes) and terribly (app needs refreshes very often, a lot of things change between frames).

At least in theory you can run anything on the Onyx Boox because, as you say, it runs Android. I haven't tried it but it's a starting point.

they just changed their subscription service to be cheaper (3$/mo instead of idk 8-9?) and re-included more into their free service. So it appears that maybe now the device might be interesting to new customers again...

I have one and like it, but actually don't use it much since I don't need to write many notes nowadays. However, reading manga is nice with it (but a little cumbersome as the device does not accept zip files with jpgs/png so one probably has to convert files).

I don't begrudge companies linking product announcements, but this is not that. It's not a new product, and it's not an announcement of any sort.

What is your process for reading manga on the device? I've considered loading some up on mine, but I haven't come up with a process at all yet. I've actually considered writing a custom program for it to specifically load up a manga zip file, but I'm working on a way to talk to external storage first so I don't wear out the internal memory loading in a bunch of test programs.

Hard to imagine how it could be less locked down. What's the alternative?

I was curious if the device could recognise my terrible handwriting. As per this page, they use MyScript[1].

Here's a demo of the software if anyone's interested to confirm the same: https://webdemo.myscript.com/views/text/index.html

1: https://myscript.com (TIL)

Oh the demos are great. Not flawless, but it's nice to write mathematical notation by hand and get LaTeX out.

https://webdemo.myscript.com/views/math/

I use MyScript Nebo on my iPad for note taking and it works great. The handwriting recognition is impressive!

Love my ReMarkable but I'm one of those paper nuts that likes to scribble a lot

I use it as an "endless pile of paper" and don't think much about organizing my notes. It's very effective at emulating paper, and because it can do so little it's also very nice to keeping focus and not getting distracted

It's my go-to tool for jotting down ideas, or taking notes during meetings and it's always on my table

I had a ReMarkable 2 last year, but sent it back. For reading PDFs my iPad Pro 12.9 inch is way better, and for taking notes and scribbling paper is way better. I can also have 10 sheets of paper or more next to each other on my desk, try that with a ReMarkable. It's a beautiful device, but inferior to the alternatives, at least for me.

You might wanna try Paperlike: https://paperlike.com/products/paperlike-for-ipad It made a huge difference for me. My use case is similar to yours. I use it for drawing but also as an endless pile of paper with Concepts.

How's the pen latency, esp. compared to iPads? I'm using an iPad Pro (2nd or 3rd gen) + Paperlike and it works lovely and even the 1st-gen pen is just so much better than anything else I've tried.

I can't compare to iPad, but the reMarkable 2 pen latency is very good. Not zero, but so tiny it isn't noticeable. It also has a paperlike feel, a subtle texture. This seems like a trivial detail until you use it. Now writing on a glassy-smooth surface feels cheap in comparison.

Agreed. As a notebook the R2 has replaced a disorganised and ever-growing stack of paper on my desk. I love it. The only way I use it is for sketching diagrams and noting my thoughts during meetings.

Ditto, my desk is much more tidier without a big stack on papers with random thoughts and ideas scribbled on them. Still a mess though…

The Remarkable 2 is a good device. I used one heavily for a few months, mainly for work related things but also personal stuff. So far so good. However, there are a few things I personally didn't like:

1. Battery life. Not bad, but I expected more from a eink device. I had to charge it every 1 or 2 weeks. I expected a battery life more similar to my Kindle Oasis which I charge once in a month.

2. The OCR was useless, at least in my case. (I have to admit I have a pretty messi handwritting)

3. The navegation across menus was frustrating sometimes. I had to tap hard several times for opening a folder.

4. The ebook/pdf reading capability was not a first class citizen.

5. The export of notes to files must be done one by one. (Not sure if still the case)

Overall, a decent device. However, I have to admit I ended up selling it on eBay and buying a Samsung Tab S8+. I needed a more versatile device.

> 4. The ebook/pdf reading capability was not a first class citizen.

I can't overstate how disappointing this is. It's an e-ink device that enables users to annotate PDFs. The fact that this is not a killer feature of RM2 is just missed potential.

I bought one hoping to try it with the expectation I could return it using their 100-day guarantee. Ultimately decided the experience was too painful for my usual workflows in terms of reading and annotating my PDFs for grad school and work.

Their return process was the most PAINFUL return experience I've ever had to go through. You have to specify exactly what you're returning from their online menus and they use a delivery service that takes weeks to make deliveries. If you selected the wrong options (maybe you picked "tablet + pen" instead of "tablet + pen + extra pen nibs") they will send it all the way back to you and instruct you to attempt another return. They finally accepted it after 4 attempts, including one attempt where I did everything correctly and they still sent it back.

All this is to say, if you're looking to try the device with the expectation that you can use the return policy then be ready for a painful experience if you don't like it.

I had the same calculus, I bought it expecting to see if it would improve workflows, determined it didn't, and did the return. Didn't have this problem, remember the process being particularly easy honestly. Perhaps they revamped it since you or I did it? I returned mine in September of this year (before they announced the Connect changes, go figure).

Just went through my emails. This was all early 2021 so perhaps they’ve fixed the return process since then!

Honestly at that point I would’ve charged back through my cc.

I honestly cannot see the value in ReMarkable after the Kindle Scribe announcement. The kindle has a newer faster, 300dpi display vs 226dpi on the ReMarkable. I am waiting on reviews before ordering one for myself, but I can already see that Kindle Scribe is going to be disruptive for this segment.

I think ReMarkable's resolution is perfectly fine, and a higher DPI wouldn't make a significant difference.

However, it needs a better contrast. I can't tell if Scribe beats it on that, because in Scribe product videos their screen seems similarly dull, but other product shots have contrast so high it looks photoshopped.

Supposedly higher latency and worse experience when writing(also supposedly). I own Remarkable 2, and unless they can replicate same paper feeling, it won’t a replacement for Remarkable.

But it is a nice eBook reader, yes.

RM user base seems like a very niche Venn diagram:

1) People that love the feel of fountain pen writing.

2) People that love having all of their notes electronically.

I love what writing feels like, so I have a pen and paper and study offline (I typically throw out my notes). Generally, if you belong to just one of the two categories, you don't need to pay the RM premium.

The kindle will be using wacom emr which is more then adequate for most people. I never had a problem with the technology before and I don't think it will be practically worse. I can't imagine most people expect it to feel like writing on paper.

I am hoping the carta 1200/1250 display which ever it ends up shipping with will help to reduce latency, but for my use case which is more reading and less note taking it is seemingly perfect.

I bought a Remarkable 2 - the UI design wasn’t there for me yet and I only persisted with it for a few days, but I am a big believer in the product category and would certainly give the next one a try. However, I think it will be forever niche. Not many people have any interest in writing by hand, and of those that do, only an few are so keen on digital organisation that they would buy one of these. It seems like a permanently small (but well heeled and discerning) target market, something for boutique tech companies to focus on, not giants. So I find it weird that Amazon is targeting this market at all - I don’t see how they plan to grow it into something big enough for them to care about. I feel like Kindle Scribe might just be an experiment that they will kill in a few years.

Anyone got any thoughts on this? Does Amazon have some big strategy that I’m missing here? How do they plan to persuade large numbers of people to buy into digital handwriting?

> Anyone got any thoughts on this? Does Amazon have some big strategy that I’m missing here? How do they plan to persuade large numbers of people to buy into digital handwriting?

Have you use office 365 or onenote? An iPad with the Apple pen recently? Any digital notes are organized by default, the latency and poor refresh rate makes eink impossible for replacing notebooks to me, but an LCD works great. Handwriting is already mainstream, as is using it on computer.

If you’re asking about Amazon most buyers of kindle fall between either upgrading every cycle and never using it, never upgrading their kindle keyboard, or more commonly never used it more than 3hr in total. Kindle sales are going to be good either way since type 1 buyers love tech for tech.

They've got a bigger screened Kindle, and included a pen with it.

They don't need to convince anyone to start taking notes on their Kindles, they just need to get people who want larger screens for reading to get them. Pen is a nice extra. And sure, there's 10% (pulled out of my behind, citation missing) of Scribe buyers who'd get it for note taking.

reMarkable is probably rightfully concerned since Amazon can easily outprice them, which they are already doing.

Same here: waiting for reviews before I jump on the wagon. Although, my primary motivation is to read PDF documents, especially the 2-column ones, than the prospect of taking notes or drawing. I hope it won't disappoint.

Not sure I want ads on my screen while trying to take notes, or ad popups randomly when starting software.

This is a kindle for you, so why would this be different?

IMHO 10" is too small for PDFs. Now that Amazon is after their market, they should go someplace that Amazon isn't: devices with letter / A4 sized display.

I believe Sony and Fujitsu sell a 13.3" epaper device and of course the iPad is available in that size. There's a whole lot of space between the very limited $700 Quaderno and the super powerful $2000 iPad Pro.

I really wanted to like the Remarkable. I saw people using them at a couple of conferences the idea seems so great.

So I tried it. Twice, for a couple weeks each. Had a couple of other people borrow in between and try it.

We all reached the same conclusion:

Solid implementation of a great idea!

... but ...

An additional object to carry? Nope. Get an iPad or a Surface Pro, if you need to both write/sketch and do other computing work. Carrying both a digital writing tablet and a separate general purpose device is very unappealing.

I know a board game illustrator currently using a reMarkable 2 for drawing his illustrations. Those illustrations are being used in final versions of games. They look extremely detailed. Not sure if he'd get the same level of detail on an iPad or Surface Pro. He thinks it was worth the purchase for him.

Also I think part of the appeal for this is you're not staring at a backlit screen like you would be with those devices.

Sorry, but have you looked at Procreate? There is absolutely no comparison to what you can do on an iPad. It’s basically a Wacom plus one of the high end art apps. Anything that you can do on a Remarkable can be done better on an iPad with respect to drawing, once you add a Paperlike to replicate the texture. I guess if you only did pencil sketches outside, the Remarkable would win.

The iPad Pro is expensive, but with the pencil, it's far more versatile and can double up as an actual computer. I use it practically for all my note taking now. And it also doubles up as an entertainment device

For me the only exception to this was "reading long PDFs, often". It's not visually comfortable to do that with an iPad for very long (too bright, backlit) and you can't easily do it outside in sunlight.

This would've been a GODSEND if it had been available when I was a student... back then it was only the Kindle DX that came close, and that was hecka expensive and still smaller.

I loved my Remarkable 1/2, used both of them daily. For awhile, Remarkable felt like the best in class e-ink tablet. The writing experience is lovely. I ended up giving them away after 1-2 years of use though.

Currently prefer Onyx Box Nova Air C for the backlight, color e-ink, and split screen capabilities. Since Onyx runs an Android variant, I can use Libby/Overdrive to check out audio/ebooks from my local library. Remarkable's software was painful to depend on daily.

I adore e-ink tablets as a class of devices, largely due to a positive first experience with Remarkable. Hoping Remarkable figures out a sane business model.

> Onyx Box Nova Air C

Call me old fashioned, but I just cannot take a product with a name like this seriously.

Is it a knockoff sold by OODREEFT on Amazon? Does it come pre-installed with Chinese spyware?

That’s the signal a name like that gives me. Same for the fact that it runs an android variant.

Even if the remarkable software is sometimes suboptimal at least they took the time to build their own.

How about that LG OLED C2 Evo 55" TV? Do you prefer that over LG OLED C1 or maybe LG NanoCell 80 Series or Nanocell 90 Series?

Or maybe those Apple iPhone XS Max phones? Or iPhone 14 Plus or iPhone 13 Pro Max? Are these knock-offs sold by a reseller on Amazon?

What I am saying is that there are (universally accepted as) good products that have silly names. Naming is done by marketing departments trying to be clever, products are designed by design/engineering departments trying to be clever.

Call me old fashioned, but I know which I care about more.

No it's not a knockoff (although it should be Boox not Box). And Oynx built their own software too? Just on top of Android instead of Linux. It's pretty customized and their apps are well designed to work on eInk screens. Android just adds a boat load of functionality because you get access to a ton of apps that work well on a touch screen.

Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend.

Ford is the brand. Bronco is a model of SUV. Sport is a trim. Big Bend is a sub trim.

And Jeep has them both beat with the Jeep Grand Wagoneer Series III, which is actually smaller than the Jeep Wagoneer Series III.

> Does it come pre-installed with Chinese spyware?

It literally does, yes.

A lot of people are comparing reMarkable with other e-ink note taking tablets. But I think that it would be wise for anyone buying these things to also compare them with pen and paper. I only bought rm 2 for one reason - to cut down on paper waste as I was filling out the same forms every day. But over time of its use, I've started noticing more and more advantages of pen and paper.

Advantages of pen and paper:

- more size options,

- a more natural feeling of writing,

- cheaper for a long time,

- easier to buy pens when they run out rather than replacement tips,

- easy to archive,

- no need to charge,

- no writing latency,

- no service subscriptions,

- defects/bugs have been worked out centuries ago,

- much better privacy: unless the e-ink tablet is forever air-gapped, but sometimes you need to connect it for one reason or another,

- system updates do not break your workflow: like custom templates in rm2,

- easily recyclable, at worst case - biodegradable,

- probably more green to produce: although paper production causes a lot of emissions, the amount paper a person might use over the lifetime of an e-ink tablet seems to be not that much,

- no kill switches: intentional or by way of a company ceasing support,

- good ecosystem: easy to share, easy to write in different colours, with different pens, easy to print custom forms.

On the other hand, there are some clear advantages of e-ink tablets:

- compact to store notes: although paper can be too, if one does not take a very large amount of notes,

- for heavy users, in the very long-run, digital storage costs less than paper and the storage space needed for it,

- carrying a very large number of books and notes around is much easier.

Overall, after using rm2 for about 6 months, I think it makes sense in niche scenarios when compared to plain old paper and a pen. But otherwise an e-ink note taking tablet could be more of a lifestyle choice than a practical one.

> Advantages of pen and paper:

- you can put many pages side by side

- it works great with rulers

- it can be thrown at the cat to play with

I've been using my rm1 for years without connecting it to the Internet, it works great as a replacement to my lab notebooks and flying sheets of paper.

For me, the disadvantage of paper is that I hate using it. My left hand smears ink, I press down too hard writing or erasing and it messes up the paper. I bend and tear the pages. I get frustrated. I lose interest and stop using it.

The advantage of the RM2 is that I love using it and so I keep using it.

I bought one a few months ago and I definitely use it most days.

Except I don't use it for note taking, I use it to think about what I'm doing tool: doodling essentially.

Boxes, arrows, circles, words... Then the code virtually writes itself. It's like a code extractor or glasses for my mind.

I'd say that honestly, a pen a paper would do the same. I just got into the marketing and bought one. It's nice to have erasing that leaves no traces, and undo/redo.

As for the cons, I'd say the contrast isn't as good as I'd like it to be in low light. I don't work in a very bright environment, and the ceiling splashing reflection of light makes it sometimes hard to read PDFs/ePubs.

Myself and couple of friends have been considering it, but dropped due to aggressive and ridiculous "marketing" tactics.

Perhaps it's a fine device, but no thanks. Good luck with subscription for connection.

Settled with Huawei MatePad Paper and couldn't be happier.

Have you tried using a wireless keyboard with it?

I was sort of considering getting one and using emacs through tmux. To do light programming and writing

I feel the latency should be tolerable. Though I worry about how much the screen flickers/refreshes

I'm using a Moaan Mix 7 and the constant screen refresh makes anything that's not entirely static a bit or a pain to look at. (Even a small "loading" spinner on screen forces a screen refresh every 10 seconds)

No, I use it solely to read books and browse sites.

They seem to use dynamic screen updates which adjusts to content, not sure how it will work in your case.

I case youtube quite alright on it, however I may not call it pleasurable, if that helps.

I've posted some negative stuff in this thread but I had some great fun hacking my rM1.

https://blog.afandian.com/2020/10/pipes-and-paper-remarkable...

https://gitlab.com/afandian/pipes-and-paper/

There's some quite good forks of that code too.

A friend of mine uses a kid's writing tablet for taking notes. Search for "writing tablet for kids" to see the kind of thing I mean.

It's great for taking notes without wasting paper, then for ones he wants to digitize, he takes a photo with his iPhone and lets iOS do the magic with OCR.

For £10 it's actually not a bad alternative and quite nice to have on the desk, plus the battery lasts for months.

Would be interesting to have someone do the actual computation of the CO2 / energy waste / etc of building this writing tablet and compare it with the number of paper sheets and pen that you have to use to offset it, just to know

Very true, plus presumably it gets shipped over from China too.

I have one stuck to the fridge for making shopping lists. Apps are cool and all, but sometimes it's just easier to jot things down

I always wondered how hackable these devices are... Maybe it's time to have a look.

Yes I've no idea what's inside them. Presumably very few chips to last that long on battery.

Sub-femtosecond display lag too! :-)

I don’t get it. Is there anything new announced? Because this is a 2 year old device, that judging from the comments a lot of us have.

Am I missing something, or is this a PSA to remind people that the RM2 exists?

People love discussing RM2, so I suspect just a PSA. It's also a PSA that Boox exists :)

I personally don't think writing text is useful now that we have keyboards. It's probably useful for math equations, diagrams/sketches (excalidraw), but I'm tempted to practice typing math equations (e.g. mathjax) and drawing with excalidraw. But reMarkable is black and white, so it doesn't suit this either.

For a few years I used OneNote + Surface Pro to take handwritten notes, equations and drawings. It was a great writing experience. Then I wanted to share them with others. Or migrate them from One Note into something else. Or just export to PDF. I'll summarize that nothing worked well. I tried other apps too. An app that constraints your drawing to paper (A4) works better since it can export to PDF nicely. But the text is not searchable and so most people won't find it. That's why we don't see many hand written notes shared online?

Im curious, what domain or job would you find this useful?

My experience is that handwriting is qualitatively different experience from typing, and has different cognitive effects (I think there is actually a fair bit of research corroborating this idea). I can type as fast as someone can speak, so I can create a perfect record of e.g. a meeting, but as I do so I'm on "autopilot" -- basically acting as a passive scribe, transmitting from voice to text without thinking about it at all. With handwriting, the limitations of the medium (speed, etc.) force one into an active synthesis of the material, which helps a lot with retention. A handwritten note becomes something I remember, and often don't even need as a note, because I remember it so well; something I jot down in my text editor becomes fodder for searches later on. It's just a different beast.

I find handwriting a lot better than keyboards. The physical act of writing helps me remember stuff better than typing it, so it's especially useful during notetaking sessions. I also like reading pdfs on my Quaderno (another eink reader, A4 size so bigger than a remarkable), and it also allows me to easily annotate them as well. It's much better than an ereader for pdf due to size, and much less harsh on the eyes than, say, an iPad. And everything can be transferred via usb with their app.

But, I just disagree with the first premise and that's why I find mine useful, though still not as useful as actual paper which is easier to flip through, etc.

Scribbling, doodling, mind mapping, organising your tasks, brainstorming ideas, taking study notes. It's lighter than a laptop and feels more like a paper notepad than a tablet. The paper format gives more freedom, is less structured than an app.

I used to handwrite my game design journal (should probably get back into that again, I got out of the habit), in part because I could illustrate game concepts with diagrams wherever it made sense and include them write there as I was writing the journal. It took a lot longer to write it by hand, and was a pain to transcribe it after the fact to digital notes, though (I still haven't fully transcribed all 200k+ words I wrote during that several year time period), but the handwritten journals feel like they have more personality to them than my transcriptions.

A lot of people understandably have gripes about the subscription. But it is optional, right?

The old one you could (after some trickery I suppose) ssh tp the device and sync via rsync etc. For me that fits way better into my workflow even if their cloud solution was perfect and free for life.

I will not consider an eink device of this type that I cannot ssh into.

I've been looking into this recently (I'm thinking of getting one, and the subscription had put me off previously). As far as I can tell, there was originally no subscription, then they introduced it, I think with the Remarkable 2, with a basic subscription offering infinite synced storage, and a higher tier subscription offering a bunch of additional features like screen share and handwriting recognition.

They've done removed the higher tier subscription, and all of the additional features are available as standard with the device itself, no subscription required. The infinite storage, however, still requires a subscription, but only the basic tier (3€/month, I think).

Tbh, it makes me lose a certain amount of trust in a company for trying that sort of "pay for extra features" thing out, but they've withdrawn most of it and I think the current approach is significantly more reasonable. And as you say, it's still a Linux device in the end, so you've got a lot more flexibility than you might on other devices.

I am looking at this as a person, who is intrigued, but who effectively is hesitant to lock myself into another long term relationship with a corporation.

The opening page says:

"Try reMarkable and Connect risk free. If you decide to return it, we offer a full refund within 100 days. After your 1-year free subscription ends, Connect costs $2.99/mo. Cancel anytime."

This may be intentional, but this does not automatically alleviate my concerns.

<< I will not consider an eink device of this type that I cannot ssh into.

Other posts suggest I can, but there is nothing indicating this on their landing page. I think it is safe to say, techies are not considered an important target demographic.

You absolutely can ssh into it. Their marketing team can be forgiven for trying to be appealing to the orders of magnitude more non-techies out there. It’s a hardware company, they’d go out of business very quickly just selling to hobbyist technical types.

Now partner with framework laptops and make an eink laptop already

(2020)

> Second generation reMarkable 2 was announced on March 17, 2020 (…) and sold in batches since mid-2020 for 458 €/US$ including the pen.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remarkable_(tablet)

Just adding my opinion to the fray: I love mine (purchased last month). Have been using it constantly -- much more than I expected, actually -- for marking up books, taking notes, etc. I am not paying for a cloud subscription and it works perfectly; no dark patterns or nags getting in the way of anything I do. The niche it's filled for me is that I have been fighting wrist pain/strain from writing with pencils etc. as a lefty, and this tablet "replaces paper" by offering a way to write handwritten notes without exerting pressure downward on the page to make a mark.

In this thread, I'm seeming some mentions of Kindle Scribe alongside critiques of the optional reMarkable subscription system. Do you really think that thing will not funnel people to Amazon Prime... ?

Can someone educate me why not instead buy an iPad for $50 (18%) more? Currently 9th generation iPad lists at $329 and reMarkable 2 at $279. Both devices have similar form factor, except iPad is slightly heavier. Yet, iPad is infinitely more capable compared to a reMarkable 2.

The lack of features is a feature. The screen is good enough for focused reading, but too slow for anything more interactive in terms of consuming information. And the eink screen is more enjoyable to look at. ReMarkable is the reason why I have finally been able to go back to study as a dropout. It isn’t a perfect product, but it’s good enough and that’s huge.

Retrospectively though, I think a laser printer might’ve been as cheap and efficient (given how buggy and slow everything related to synchronization is with the reMarkable).

The lack of features is a feature until you discover how much better the Boox experience is, where you can download apps for Safari Books, MS's One Note app, and even the default reader gets much better.

To say that the lack of features is intentional is a bit disingenuous. It doesn't force you to focus, it just forces you to pick up your phone to get distracted.

I have both. The main sell for Rm2 is the battery life (charge once every couple/few months in my case) and writing feel. Which yes the iPad could get a cover on it like paperlike, something like that. I'm not saying you can really compare the two, one is a "dumb" device and the other one is a full-blown computer (iPad). I also think the Rm2 drawing accuracy is better than the fatter tip on the Apple Pencil.

My use case with the Rm2 is pretty much as a scratch/drawing pad. I don't have it connected to WiFi and just have it stashed on the side, I use it once a day or two days usually to sketch something out before making it (context of software or 3d printing).

> Yet, iPad is infinitely more capable compared to a reMarkable 2.

I have a feeling this might be a big part of it. As in the users might want a distraction-free note taking solution.

Beyond that my friends have told me its templates, ease of use and writing experience (the on screen feel) are great.

I can't justify the price of my rm2, but an ipad absolutely was not on the table. I don't need a tablet, I don't want a tablet, I want a notebook. The remarkable lets me carry all 20 of my notebooks around, and have graph paper mixed with lined paper mixed with custom templates. If I decided the price was too high (and it honestly is, but eink is tough right now and I want to support it) I'd go back to notebooks, not buy a slightly more expensive item that's slightly worse at being a notebook (and isn't running linux underneath).

Obviously if you want a tablet the rm won't do. It's honestly silly for notebooks too, but serious enough I can deal.

I'm curious: how does Amazon's foray into this sector affect anyone's feelings? Do people want a single-purpose device like this, or would they rather have a multi-purpose Kindle (or iPad, with more functionality but much less battery life)?

It makes me cheer more for Remarkable. I hate that big tech can use their muscles/money to just bleed competition dry, and then end up with the majority of the market share and us customers are worse off.

The big differentiator in these products is drawing latency. Currently there's only two with barely acceptable level IMO: Remarkable 2 and Supernote a5x/a6x, both around 30ms.

I can't find any numbers for the Kindle Scribe so I guess no one has tested yet. But I also bet if Amazon was proud of the number they'd be shouting about it - especially if it was better than the others.

So Remarkable and Supernote are probably fine for another generation at least.

the iPad Pro gets to around 9ms perceived latency by using a very interesting trick. Essentially, it predicts the direction the pencil is moving and generates a short straight line in that direction. After the pencil has moved on, it corrects the line to follow the actual path the pencil took. I wonder if the e-ink companies could do that?

i remember reading that backlight on eink tablet compromises writing experience, which was why Supernote didn't add it. I can believe that as backlight probaly requires an extra layer between the writing surface and the sensing surface. Seeing that Amazon Scribe has backlight I imagine they prioritized e-reading vs e-writing, which is understandable because Kindle.

This is all pure speculation though.

I do have Supernote and the writing is as good as it gets for me paper-wise, my brain is fooled into thinking I am proofreading text printed on paper, which was all i wanted from that device.

Huawei MatePad Paper is under 30

When I got my Remarkable I thought I'd be using it to read books and put lots of books on it, but actually I've ended up only using it to take notes. I often read books on another device, then take notes on the Remarkable at the same time.

I have tablets (colour display, android/iOS) and a Kindle.

As far as reading is concerned there is no comparison, the kindle wins on nearly every metric.

I just wish they would offer a kindle with a 10" display.

I will probably get the kindle scribe once it has been out for a bit, has good reviews and a software update.

I own an rm2 and love it. However, I also love my Kindle and if I had to choose I'd choose the Kindle.

When my Kindle (or RM) dies, I'll almost certainly replace it with the new writable Kindle, especially as I assume it's backlit which I feel is something really missing from the RM.

Love my rm2, use it for hours every day. But their stylus is overpriced and fragile. LAMY All-Star is a way better choice, 100% compatible, and has a programmable multifn button (hold to access eraser tool, doubletap to undo).

Thanks for the tip!

Have this device. I (wrongly) subscribed to the cloud service but never signed in because of security and privacy. Since this is a very personal device, not having strong security (e.g. your own repository as alternative) is top.

The device is good for drawing and taking notes, IMHO is bulky. From the software perspective it lacks shape drawing tools and other ideas that came easy with a device like this.

Battery duration is great because of the eink screen. This is an important feature but the device is expensive. I would say that battery duration is what is making a few devices different (M1/M2).

I got one. I never use it. I have an expensive tablet and I rarely use it either (a phone works better for most web browsing because the tablet is too clunky to carry around, but I do use it to watch udemy videos when I'm using my laptop to take notes or work through examples). You see, it turns out, I love keyboards and track pads and mice! I imagined that I'd find it far easier to do diagrams and mind maps in the Rm2. And it's true that it's much easier to draw on a device designed for drawing. But it also turns out, I rarely have to do that, and this thing is shit for basically everything else.

If I remember that I've got one of these sitting in a drawer, it's nearly always dead. And if I remembered to charge it and I can actually draw something, the drawing is hard to use. Like, I can't just pick up the rm2, do a sketch and have it quickly embedded in a document. It's clunky as fuck, even if you root the thing, get ssh and all sorts of other sync stuff set up. The rm2 let's you make pointless sketches and hand drawn notes that can't be used easily outside the device. It's good for nothing else. And I'm willing to bet that that's not enough for most people. If you want pencil and paper, save yourself a shitload of money and just buy a pencil and some paper.

Edit: one thing I was kinda interested in was using it as a terminal - there's an app for this but it's too much hassle to set up for the novelty of a paper-like terminal (with no colours!)

I got an rM 2 via pre-order and it was in my dead tech drawer after only a few weeks. The writing experience was inferior to my usual fountain pen and good paper, and the PDF reader couldn't handle the one document that I need to search in daily. So, meh. Sometimes a product can be pretty close to realizing an exciting idea only to reveal that the idea wasn't all that great in the first place.

I fell in love with it when I first saw it, but had to return it after discovering that it was barely usable for my eyesight without backlight.

On the other hand, I love my Kindle, not for the closed ecosystem, but for the rather slick (compared with eg. the German Tolino) UX.

I am afraid that the new Kindle with pen will be a killer for the ReMarkable 2, as much as I would have preferred a small company making the race.

I played with one yesterday.

There was noticeable latency when writing. This means it won't replace paper for me.

I carry a $10 "lcd writing tablet" in my backpack, it's like a small whiteboard with an erase button and really nice typography, and it there are no electronics involved in the painting process (only in erasing). I love it, though it only replaces a whiteboard, not a notebook.

I was considering one of these last year but one of the reviews I watched suggested the experience wasn’t as good if you are a lefty. The UI, according to them, was tuned for a right-handed writer’s experience and they frequently triggered buttons and menus accidentally.

I would love to hear from any left-handed RM2 owners about their experiences and whether they experienced similar issues.

I’m a lefty and have used my RM2 every work day for the past year. Really changed how I work.

If I had to choose between giving up my RM2 or giving up my work laptop and working on an iPad Pro, I’d figure out how to get my job done on the iPad. It’s that good for me. But my job is leadership/management, not coding so that obviously makes a difference.

It took me about a day of frustration to figure out I could close the on-screen menu by tapping the dot in the upper-right hand corner. Then there was no more accidentally closing the file I was working on.

My workflow now is 30 minutes at the start of each day planning on my RM2. I have a planning template I made and duplicate daily. Then I reference that day’s doc throughout the day and add new incoming info into it. I can move stuff from yesterday’s doc to today’s easily during my planning session if I need to.

For hiring, I put PDF resumes and cover letters into a folder and mark those up as I prep for interviews. I do the same with articles I want to read. I sync everything w/ their desktop app.

It doesn’t distract me like an iPad would and I get around 2 weeks on a charge if I keep the Wi-Fi turned off most of the time.

I'm a lefty with a Remarkable 2 that I've use almost daily for a year and a half, and I haven't had trouble with accidental button presses as long as I close the context menu when I'm writing. The toggle for the context menu is a dot on the top right corner of the page, so not easy to accidentally press as a lefty. I guess if you're using it for complex drawings where you need the context menu open to constantly erase, cut, and change thickness then it might be annoying, but for my use cases of journaling, note-taking, and the occasional diagram, I'm extremely satisfied.

I mentioned it in another comment in this thread, but I LOVE writing on this thing as a lefty. It reduces my wrist strain massively by freeing me from having to "push" writing instruments against the page from left to right (I know this isn't something every lefty struggles with, but I have a wrist injury that's made writing on paper a worse experience in general).

I'm a lefty. I suppose I am used to backwards interfaces but I'm not bothered by it not being optimized for me. What I really like is not smearing my hand on ink or graphite as I write a line.

The struggle is real!

Their support is horrendous. I’ve written about my experience previously. It was a disaster.

I would highly recommend avoiding them based on that experience alone.

It took forever to get my return processed and they dropped the ball repeatedly and refused to help actually make things right after waiting a month for delivery of the return to them. I actually had to file a dispute to get my money back.

I hope R3 gets released so this goes on sale, want it but the price is oof.

When I looked at it a few months ago: "$279? That's not too bad.. oh wait, that's for refurb. $299 new. Okay, still good. Wait what.. $129 for the pen, too? Hang on... $179 for the cover/case?!"

Talk about nickle and diming you.

One thing about the Remarkable is that it, like many other eink tablets uses a Wacom EMR layer so almost any third party Wacom pen should work ($25-50). The Lamy Al-star is pretty good and available worldwide. I like the Staedtler Noris jumbo pen as well (although the nib is significantly softer/rubberier so it might not appeal to everyone). My favorite pen atm, which might not be available globally, is the Wacom CP20206BZ - it's a stylus embedded in a wooden Mitsubishi Hi-Uni shell, and it feels awesome in the hand.

I was a Remarkable 1 early adopter and am grandfathered in on their cloud plan but I actually ended up not using it so much (their software sucked for most of the device lifetime). A couple years ago I ended up switching to a Boox Note 3 instead of a RM2 and it's responsive enough for me (the competition mostly caught up on latency) and as a full Android system, it's much more functional for me. It's been easier for me to keep my PDFs/papers in sync, I can read all my Kobo and Kindle books, and it's fine for notetaking. There's a small niche of YouTubers that do in depth reviews of various eink tablets (My Deep Guide is probably the most in depth) which I'd recommend for anyone in the market.

I’m a customer. The hardware (reMarkable 1 refurb) is nice. I bought it a while back before they made this change to the website.

But advertising the price without the pen is so dishonest. It’s not nickel and dime, it’s deceptive marketing. It destroys trust.

It means that as a happy customer, I will never recommend the product.

But wait, there's more! Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, Monthly Recurring Revenue?

Will that thing needs a subscription too? I guess so...

Premium products cost premium money. Packaging, leather folio, stylus, device itself, they all look, work and feel like top quality.

I really wanted to buy it until noticing the pen + case cost more than the device. That's absurd. I assume it's pointless with any other pen?

Never going to buy subscription based hardware.

Hardware can still be used.. only cloud storage seems to be problem.

Without Connect (~$4/month), only files used and synced online in the last 50 days will continue to be stored in the reMarkable cloud or updated in our mobile and desktop apps. It’s also possible to turn off the sync functionality if you don’t wish to use the cloud service.

The device is rather useless without the cloud service, isn't it.

I am of the same opinion, I however don't know if this is a fitting label for this product.

If I read this correctly they offer an optional service called "Connect" where notes and sketches are stored in their cloud:

> Here’s what’s included with your reMarkable if you don't have a subscription: > > Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive integration > > Access the most popular cloud storage services from your digital notebook with Integrations. Browse stored files, copy them to your reMarkable, and upload notes and documents directly to your Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive accounts from your paper tablet.

The even have a guide showing you how to setup these other services.

Sure it is still not optimal, it should be more hackable and people should be able to add their own cloud/syncing solutions if tou ask me, but this is not "subscription based hardware" by my standards.

Is this subscription-based hardware though? It's an open linux device and you can write any software you want to work with it. There's no requirement to pay for their cloud storage if you don't want to.

Beat me to it. That was a dealbreaker for me.

I got a couple of Rocketbook notebooks for when I want something that really feels like paper, plus an iPad for the large-screen computing bits. Pity, because I love the idea of the Remarkable and would strongly consider it were it not for the subscription.

While the RM2 is probably the simplest/easiest to use, there are actually a lot of other eink tablet manufacturers - Boox, Supernote, Fujitsu Quaderno, and Quirklogic are probably the ones I'd look at. They have different tradeoffs on features, cost, size, etc but all can do roughly the same thing (allow paper-like notetaking, outdoor reading, etc).

Oura destroyed their business this way.

They seem to be doing alright, I still like mine…

Are you basing that just off the sentiment of their subreddit or some other data?

There's an option to self host (rmfakecloud) if you find the hardware compelling. Still a fairly niche device though.

The video on their site[1] shows the pen lifting particles directly to the screen, which would be amazing, if true. I dug around for a while to find out how it works, expecting to find some very clever system for detecting the particles that have risen to the surface, etc...

Instead it appears to be just another stylus/display system, with all the downsides that imposes. I could do much better getting a "pen" for my old HP convertable laptop if I wanted that.

[1] https://youtu.be/SWY_bwFMxro?t=87

Remarkable needs a backlight, otherwise there is no reason to upgrade past R1.

*Frontlight. Backlight is not possible in eink readers, right?

My Kobo has an adjustable backlight that works great.

Amazon is entering this space with the upcoming Kindle Scribe. I wish Remarkable luck, but the odds of them surviving as an independent entity is going to plummet if the Scribe is at all decent.

Personally as a paper gperson, who loves to write on sheets any quick thoughts, TODO lists and anything that comes to my mind, it seemed a very good choice, but pricing now seems quite high. I have tried multiple online tools, but I do not like the feel.

After reading multiple real user comments, I do not think I still want to buy it. Does anyone know any other good alternatives for paper notes?

I see multiple people recommending cheap LCD panels, is there any cheaper or simpler e-paper note takers but with multiple notes features?

I have had a Supernote A5X (https://supernote.com/) for about 3 years now. It is good for someone focused on writing, it lacks a lot of the drawing/sketching capabilities and its cloud storage offerings are sparse. Both of these are pluses to me as I don’t sketch or back up to the cloud for security reasons. Unlike the Remarkable the pen nib does not need to be replaced regularly (mine is fine after extensive use for 3 years). The writing feel also differs from other e-paper writers and feels like a gel pen rather than a pencil.

I am an extremely happy Supernote user too. have both A5X and A6X although A6X isn't seeing as much use. A5X is just perfect

what a bs, a subscription, seriously!? for a device to take notes!? it should just be sold as-is, a device, that you can use if you own it, what utter BS is this subscription model!?

I came here to join the outrage, and while I'm definitely raising my eyebrows they are this close to having done it right.

First, the subscription is not mandatory, and in fact you can use the cloud provider of your choice for free. And second, if you do want to make use of the online functions (kids nowadays love their cloud sync) it does make sense that they would charge for them. Space may be cheap nowadays, but it's not free.

I personally would have preferred them to go the other way, presenting it "offline first" and then add "plus all of this extra features" afterwards, as it would save me having to cancel a service I don't want. But at least they do offer a working product without it, which is a rare feature nowadays.

Honestly I've loved mine, but its definitely not for everyone. The standard software is pretty lacking, and the cloud features are meh. If you're willing to apply the DDVK patches, and an additional launcher it becomes a joy to use. Koreader for reading, regular software for writing is a joy. Oxide is a great launcher for easily switching apps. You can setup syncthing via ssh. The hardware is great, and having ssh access was what sold me on it.

Supernote A5X vs ReMarkable 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfK3YCXujxA

Supernote is awesome!!

My dream machine is an e-ink tablet that runs both KOReader as well as Zotero. Make that and I’ll buy it in a heartbeat. The perfect combo for a reader/academic.

There are lots of android-based e-ink tablets out there that do that.

I have a Onyx Boox Note 2. The company is kind of a bunch of dicks (GPL violations ahoy!) but it works very nicely.

There are other alternatives out at this point.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348678

At the same time Boox launched their Ultra https://youtu.be/g69oMk2iIaw

Oh awesome, thank you for posting this. It's a bit disappointing that they still use Android 11.. I hope they're working on porting their devices to at least Android 12.

I bought RM2 last year and sent it back within 2 weeks. It is just a way too isolated experience for me - next to no connectivity sold as a “feature”. Instead I went with a Android-based Boox e-ink tablet, which allows me to run OneNote, Edge and OneDrive on it. All the connectivity with a similar writing and reading feel as RM2. Plus, RM2 also charges monthly for their subpar Cloud services.., I cannot recommend RM2

They just lowered the cost of the cloud features and added more to the free tier. As someone who struggles with focus, the exact negative you cite is a positive to me. Reading a PDF and marking it right on the device, or reading a physical document and taking notes is great. It is also very nice for me during meetings and conferences. I find that my recollection is better by writing than by typing, with a much more "in the moment" focus.

I had reviewed this before, but went for ONYX instead and never looked back. Having a general purpose machine has served me really well on countless occasions including various unforeseen use cases. I think reMarkable is branding away their lack of good software integration as "distraction free" but the reality is it is very easy to use ONYX without distraction.

With the previous models, I was not sold on something that required a separate cloud subscription to work. I know they recently "got that" and re-scoped their Connect cloud service, but I am still curious as to how well it works with a major cloud storage provider (OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.).

If it still requires going through their servers in any way I'm sticking to an iPad...

It lost me at the subscription level. I’m already moving my company off 1Password because of the subscription nature of it.

I’m so very tired of this model.

I wish Remarkable would release an Apple Silicon (arm64) version of their desktop companion app.

I've got to keep an old Intel MacBook for these "legacy" apps, it's not ideal.

It works in Rosetta, but I can't install Rosetta on my main machine. I use it for dev work and the only way I've found to ensure that I don't have x64 code sneaking in is to have Rosetta not installed.

I went in circles for months trying to work out which device like this I should buy. Ultimately I decided on the Super Note by Ratta. The Kindle app is probably the thing that won me over in the end. But I’ve been incredibly happy with the purchase for a whole host of reasons ever since.

Strongly recommend anyone who’s in the market for this also take a look at the Super Note.

It would have been remarkable if this was out while I was in school.... carrying this around instead of a laptop and notebooks would have been much easier. I would imagine they would have ads targeting students... yes you can also accomplish the same with a tablet, but the limitations of this device seem be a pro and not a con... less distractions.

I used to have the earlier version of Kindle, it was called Kindle DX (much bigger screen compared to new kindle editions). When that one broke down I didn't get another e-reader until now. Now I see that I can get something in that size with possibility of taking notes. :). I wait to see how Scribe stack against RM2 and then make a purchase.

https://onyxboox.com/boox_maxlumi2

Unfortunately, ONYX doesn't seem to care about the GPL: http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/install-linux-or-alterna... .

I own an Boox Note Pro myself and there are some known issues with this device, e.g. http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-capacitive... .

The interaction with support was … very frustrating to say the least.

Is this the only option for 13''? I am looking for something that can display sheet music to my poor eyesight.

There's another Android 13" eink tablet I know of, the Bigme X6 but the Onyx Boox Max Lumi or Max Lumi 2 are both cheaper and should basically do the same thing (load any Android apps). The Fujitsu Quaderno A4 is an option too but it only supports loading PDFs and has no third party apps (w/o rooting it).

The Dasung Paperlike 3 HD or Onyx Boox Mira are 13.3" monitor solutions as well, something to consider if you want to hook them up just as output to run w/ arbitrary software (both companies have 25" versions as well).

https://www.padformusician.com/

For 13" e-paper document readers, there's the Fujitsu Quaderno A4 or its predecessors, the Sony DPT-RP1 / DPT-S1. They are PDF only, since they were intended for professional use.

Since when do things cost 50% more in euros than in dollars? I've always treated it as 1:1 in my head for convenience, but 280 USD or 350 EUR is a major difference. (Edit: Internet says it should be €280.)

Not sure if I'd use this device but it seems nice, and for 250 it's worth thinking about. For 350 it's not even a question.

Most likely due to VAT and a bit of extra profit squeeze on top of that.

Did you consider VAT in that €280?

Not very good. A much much better option is the Supernote a5x https://supernote.com/products/supernote

Remarkable just has a much larger marketing budget.

I like me remarkable2, but the fact that any programming book containing source code, gets horrible formatting makes me a bit sad. I have installed koreader on it but it feels like I am one mis-click away from bricking it every time I update that.

Just bought one, and it is a great piece of kit. It is limited in a very intentional and intuitive way.

Only downside is the screen can be inaccurate at time, but that is a small thing which doesn't detract from its usefulness.

I went with the Ratta Supernote A5X because of Remarkable’s ridiculous subscription model. Extremely satisfied with it, had it for about six months now. E-ink tablets are everything they’re cracked up to be.

A friend of mine used the rm2 for a year and created a nice review on YT [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZyWD7-39XM

If only they weren't in the business of screwing their customers...

This device is great....once it's hacked.

If you just take the device on its own functions it is less powerful than it's competitors the supernote and the onyx tablets. It's had pretty bad customer relations due to paywalling a bunch of their features and then walking that back but the build quality is great.

One thing that they did right by pure accident though is give users a root shell into a mostly standard Linux and the community has built tooling that turns this into the most functional of the tablets...but keep in mind this is at the lament of the remarkable team who would rather you use the device as intended.

Supernote is the clear winner among the eink tablets if you use them as intended but many attempts to beg the supernote team to put shell access in have resulted in responses that are at best cautious and at worse condisending.

Until supernote releases the a5x2 (and even then it remains to be seen) this is the best eink tablet

...once hacked that is

If you can get your own root certificate on this thing you can see how its cloud transfer works and theoretically redirect it to your own box, but it would most likely be a lot of work.

You might have a look at https://ddvk.github.io/rmfakecloud/ ;-)

Is the Canadian version moose-proof? CDN price is about twice the US price when the exchange rate is currently only 1.3. Nope, Sorry.

As a fellow Canadian i find this annoying as well.

If i find something on amazon.com and check the price on amazon.ca and find that after using the FX rates there is a $50 or more difference? Some sort of "being in canada" tax?

We are paid less and stuff costs more here?

Don’t bother and buy an iPad. I have the rM and it really lacks any useful feature that could a 1ghz cpu offer to paper.

Don’t bother and kill your eyes in the process.

There's no mention anywhere on that page of whether your drawings on the device are vector or not. Anyone know?

It's a vector format. It's better documented here: https://plasma.ninja/blog/devices/remarkable/binary/format/2... and there's a 3rd party API by the same author at https://github.com/ax3l/lines-are-beautiful

The desktop app has the ability to export to SVG: https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Exporting-files

It exports as a high-res PNG. During editing it does behave like vectors a bit (e.g. if you select part of an object, it extends selection to the whole object instead of cutting it).

Studies have shown a British accent can sell future paperweights for around $500 remarkably well

I never picked up a reMarkable because its DPI is ~220. The Kindle Scribe solves this with 300 DPI.

There are plenty other similar devices that don't push a subscription. Even Amazon launched one.

Bought this for my wife, and she absolutely loves it for taking notes

Moto -> I see a subscription, I rush to the exit door (c)

does remarkable support this: import documents/pictures in color, make notes on them and then reexport as pdf or png in color ?

if not, any other device that support this ^?

It does

Their purchase flow appears broken when using Brave Browser

would this be a good device to read tabletop RPG rulebook/scenario PDFs on? I'm in the market for such a device and this looks interesting

Yes, but I would recommend one of the Android based ereaders (e.g. Onyx Boox) so you can have apps. You might not use DnD Beyond, but it's still really good to have the option for other things.

It’s missing infinite canvas and infinite zoom mode.

Is this a new tablet? Or the same they had forever

Does it work as an offline book reader?

Yes. Official support for uploading PDF and unencrypted EPUB over USB but the interface is designed for annotating instead of reading. koreader or plato can be installed (unofficially) for a much better reading-first experience.

Sure. But be warned it doesn't support Adobe DRM ePubs and the ePub support is really bad. Like worse than a 10 year old Kobo bad. PDFs work fine.

For book reading look at literally anyone else in the space. Kobo, Amazon, Boox, Boyue all make 10" note takers now and they'll do a better job at displaying books.

Beautiful, but inaccessible site

Nice. Lost me at subscription.

(Edit, to clarify - not because of what it offers, but because the very existence of a subscription tends to create wrong incentives for the company so to try and push people onto them. Maybe not now, but this will happen. Guaranteed.)

Also, I don't see a properly supported way to actually get docs to/from the device without a cloud service, theirs or someone else's.

For example, [1] says

  Transferring files using a USB cable

  NB: This functionality is currently experimental,
  as we haven't fully implemented it yet.

  1. Connect the reMarkable with a USB cable to your computer.
  2. ...
  3. ...
  4. Open a browser window on your computer and enter the address 10.11.99.1.

What the heck. They report their tablet as a network interface? And then use their app to configure it? Meaning that I can't get anything in or out the tablet if their app's not installed.

If they will go bankrupt, the app will stop launching and you'll end up with a pretty precise-engineered dud. Worse yet, they'll get acquired and you'll be forced into a subsciption. No bueno.

This thing needs proper support for being accessible as a mass storage device. The rest is secondary.

[1] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Transferring-files-...

FWIW, there is a tiny webapp on the device that you access when you follow the instructions above. You do not need to install anything and it worked perfectly fine for me so far.

Also, you can ssh into the device and even get root access. I have not tried it yet but I guess scp would work as well.

Last but not least: They recently changed their subscription service in a big way, opening up a lot of features that were subscription-only before to all device owners: https://remarkable.com/blog/big-changes-are-coming-to-the-re...

Repeat after me: "Traditional hardware purchases do not support software investments", as Zach Supalla so decisively put it (https://www.atomsandbits.io/p/hardware-software-business-mod...).

You can not ask for cloud-enabled conveniences, as well as bug fixes, security updates, and product improvements for years to come for a one time fee.

Increasingly, devices are a delivery mechanism for software, and one way or another you have to pay for the software.

It’s fully possible to access from a computer but is only easy really for computer power users. I never use the network sync features myself but for some people that is significantly easier. I think it’s a good compromise… they need the subscription to make money I guess.

I really love mine. Bought it for notes and for reading academic papers. Absolutely excels at both these things.

My biggest complaints:

* not in color (not their fault)

* i wish i could search my handwritten notes

Otherwise, having an infinitely expandable library of notebooks is amazing.

I've been considering getting one for some time, but they lost me at "subscription" as well. I have another tablet which works just fine, except their auth server was taken down and now it is a "precision-engineered dud" as you put it.

I will go with the Amazon version. Sure Amazon has its problems but it is more likely to be around in the next few years and less likely to make changes to a subscription service in order to "monetize the customer" or some business nonsense.

I had one before they introduced the subscription. Pretty much soured me on the device. The software was still kludgy, and it was clear the direction they were going wasn’t a direction I wanted to go in. Pity, because the hardware was pretty good. But moving things to and from the device sucked.

I agree that it should just be a mass storage device.

Fwiw you can connect it to Wifi and transfer files using an open source GUI program called ReMy. It uses ssh. No cloud storage account needed.

https://github.com/bordaigorl/remy

I'd generally agree with you on subscriptions but not sure in this case. I think the subscription actually creates an incentive for them to keep the machine updated and working well and its set at a low level. I've seen too much hardware where once they make the profit on the sale they lose interest.

Actually I really like the network interface thing, it can allow a lot more control over the device than a block storage interfact will provide.

This is one of the first things you do when you jailbreak your kindle, it allows you to ssh/sftp onto the device. I do think having a option to toggle between Block Device and Network would be nice

I've had one for over a year. I have not connected it to WiFi yet, no subscription. I just draw in it. There are github repos to connect to it, would be nice rather than taking a picture of the screen.

A wonderful product ruined by a proprietary cloud. The problem with the latter was very promptly proven by the unilateral imposition of a subscription. The product is useless without its cloud.

What do you mean by useless? Does it completely not work when not connected to the cloud or you just loose sync between devices feature?

I have an Onyx Boox e-ink writing device. While it also has a cloud service, it seems to be less necessary since it is just Android so you can just install whatever you need on it. I use Syncthing for this and it works fine.

Wonderful product ruined by marketing. The only reason they have proprietary cloud is to be able to suck money out of users.

reMarkable 2 is a scam. Not only the storage is so extremely limited, the team knows it and it is heavily reliant on you paying for a subscription for more storage.

That and on top of the sneaky price increases as you purchase the product tells you that it is a great scam. The the full price of a new reMarkable 2 is $450 - $550+.

The features doesn't justify the price at all, making it an overpriced scam. You might as well get an iPad Mini at this point and it does much more for that price range.

It’s got 6.41 GB of onboard storage. I’ve been using mine heavily for note taking, reading articles, and some pdf markup and still use less than 2 GB.

I guess if you needed to work with a large number of media rich pdf, it could become a problem. But there are solutions. Either officially supported - dropbox et al. integration, or you can just ssh into the device and set up a syncing scheme of your liking.

So I really cannot image what are you talking about.

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