12 ms·

ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery

641 points by sharcerer 7y ago

Shorel 7y ago
For me the competition to this is the Rocketbook. You write or draw with real pens and still can scan and digitize the things you write. And in price the Rocketbook wins hands down.
enricozb 7y ago
It hurts my heart how conflicted I am about this device. The hardware _is_ there. I love using the original reMarkable tablet _when it works_. But damn there are some stupid software decisions, alongside some absolutely genius ones. (Disclaimer: I've had the original reMarkable tablet for 3 months now) Here's a summary of my experience with it: - It's sometimes unstable, and crashes while I draw. Not super often but maybe 4 or 5 times a week. I don't lose any data other than the last ~5-10 strokes. - There is a notebook called Quick Sheets that is permanently there, even if I try to remove it's metadata over SSH. It gets generated on boot. No idea why this is here. - You can SSH in, and there's a good hacker community around the tablet. A lot of cool open source software is written for it. - Putting a file on the device for the first time, after doing the same on a kindle for years, is an adventure to say the least. There is no calibre plugin for it that I've found. - I have never been able to use EPUBs properly on this tablet, a lot of my books just crash it. I have to convert them to PDF first on calibre. So highlighting is just markup on the PDF and not really selecting any text, but you can write directly on the book with notes. - The first time I opened an EPUB, it took a while (10s) to load. When I tried to change the font of the EPUB on the reMarkable, it just stayed on the loading icon for hours, and I gave up on EPUBs then, and resorted to PDFs. - There is no dictionary on the EPUB reader. I miss this feature a lot. And even if there were, I wouldn't be able to use it because I have to convert my EPUBs to PDF. - Metadata for EPUBs or PDFs isn't visible, only the raw filenames. So no sorting by author, genre, etc. - drawing and marking up is phenomenal, as is reading on such a huge screen. I absolutely love reading and journaling on this tablet. - I have never succeeded in exporting my notebooks or marked up PDFs using the built in software after marking up or writing in 100+ pages, I have to use some community written software instead. - It's $500 total after pen and cover. - There is no backlight. - OCR is done in the cloud, and not on the device. - The iOS companion app is goofy, a lot of the navigation within the app seems to be done in a hacky way, instead of using the usual iOS SDK components. (They segment screen portions for scrolling on pages and for navigating the app, and it leads to just the most bizarre behavior). I want to love this tablet. And all we need is a software update. The hardware was almost perfect, and now with USB-C, a magnet on the pen, and an eraser, the hardware is even closer to being perfect (I think the only thing left is a backlight).
- capableweb 7y ago
  As someone who is thinking of getting the reMarkable 2, what is some examples of "A lot of cool open source software"?
  - blue_shirt 7y ago
    Not the grandparent, from what I've found is there's a lot written for the tablet since it is a Linux device that gives the user root access. Some examples of the open source stuff can be found on github [1] and their wiki[2]. [1] https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [2] https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start
    - capableweb 7y ago
      That's pretty cool and that it was really locked down was my only concern about it. Happy to see it seems relatively open, so just placed a pre-order. Thanks!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- jshevek 7y ago
  For what it's worth, I don't think my device has ever crashed. I wonder if there is a memory overflow bug such that different types of usage could lead to different crash frequencies? >No idea why this is here I agree it would be nice to turn off quick sheets for those who don't use it. For me, I love quicksheets. I often want to just grab the device, jot something down immediately, and put it away. Sure I could create a 'notes' file and put it somewhere obvious, but quicksheets reduces the time and effort for these quick notes.
- mariushn 7y ago
  Thanks for listing these. Hopefully the makers listen. Glad it's not hardware. I'd also love an open Kindle alternative. This is too much for my budget, but hope prices will come down in 1 year.
jesuslop 7y ago
I'd wish they did a hackable A4 version
webkike 7y ago
I really love the ReMarkable and this was an easy preorder. The only thing I personally disliked was 1. No eraser on the pen and 2. No USB-C support. Both are resolved here
- jmiserez 7y ago
  Yes, not having an eraser on the pen is basically the only gripe I have with the reMarkable 1.
- gautamcgoel 7y ago
  You only get an eraser if you pay an extra $50 for the Marker Plus, which is crazy to me.
  - webkike 7y ago
    Yeah the prices are a little ridiculous but I can’t really complain considering how niche of a product this is and how amazing the reMarkable 1 is
dnquark 7y ago
What's their portability story? I don't want my personal knowledge store to be locked into a platform, particularly one that's not guaranteed to last. PDF exports don't cut it, my notes are living documents. I'm really sad that nobody has adequately addressed interoperability in the digital inking space; I'd gladly switch to an iPad or reMarkable, but so far I'm still the neckbeard inking in Xournal on an old Thinkpad.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  Not great, you can only officially export PDF, PNG, or SVG, though their cloud management does seem to work really well and as I understand, files are stored locally on each device once synced. That said, it runs linux so you could conceivably backup the files yourself. You can ssh into your tablet, run sftp, w/e. But they are in some proprietary .lines format. There's a wiki with more details (the file format stuff is further down): https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem It may be possilbe you could hack it to run xournal, but I've no idea.
chatmasta 7y ago
I can’t view this site on mobile, I get redirected to some “guce advertising” that’s blocked on my phone.
honkycat 7y ago
Good god, the scroll hijacking on that site is dreadful. Makes it impossible to scroll comfortably on mobile. That being said I’ve always admired the Remarkable tablets.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
Literally unviewable and it is not consent if there is no option to say "no". Ianal but this website is probably violating GDPR: https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/ https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/
matsemann 7y ago
The hardware on the first one was very good compared to others at the time, but some software features I'd like to have was missing. So I tested a friend's one, but never ended up buying one myself. But from the looks of it they have added and worked on much of that software the last years. Looks very compelling now.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
Since the article is unviewable without throwing away your privacy, here is a primary source instead: https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Via yandex I found this repost: https://devsday.ru/news/details/75390 https://devsday.ru/news/details/75390 Dunno if the privacy is any better, but you can at least view it with adblockers on.
- disqard 7y ago
  Thank you! This is why I read HN comments before (or instead of) the article.
- jbarberu 7y ago
  Perfectly readable with Javascript disabled (or NoScript in my case)
  - eurg 7y ago
    it redirects via a domain on common blocklists
- jastingo 7y ago
  I know I'm being too literal, but I got a chuckle when I read: > reMarkable’s virtually instant response and texturized surface make for an unprecedented writing experience. There is indeed a precedent for having literally instant response with a texturized surface: pencil and paper.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    I took it as having an implied "...on an electronic device."
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    I looked in to the remarkable a few months ago and I couldn't find any way the price justified the benefit over pen and paper. Unless you are reading lots of pdfs, it seems like a waste. At the new price point it might be decent though.
java-man 7y ago
I don't understand the fascination with super-thin devices. Can you hold it for any extended period of time without much strain? Will it slip and shatter when the palms get slightly moist?
- magicalhippo 7y ago
  It weights about 400g, so about what a paper pad does I guess? In any case, it has a textured surface, and assuming it's similar to the reMarkable 1 it is not slippery.
  - java-man 7y ago
    a paper pad does not weigh 400g
    - magicalhippo 7y ago
      I just measured the A4 one I got, for which the reMarkable would be a replacement, and it is 391g. So pretty close in my view.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      Some math: A US Letter sized pad made of 20lb paper is 1lb per 100 sheets[1] so an 88 page pad would weigh 400g, neglecting the cardboard backing. If it were made of 16lb paper then you would get a bit over 100 pages in 400g. 1: 20lbs means 500 sheets of the basis size weighs 20 lbs. The basis size for US Letter sized paper is 4 sheets (22x17), so 2000 sheets weighs 20lbs.
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "The new tablet is just 4.7 mm (0.19 in) thick, thinner than the iPad Pro and Sony’s competing Digital Paper tablets, both of which are 5.9 mm." At that thickness, I'd be worried about sturdiness and, in particular, bending, à la the problems with the iPhone 6. I can stick an iPad Mini or similar tablet into a jacket pocket or backpack and jog a couple of miles to a bus stop daily without concern. Will we be able to do the same with this, I wonder?
- matsemann 7y ago
  The problems with the phone is that it's often carried in pants pockets. I don't think something of this size will have the same kind of forces applied to it.
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    This is much larger than a phone which increases the effects of small bends. I managed to break one of the early large-format ebook readers with a glass display in a jacket pocket, for example. I happen to have Sony's competing 13" e-paper tablet already and I'd be nervous about putting it into a backpack without something non-bendable next to it to prevent flexing.
  - leggomylibro 7y ago
    Actually, I think that things which get thrown into bags on a regular basis face more stresses than a phone in your pocket. It could be jostling around with corners of large books, laptops, cables, random containers, etc. It can also have more space to accelerate when you swing your bag around, whereas a phone is held firmly your leg when you run/jump/etc. Durability in a bag is what separates great electronics manufacturers from decent ones. If I buy something and it doesn't survive bag life for several months, which is quite common, then I write off the manufacturer as a creator of fragile throw-away devices. But I've never had a phone have any sort of problem from pocket stresses.
- rchaud 7y ago
  I imagine most people will buy a case for this, as this tablet does not come cheap. When I take my tablet (in a case) out and about, it goes into a laptop sleeve before it goes into a bag. For me, it's not bending I'm worried about, but scratches.
pushcx 7y ago
Any details on whether they've fixed search? Zoom? Or made it a mountable USB drive so it doesn't require their app or similar janky solutions? The first one really looked nice, but all the reviews were full of practical usability issues and this promo doesn't touch on the topic.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  It still sounds as if it has the original's killer negative: everything you write is sync'ed to their servers, which is a huge no-no for work use without IT approval, at least at my workplace, or anything regulated by privacy laws like HIPPA. I'd love one of these things if it was able to function purely offline even if I had to sacrifice cloud features.
  - ACS_Solver 7y ago
    It's a failure of their marketing that they didn't make this clear. The device is capable of working 100% offline. Notes are stored on the device, with cloud sync being optional. File transfer is possible with SSH, or the (poor) app or the equally poor web interface when connecting via USB. You don't have to create an account for the rM cloud, you can use the thing without ever connecting it to the Internet.
    - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds a bit awkward to use offline but that's acceptable, at least to me.
    - pushcx 7y ago
      The marketing sounds like they've stepped up the app/cloud bits with a browser plugin, etc. Do you know for certain the second version still supports the non-cloud snycing? The support site is incompletely updated for the new device; it's not clear at all if they still permit private operation.
      - 7y ago
scottwernervt 7y ago
> Hold it with your left hand and write with your right. Sorry, lefties. Well this sucks if it is not leftie friendly as the price and features had me sold.
- orpheansodality 7y ago
  wondering if that's just an assumption by the author -- can you not just rotate it 180°?
  - achow 7y ago
    Has to be that way. Same as Kindle Oasis.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    It has a physical design with an up and down, so you would have it upside down, with the buttons on top.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    [On the original, you could not] rotate the device 180 and use it normally, but you could click a toggle in the settings which would reflect the UI laterally, for left-handed people.
- mandliya 7y ago
  From remarkable website: Does the reMarkable adapt to left-handed people? If you're left-handed, don't worry. A few of our colleagues are also left-handed. They want to make sure all lefties have an excellent experience with their reMarkable device. You'll be able to set up your reMarkable to left-handed mode when you first set up your device. We've also made it easy to switch between right-handed and left-handed modes in the main settings.
  - 7y ago
beezle 7y ago
The speed improvements are impressive. Wonder though if there is any physical change in the display? It seems to be identical, was hoping they could bring something with a whiter background.
- beezle 7y ago
  Also wonder about security of the pen if used with the book folio. Exactly how strong is that magnetic attachment?
jjuel 7y ago
I so badly wanted the first one. This one looks even better. However, with twins on the way probably still not in the cards, but damn I can dream.
floren 7y ago
I bought the original version but found that some PDF files absolutely destroyed it. Not massive files where each page is a scanned picture, just regular PDFs from academic journals. I'd open one, it would spend 20+ seconds displaying the "working" spinner, then often as not it would reboot. Had to return it. I was also pretty shocked that there was no way to get a list of all annotations you've added to a given PDF; I really wanted a way to read through a book making notes as I went, then get an overview of where I'd made notes. Even a way to bookmark a given page would have been useful. Fix those two issues and it would have been a great device for me; the page size was juuuust big enough to display pretty much any book at a readable size.
- carlosdp 7y ago
  I have a remarkable and use it for reading academic paper PDFs all the time. The software has gotten far better over time.
  - floren 7y ago
    I'm very glad it's working well for you, but the software as of January 2020 was unable to properly read PDFs from a particular journal... it may have been Science.
    - jonahbenton 7y ago
      There might be something to do here to clean those up and make them more ergonomic for the device. I have de-DRMed most of my kindle books and turned them into PDFs, even some thousand page monsters with graphs and images, etc, and so far all work well on the device. There are a bunch of open source PDF utilities that may be able to help if desired. Cheers.
logfromblammo 7y ago
This is essentially an advertisement. There's no need to read, unless you are looking to buy a $400 convenience replacement for a $1 pad of paper plus a scanner.
ACS_Solver 7y ago
Terrible link, the actual reMarkable website is much better. It's a very niche device but I've owned mine for nearly two years and am a big advocate. In some ways, the first model was proof of concept. Excellent hardware and writing experience, but the early versions of the software were horrible, and the device itself is very ugly. The software has improved dramatically in the time I've owned it, going from horrible to bad, then to almost acceptable, and now it's decent. I'm happy to see the company is doing well enough to make a second generation reality. Looks like it will be an overall improved experience, with a magnetic marker, a slick-looking device and overall incremental improvements. I'd like to see some kind of trade up program though, it's expensive (and 50$ more for a marker with one extra sensor is ridiculous) and I can't justify paying that much for an incremental upgrade. My only concern about the new specs would be the thickness, or rather the sturdiness. The first generation is thick by modern standards, but it's very sturdy. I've dropped the device, I've dropped the bag with it, I've bumped into things with it - not a scratch. Very refreshing in the age of fragile devices. Hopefully the rM2 doesn't sacrifice much sturdiness to be thinner.
- marvindanig 7y ago
  This, centum percentum! If 'papery' was my need of the hour I'd go back to physical paper straight. This is lame marketing of an expensive lifeless product that aims to copy the dead tree. That's not what our new mediums are about.
  - scroot 7y ago
    Whatever pushes progress in the low-power, reflective technology of epaper displays should be celebrated, I think. One could imagine hacking something like this tablet to have a true interactive Squeak like environment on it. Or, better yet, a Squeak-like environment designed from the ground up specifically for epaper displays...
    - marvindanig 7y ago
      Reflective or iridescent, the nature of light that falls into your eyes doesn't change. Low-power is definitely an attribute that I can get behind but modern batteries are good enough to not go underpowered when it comes to books. Downvoters: yes, you deserve the truth! :-)
aNoob7000 7y ago
Has anyone used this product? and how does it compare to like an IPad Pro? I have an IPad Pro, but I'm not in love with the writing experience or reading an eBook.
- rchaud 7y ago
  There are some fairly detailed review videos online. At the time it was released, the reception was mostly "too expensive for what it does".
- smt1 7y ago
  I have an ipad pro and a remarkable, and I use the remarkable a lot more. I mostly note take/doodle though. The writing experience is way better.
Edmond 7y ago
Nice and intriguing but unfortunately this is still priced as a premium product. Obviously the company making it has its reasons for pricing but a product like this needs to be priced as an accessible consumer electronics product (ie $50-$100).
- organsnyder 7y ago
  I've been keeping an eye on largish-format epaper tablets for a while (I'm an avocational organist and singer, and would love to have my whole music library with me at all times). ReMarkable is actually on the cheaper end of the spectrum. I think it comes down to low volume and target users (professionals who wouldn't balk at paying this much for a business tool). Basically, a typical vertical market.
  - Edmond 7y ago
    Hopefully they'll consider the functionally minded customer soon. I would be happy with a cheapish form factor option, it doesn't have to be the slick looking product that is the only option currently available.
smt1 7y ago
I've had a Remarkable1 for about three months. It's one of the best investments I've made in a long time. Going to preorder this. Only caveats - I like aftermarket cases more than Remarkable's. I bought one one from Amazon for about 30$. Also I've been using staedtler's digital pencils, works great!
- sooheon 7y ago
  What makes it so good for you? Amazon reviews seem negative to middling.
  - callahad 7y ago
    It's a notebook, but just digital enough. No browser, no clutter, just... really, really useful paper that's always there and doesn't get misplaced later.
  - smt1 7y ago
    I looked over some of the amazon reviews, and they seem to be talking mostly about issues in older versions (2018) of the software, which I don't have direct experience with, but the software has gotten better, even in the time I've owned it (they just released version 2.x of the SW). That being said, there is still room for improvement, particularly with reading (vs writing, which this device is very good at). I mostly use it this to replace stacks of notebooks (my brain thinks better with pen and paper in hand, but with all the digital conveniences in hand. This device is the best that I've tried for writing (and I've tried many, including an ipad pro) Cons: historically, the price. No blacklight. Clearly the device has been optimized for writing, not reading, although supposedly 3rd party ebook readers like Apollo are good (the device is not locked down and has a hacker community).
- mNovak 7y ago
  What's the writing resolution like? My problem has always been that I write really small, so most tablets feel pudgy. I've long thought about getting one of these, but don't want to shell out $500 if I can't comfortably write on it.
pettycashstash2 7y ago
why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like guerrilla marketing.
- jshevek 7y ago
  >why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like guerrilla marketing. Are you accusing the people who posted these links of being employees of Remarkable? If so, you could just look at their comment histories to see if it seems likely before posting a general accusation. I am fascinated by this product. It is far more interesting to me than much of what Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, or Amazon have done in a tablet form factor in many years. I'm not surprised that others may have a similar level of interest.
  - newen 7y ago
    Same. I bought the Sony DPT-S1 many years ago. It's serviceable but I've been waiting to see when a decent replacement comes out.
  - pettycashstash2 7y ago
    I am not and did not accuse anyone. I simply noticed many links to many resources about same product in a short period of time. You can make your own judgement call on that. Are press releases standard - of course. I would ague that guerrilla marketing is standard ops for many new products/services and it should not be perceived in a negative way. Its a tool, i was simply curious if this was the case. In addition i'm fascinated at guerrilla marketing operations and am curious if they in fact are, how are they are engaged, paid etc.....
- dang 7y ago
  To add to what jshevek said: Please don't insinuate astroturfing or shillage without evidence. Internet users are overwhelmingly too quick to leap to such explanations from (at best) a handful of data points, and it leads them to smear each other's integrity in ways that are not good for community. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Much more explanation for anyone who wants it: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... In this case, a new product was launched today, it's normal for companies to coordinate that with press, and it's normal for multiple submissions on a story to show up on HN. It's also normal for humans to overinterpret streaks as something other than the randomness they usually are; we all do it, but it's not good to do it in ways that insinuate dishonesty in fellow community members.
throwlaplace 7y ago
the only thing i want is a device i can write on that has a refresh rate (or whatever) that's near realtime (so that I don't get the cognitive dissonance from the lag in the line appearing). does such a device exist? i've tried surface and ipad and etc. all of them still have quite noticeable lag when writing.
- jshevek 7y ago
  >does such a device exist? That is the goal of this device. The original Remarkable was superior to the surface and the iPad, and according to their marketing the next one will be twice as fast.
  - throwlaplace 7y ago
    you can see very clearly in the demo video that there is still a very noticeable lag
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Get an old Windows PenPC with a Wacom sensor.
g123g 7y ago
Is it worth it to buy just for reading purposes? I have a Kindle but a want bigger screen to read PDFs and web pages. Also, any integration with the Android app store?
- Jhsto 7y ago
  I don't think it's that great for reading. It does not have a backlight. I own both the reMarkable and Kindle Paperwhite and I prefer to read books on the Kindle.
- jshevek 7y ago
  It is perfectly serviceable for reading, though it may lack some of the reading oriented features of other eink devices. I love the large size for some of my documents, which are unpleasant to read on smaller devices.
  - ProZsolt 7y ago
    What you re missing?
    - jshevek 7y ago
      Based on other comments here, it seems that the Remarkable is missing several features that some people enjoy in their eReaders. The only one I can cite definitively is the lack of backlight. I can't speak to other allegedly missing features because I haven't investigated the issue. I am satisfied with the features I do use when I want to read certain docs on the large remarkable screen.
- lottin 7y ago
  It is suitable for reading PDFs, but don't expect much. It doesn't have a web browser and doesn't run Android apps.
neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/YjZUI https://archive.md/YjZUI
funkaster 7y ago
I bought the original one during the initial sale, I think I paid something around $300 for it. Loved it and used it as my main reading/note taking device. I got an iPad Pro (12.9) last year and I've stopped using the remarkable, but will prob get the newer version. I find it much easier on the eyes and better to read using the remarkable. It was a great piece of hw before, the new one looks even better.
quartz 7y ago
Can any remarkable owners comment on the reliability/robustness of the document storage? Does it store versions and/or backups? I made the mistake of buying an equilpen2 at an apple store years ago. I say mistake not because I didn't like the product (I used it for hundreds of pages of notes over the year or two after I bought it and loved that it let me write on regular paper) but because the company gave up on the product and eventually released destructive app updates that deleted all my notes from my local machines. I was only able to recover my content because I had it synced to dropbox and now I'm paranoid about content creation devices like this potentially losing my content in the future if the company goes belly-up.
- carlosdp 7y ago
  The cloud sync/storage is pretty rudimentary, no versions or anything like that. But they have an app for desktop/phone so you can download and backup. There are unofficial client libraries for the cloud API as well, so it can be automated.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > But they have an app for desktop/phone so you can download and backup. Can I just... connect a USB cable and transfer files? Why do I want an app at all? The apparent requirement to transfer files through an app was the reason I didn't get a remarkable 1.
    - jonahbenton 7y ago
      I don't recall if it shows up as a USB storage device, but it will expose a webserver to you over USB to which you can put documents. I also wrote a utility to send documents up to their server side APIs, which them gets them automatically sync'd down to the device. Takes about a minute, works very well.
- driverdan 7y ago
  They have their own file syncing but it runs Linux and is very hackable. There are 3rd party tools to sync elsewhere. You can even use rsync. See https://remarkablewiki.com/ https://remarkablewiki.com/
lottin 7y ago
This is great but how many tablets do I really need to get rid of paper? At least two, because typically I will be reading and taking notes simultaneously, and often times more than two, because I may need to check multiple sources.
treve 7y ago
Does anyone know if this tablet is programmable? If so I would probably want one!
- hcs 7y ago
  For the original one at least, yes. The official stuff is at https://remarkable.engineering/ https://remarkable.engineering/ and there are a few Rust projects built around libremarkable https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable
tobethau 7y ago
People don't jerk off to magazines anymore.
- mszcz 7y ago
  As much as I appreciate the Silicon Valley reference, I don't think that this is a place for it...
carlosdp 7y ago
One thing that's rarely mentioned about this device, but is the reason I sprung for it, is that the developers left an SSH interface into the device over USB, so you can program custom apps! People have made some neat stuff, and there's a Rust library for making apps: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
- j0e1 7y ago
  This is what I was looking for and their website fails to mention it on the landing page, at least. Would you know of any Emacs/org-mode extensions for this device? Thank you for sharing!
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    You are my spirit animal. I just got a polar/readwise/orgmode/Anki setup together and I'd love to use this.
    - idmyn 7y ago
      Ooh, sounds cool! What does that workflow look like?
      - lallysingh 7y ago
        Polar and org feed into Anki. Readwise gets Kindle highlights, will try to get safari sync working.
        willlma 6y ago
        Would love to hear more in general if you have time to go into more detail, but my main question is at what point do you convert highlights into question and answer or clozed deletion Anki cards and how do you reference the source on those Anki cards for when you want to go back and read more details from the original source? I guess that's two questions
tomerbd 7y ago
I'm using this $13 "NEWYES 12" LCD Writing Tablet Digital Drawing Tablet Handwriting Pads Portable Electronic Tablet Board ultra-thin Board with pen" As a better paper, without any distractions, works well!! I have one at work, on my desk, I have one for each kid doing maths with them on it, it's awesome. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32922602355.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.20be35ebRsLe35&algo_pvid=b80b35b5-cffe-4264-a633-c3eb479a3829&algo_expid=b80b35b5-cffe-4264-a633-c3eb479a3829-0&btsid=0ab6f83915844660455648904e3379&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32922602355.html?spm=a2g0o.p...
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  I presume you can save your notes somewhere externally, but it's not apparent from the product description. Is it doable, easy and, most importantly, reliable?
  - 1023bytes 7y ago
    Well, you can take a photo of them. This is not a digital device, it's based on pressure sensitive liquid crystals. Electricity is only used to clear the display.
    - stronglikedan 7y ago
      Ah, thanks, I should have known. Now that you mention that, my niece has a similar, albeit significantly smaller, device.
  - tomerbd 7y ago
    When I need more permanent notes, I use this other $13 ereasable notebook: "2019 Elfinbook Smart Reusable Erasable Spiral A5 Notebook Paper Notepad Pocketbook Diary Journal Office School Drawing Gift 4.8". https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32859074901.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.3e7c4c4dnQ5m1g https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32859074901.html?spm=a2g0s.9... As for the previous one (single page scribble) then I found in the past that I usually have a new single page each day on my desk for tasks minor notes of that page and it's now replacing it - this is its main usage.
mavsman 7y ago
> Unfortunately I use Firefox, but I can make an exception for this. Unfortunate attitude that perpetuates (browser) lock-in.
- smt1 7y ago
  Personally, I just use this to print stuff from whatever app and send it to the remarkable: https://github.com/juruen/rmapi/blob/master/docs/tutorial-print-macosx.md https://github.com/juruen/rmapi/blob/master/docs/tutorial-pr... Works well, I'm guessing for other platforms, similar things exist using remarkable's api.
j0057 7y ago
Oh god, I love my reMarkable 1 so much that I'm having a hard time not impulse-buying this one. It's like having a superweapon on you if your work is to sling ideas and concepts.
fmela 7y ago
This looks interesting, but it's the software that will make or break the experience. Software aside, this is expensive ($479 when you select the pen with the eraser and the book cover), and the screen is not back-lit, so this won't be usable without other source of light. Why is it so hard to find an e-ink device that's good for reading books, PDFs, and web content (e.g. Pocket)? So far, everything I've tried has fallen short.
- YetAnotherNick 7y ago
  I find it cheap. For $400 even if I could use it for reading and writing and assuming that those are the only functionality provided, I am fine with it. If I didn't had an ipad pro with apple pencil($800 + $100) I would have bought it, as those are the only thing I bought the ipad for, not for having some fancy apps.
- redindian75 7y ago
  I got Mobiscribe from Amazon for around 250. Smaller screen, but has warm backlit eink screen. Decent ereader for ePubs, very good responsive notetaking. It comes with a note-folio & pen for $250
sergioisidoro 7y ago
I really liked Remarkable hardware, but I ended up returning it. The Software and general workflow to send and manage documents was cumbersome. Simple things like sharing meeting notes with colleagues shouldn't be that complicated. It's one of those cases where the hardware is amazing but the software is just too painful to use (and I really wanted to like it)
tesseract2 7y ago
While at that price point, many other, more feature complete devices become available, the ePaper devices do have their own niche. I tried to use iPad Pro as a full-time note-taking device and found that after writing on it for up 3-4 hours during the day, my eyes get very tired by the evening. I tried various things to mitigate it, such as using dark background, changing brightness etc, and nothing seems to help enough to make iPad a notebook replacement. I absolutely love the functionality offered by iPad-like device such as reading Kindle, browse web, notes taking, PDF annotation, scanner apps etc. I absolutely want to be able to use it as single device to hold all my hand-notes and downloaded or scanned documents. But can't avoid the eye strain. Devices like reMarkable etc can be used at length if your ask is just to carry around all your notes. I have misplaced all my notes from grad school days. I would love an easy way to be able to write and archive for posterity all my notes. I personally settled for Onyx Boox Max 3. It is at way higher price point, but is more functional - has Kindle, OReilly apps etc and quite functional note taking app. I tried the earlier version of reMarkable ran into a limitation that limited its usability for me. It did not allow copying a section of text and pasting it into a new document. I might be mis-remembering, but I think it did not even allow pasting a copied section of a note into a new page in the same notebook. All this severely limited what I could use it for. It was just a paper replacement, and not much more. Boox Max 3 did not have these limitations. Whats great about iPad-like devices is that you don't even expect that you will run into these corner cases. I hope this update to reMarkable add such small features that increase the usability. I absolutely hope that these kind of devices succeed. They are a solution to the problem of keeping and carrying with you a separate set of notes on varied topics where no single paper notebook would do justice, and they are usable for very long stretches of time with no more eye strain than with using paper.
- intopieces 7y ago
  > Onyx Boox Max 3. Can you tell me if the Onyx Boox Max 3 works with USB-C to USB-C cables? I had a Onyx Boox Nova and it was noncompliant somehow, I had to only use the USB-C to A cable that came with it. I ended up selling it for that reason -- I didn't want to carry around a single cable just for this device when all my other devices are USB-C.
zxcvgm 7y ago
I was looking for a device to serve as my paper replacement in 2018 and came across the ReMarkable 1 tablet. Shortly after, Apple had announced a new iPad 9.7", now with Pencil support. This put both devices in the same price bracket. After reading an in-depth review from GoodEReader [1], I concluded that an iPad, although not with an ePaper display, could also function as a regular tablet with access to a ton of apps. This was something that the ReMarkable was not able to do. The ReMarkable tablet does allow you to have SSH access though, as noted by other comments here. Just my 2c, if you are also looking at this for a paper replacement. [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-review-of-the-remarkable-writing-tablet https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-rev...
mattkevan 7y ago
I’ve been wanting a ReMarkable since the preorder. If I could afford it I’d buy one in a heartbeat - and the v2 looks like an fantastic improvement. Came close to buying one last year, but went for an iPad Air instead as they are cheaper and more versatile. While I’d still love an e-ink display, I found a screen protector for the iPad that has a paper-like texture and makes it significantly nicer to draw on.
a-saleh 7y ago
Damn! It is beautiful. If I were to become a manager, where my greatest contribution will be sending the best damn meeting-minutes I can, I am buying this. But I already have Onyx Boox for my note-scribbling-on-e-ink needs, and if push comes to shove, I can run termux from there :D
- fma 7y ago
  Which model of Onyx Boox do you have? Can you give a brief pro/con? I've never heard of the company but man their devices are tempting...
  - eggie 7y ago
    The devices are conceptually great: just an android tablet with e-ink. The software is kind of low-quality. They're fun to use, and good for reducing eye strain while doing things that you'd typically do on a phone, laptop, or tablet, without limitations. But... the devices are absolutely the most fragile electronics I've touched in 20 years. I've had two break on me in as many months, babying them and being incredibly careful. The first one developed a line of stuck pixels within the first week of use. It happened while I was using it, which was surreal to watch. They replaced it, but I had to pay shipping, which wasn't cool. The second locked up a few days ago. I rebooted it, thinking it'd be OK, but discovered that the capacitive touchscreen was not recognized. I'm not the only one. You can see dozens of people complaining about this here: http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-capacitive-touchscreen-not-working/1852 http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-capacitive.... Now I have to use the pen, which doesn't work everywhere in the interface (e.g. for reading PDFs, it's impossible to turn pages) and the device locks up after ten minutes. So I'll be sending this one back too, because I'm outside of the limits for a full refund. Maybe the third one will last more than a month. Their design and quality control are horrific. The high price of the device only makes sense from the perspective of them having to replace everyone's device three or four times. I hope e-ink screen having android devices become commonplace and onyx gets competed out of existence.
    - a-saleh 6y ago
michaelschade 7y ago
Looks like they really upped their production quality with this release! Excite to see their team is still at it. Also pumped to see them officially releasing a Chrome extension to send to reMarkable. Long overdue. It doesn't look like it's out yet, so here's a link to the unofficial version I made last year (used by over 700 other reMarkable owners): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-remarkable/mcfkooagiaelmfpkgegmbobdcpcbdbgh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-remarkable... Open source at https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater
learc83 7y ago
What's the drawing latency like? High latency is what keeps me from switching away from paper.
- kissgyorgy 7y ago
  50ms was the 1st model, 20ms for this.
- techslave 7y ago
  i found v1 to be unusable due to latency
gfaure 7y ago
Is it possible to keep documents entirely local and guarantee that ReMarkable doesn't have access to data? From what I recall, their Terms of Service leave this possibility open. This made ReMarkable a non-starter for many companies that have policies around where internal data may be stored.
- ACS_Solver 7y ago
  I commented elsewhere that it's a big miss by marketing, they neglect to mention that all connectivity features are optional. You can use it without ever creating an account or connecting to the Internet.
- jmiserez 7y ago
  Yes. The USB interface works well on the reMarkable 1, you just plug it in and go to http://10.11.99.1 http://10.11.99.1 in a browser. The cloud service is the default, but it is optional [1]: >Our cloud service is a service we provide to our customers. You are more than welcome to use your reMarkable offline and store your documents in local storage if you prefer. Aside: I have setup (via SSH) rclone to sync files to my own cloud storage, but that's not something that is officially supported. [1] https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002648297-Connecting-to-the-reMarkable-cloud https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000264829...
dredmorbius 7y ago
I'd just written Remarkable voicing my concerns with the gen 1 tablet. One concern, the ability to access material off the Web, has been addressed. Another has not: the Gen 2 tablet still has only 8 GB storage. On my current, much-despised, Android tablet, I have a 128GB microSD card with over 32 GB of documents, in a range of formats -- the overwhelming majority are PDF and ePub, but also djvu, docx, txt, htmk, chm, ppt, pptx, and other formats. With the paltry cost of storage, cripling the Remarkable with anything less than 128-256 GB staggers the mind. I'd also very much like to have an eccessible, full-featured Linux userland, even if only console mode, as this is invaluable to me (the file extension-based counts and storage utilisation come via Termux utilities on the Android tablet). A keyboard (external, Bluetooth), and terminal driver, would be sufficient for this.
- rattray 7y ago
  While I'd love full linux, personally I'd happily settle for just a bluetooth (or even usb) keyboard and a decent "write plain text" app. My handwriting is terrible, and while I'd love to unplug for reading/writing, I haven't found an acceptable solution for doing so beyond a Chromebook with wifi turned off and/or a "self control" web extension. EDIT: from elsewhere in this thread, I see https://github.com/dps/remarkable-keywriter https://github.com/dps/remarkable-keywriter which looks interesting. Curious to hear how it plays with the remarkable 2, esp around lag
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    The Linux userland is there. A terminal would expose it. Utility afforded is immense. Termux on Android, crippled as it is, is the one thing on the platform that does not completely and abjectly suck.
    - jonahbenton 7y ago
      Hmm, one can enable an ssh service, as I recall, to get in. There is something there- what kind of userland is it?
e12e 7y ago
Anyone have any look developing and running software on this thing? https://remarkable.engineering/ https://remarkable.engineering/ Isn't easy to find from the official site (remarkable.com), and I've yet to find a simple "Hello, world"-example from ReMarkable... Ed: i see there already are some comments on this topic. I think I just might pre-order an rm2.
- jxy 7y ago
  This is really interesting. Does it run nethack? I wonder if anyone has gotten something like frotz running, so we can have some good old interactive fiction.
- rnotaro 7y ago
  https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
- jonahbenton 7y ago
  I have not tried software on the device itself, but I have written against the (community documented) APIs they use for sync'ing, etc. They work well. From the visible quality of the software engineering, I would have high confidence in deploying something on the device.
shock 7y ago
> Note and file syncing between reMarkable tablet and reMarkable apps for MacOS, Windows 7 and newer, iOS, and Android I would very much like to order it, but it doesn't support linux :( Please, please add linux support!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- devnonymous 7y ago
  Actually, it has a webapp which you can acess via your browser over the wireless or USB connection ip, which allows you a rudimentary upload/download : https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002661337-Transferring-files-using-a-USB-cable https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000266133... That said, there are whole lot of sync tools that users have created which work very well with Linux (for example, I personally use remarkablefs, which is a Fuse based filesystem to mount your remarkable) https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable/blob/master/README.md#device-tools https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable/blob/master...
- jmiserez 7y ago
  There used to be a Linux client, but not anymore it seems. If you can live without the convenience of cloud sync on the PC, USB transfer should also work on Linux. You'll need to physically connect the device to your PC though.
m-p-3 7y ago
I know it would probably go against what they're aiming for (distraction-free, no social media), but it would be an instant-buy for me if I could have an email client (IMAP, Exchange), calendar (CalDAV, Exchange), RSS feeds (along with popular services like Feedly, Inoreader or your own server) and why not a service like Instapaper/Pocket/Wallabag builtin. Being able to do work-related stuff other than taking notes would be easier to justify the premium price.
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable There’s a script to upload files from Instapaper on, not sure how well it works.
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  Sounds like you want an iPad...
mskalski 7y ago
I guess that using safari online on remarkable is not possible or at least difficult with exporting chapter by chapter. Any recommendation for 10 inch e-ink which works with safari online?
kybernetikos 7y ago
Judging by the technical specifications on https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/ it seems not to have a microsd card or much in the way of onboard storage. I wonder if the device can recognize a storage device attached to the usb-c port. The writing experience, battery life and hackability are very appealing to me, but it also looks like it's not as good a reading device as high end readers, where really good lighting and water resistance are common. It's also slightly big for me. The size would be great for academic pdfs, or reference works but for normal books, or even for normal note taking (rather than sketching) it's a little on the large side. Maybe if it had less bezel, the size could be closer to best of both. I don't mind it having a high price point, but I hoped that it would compete with high-price point e-readers (kobo forma / kindle oasis) too.
- beezle 7y ago
  You won't find a high end reader (other than Sony?) that is in this size which is quite useful for those reading scientific papers, a bit blind, or who want to use it for sketch/art. It is only slightly larger than a typical hard cover.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    I think my point for comparison is a moleskine or a paperback. Certainly different use cases.
narenkeshav 7y ago
So can I use other cloud providers to sync? Say OneDrive, GDrive, Dropbox or Box? How can I import pdf files & export them to a cloud solution?
jasondclinton 7y ago
I'm very interested but am curious what the ebook consumption experience is like. Can any gen 1 owner comment?
- jmiserez 7y ago
  It's rather basic (i.e. not great), and only supports DRM-less epub and pdf.
  - Brakenshire 7y ago
    Have you tried the non-stock software? There’s a port of Plato in one of the repos listed above.
    - jmiserez 7y ago
      No, sorry. But there's two Youtube videos of Plato in the original Reddit announcement: https://youtu.be/JHdsqD4xxik https://youtu.be/JHdsqD4xxik https://youtu.be/a2mqXTGGTDE https://youtu.be/a2mqXTGGTDE
rb808 7y ago
BTW I bought Kobo Forma with a 8in screen and its great for tech books which don't work in a regular sized kindle. Cheaper than Remarkable.
pricci 7y ago
This seems great and the price is much more achievable now. I personally can't read PDF books from a normal screen. I need paper. I own a Kindle DX but the screen is not big enough and the software is showing its age. The fact that you can even use a pencil I this device is a big plus.
- jonahbenton 7y ago
  I replaced my pool of failing Kindle DXes with the RM1. Wrote some tools to automate DeDRMing my Kindle books so I have them on the RM1 now. Very similar reading experience. The RM1 is faster than the DX, but the software is slightly less reader friendly (harder to get to table of contents, go to specific pages, etc). I didn't use zoom on the DX, don't know if RM1 has it or how usable it is. The ability to notate on PDFs on the RM1 is very valuable.
WalterBright 7y ago
This looks very cool, but at the price I'm still kinda stuck using my $0.73 spiral notebooks. I fill them up with my scribblings, then run them through the scanner and archive them. I use colored pens on them, too. It's very, very hard to beat this. Note to ereader makers: Please, PLEASE make the screen saver show the last page read! I'd throw away my Kindle and buy a new one just to get that. I'd pay extra for it. I will stop complaining about my ereader if you do this.
- Groxx 7y ago
  >Note to ereader makers: Please, PLEASE make the screen saver show the last page read! I'd throw away my Kindle and buy a new one just to get that. I'd pay extra for it. I will stop complaining about my ereader if you do this. Would this be... not having a screensaver? Or are you thinking of something more specific? Having typed it out, it's sorta odd that there's a screensaver at all, rather than just always acting like it's up and running. I'd probably love it if ereaders would just show a "booting..." indicator when necessary, and otherwise never have an "off" screen except when serving some critical need (e.g. low battery warning).
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    You're quite right. Simply turn off after a timeout, and leave whatever is on the screen on the screen. It's like in a modern car when you stop for a stop light - the engine turns off. Step on the gas, and the engine turns back on.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    EInk displays only use power when they're changing what's on the screen, right? They work by giving a static charge to a bubble full of ink, and that charge should remain for a while, even if the screen loses power. So I don't see why screensavers are necessary.
    - Groxx 7y ago
      You may be able to argue burn-in issues (I'm not sure if any are permanent, but they can definitely last quite a few black/white cycles), but that's about it AFAICT...
knolax 7y ago
When looking at e-paper tablets in the past I found that the ReMarkable does not support using an external SD-card. If you google around you'll find many e-ink tablets using the same screen and stylus technology (as in they literally use the same parts from Wacom) that run slightly modified Android and do have an sd-card slot. If anyone else is interested in buying an e-ink tablet you should look into those.
techslave 7y ago
tested it for 1 minute at that “beta” store. must have been the old version of course. it’s terrible. the response time makes it very awful.
angry_octet 7y ago
What is the security of these things? I'd really like a good encrypted notebook, but tbh I would want iOS like security (hardware enclave, so I can use a short PIN and still have moderate security). Also, is it too much to expect colour?
- npalmer76 7y ago
  For doctors to be able to use this they need encrypted at rest. I think this would be an amazing device for them but without encrypted storage it is a non-starter. I reached out to the manufacturer to find out.
smilekzs 7y ago
Years ago I tried an early adopter's unit. While I was impressed by the "feel", ultimately the lack of color was the deal-breaker for me, as I love using colors in note-taking + PDF annotation. Ended up sticking to my Surface Pro 4 (2015) with the latest Surface Slim Pen. I pretty much only use my Surface the same way as I would use a hypothetical ReMarkable with even only RGBK colors, and considering the Surface is a $1k+ device fully loaded, such a "colored ReMarkable" would be a steal for me. Kinda disappointed it does not exist... Colors, please!
FriendlyNormie 7y ago
This article falsely claims the device cannot be used by left-handed people. There is a left-handed mode in the settings.
nocoder 7y ago
What is the main reason that make these devices so expensive? Is it low demand? complex technology? or something to do with patents?
- azeirah 7y ago
  Niche market, there are barely any competitors. I believe Sony has a competing device for business, costs around 1k$ Onyx also has one, it's a bit cheaper than the remarkable. All of these devices have major flaws and upsides.
qbaqbaqba 7y ago
I wonder how well the older model will be supported. Interesting device but uses closed software and formats.
crimsonalucard 7y ago
How does this compare with the ipad and the apple pencil? Is it worth it to get even when you already own an ipad and an apple pencil?
nudpiedo 7y ago
I am the kind of person who takes notes and write on paper daily, for pleasure, and I have no problem managing or carrying paper notebooks. Does anyone know were could I personally try reMarkable 2 in Germany or Europe? Does anyone know on whether it is possible to read kindle purchased books or converted ebooks? What about custom software?
- nudpiedo 7y ago
  Now that I read almost everything online: - You can't read Kindle books directly on the reMarkable (DRM not supported) - It has support for ePub and PDF - It runs a Linux accessible by SSH and hacker friendly (check awesome remarkable on github)
eequah9L 7y ago
What I don't understand is why the display is not vertically symmetrical. Then the software could eventually be made to allow 180 degree rotation of the interface. This way the device could be used by both left-handed and right-handed people equally.
thrower123 7y ago
I bought one of these for my fiance for Christmas, and she loves it. She uses it to take notes during meetings, and then convert them to text and import into OneNote. It seems to work fantastically for that. I was a little leery, after my experience buying a similar e-ink tablet years ago through indiegogo, which took forever to get delivered, shipped with a painfully obsolete version of Android, and bricked itself in short order, but this seems like a very solid product.
archon810 7y ago
Is there a way to get Google Play Books on this thing? Kindle?
npalmer76 7y ago
Does anybody know if the devices storage is encrypted at rest?
Awtem 7y ago
I'd love to give this another go, however, my experience with the first remarkable are reMarkably poor, and the new revision supposedly has the same display hardware - the display is not very sharp, has poor contrast, and no active illumination - also, despite there being no display illumination, reading in the sun was not possible, as it immediately resulted in the display bulging notably from the absorbed sun/heat. - seriously buggy software Let me know, if you have information that the new revision has improved on those aspects.
goatherders 7y ago
The price point is now low enough that I'm down to preorder. I could use pen and paper (as I do) forever and probably not spend $400 but the price is low enough for a gadget that would be fun and novel for now.
daswolle 7y ago
Do they have any ergonomics for left handed people? All the photos show users holding the device with their right hand.
- guruz 7y ago
  It's in the FAQ section here: https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 Answer: Yes!
elric 7y ago
Is there a way to set up a self hosted sync server yet?
SZJX 7y ago
Would love to see a bigger (13.3-inch) version. Many PDF books are Letter or A4 size by default and I don't like having to read them with (smaller) scaled fonts. Otherwise I would go for it as its software seems to be more complete than that of Sony's Digital Paper, which I've been using for a couple of years already.

641 points by sharcerer 7y ago

For me the competition to this is the Rocketbook. You write or draw with real pens and still can scan and digitize the things you write. And in price the Rocketbook wins hands down.

enricozb 7y ago

It hurts my heart how conflicted I am about this device. The hardware _is_ there. I love using the original reMarkable tablet _when it works_. But damn there are some stupid software decisions, alongside some absolutely genius ones. (Disclaimer: I've had the original reMarkable tablet for 3 months now) Here's a summary of my experience with it: - It's sometimes unstable, and crashes while I draw. Not super often but maybe 4 or 5 times a week. I don't lose any data other than the last ~5-10 strokes. - There is a notebook called Quick Sheets that is permanently there, even if I try to remove it's metadata over SSH. It gets generated on boot. No idea why this is here. - You can SSH in, and there's a good hacker community around the tablet. A lot of cool open source software is written for it. - Putting a file on the device for the first time, after doing the same on a kindle for years, is an adventure to say the least. There is no calibre plugin for it that I've found. - I have never been able to use EPUBs properly on this tablet, a lot of my books just crash it. I have to convert them to PDF first on calibre. So highlighting is just markup on the PDF and not really selecting any text, but you can write directly on the book with notes. - The first time I opened an EPUB, it took a while (10s) to load. When I tried to change the font of the EPUB on the reMarkable, it just stayed on the loading icon for hours, and I gave up on EPUBs then, and resorted to PDFs. - There is no dictionary on the EPUB reader. I miss this feature a lot. And even if there were, I wouldn't be able to use it because I have to convert my EPUBs to PDF. - Metadata for EPUBs or PDFs isn't visible, only the raw filenames. So no sorting by author, genre, etc. - drawing and marking up is phenomenal, as is reading on such a huge screen. I absolutely love reading and journaling on this tablet. - I have never succeeded in exporting my notebooks or marked up PDFs using the built in software after marking up or writing in 100+ pages, I have to use some community written software instead. - It's $500 total after pen and cover. - There is no backlight. - OCR is done in the cloud, and not on the device. - The iOS companion app is goofy, a lot of the navigation within the app seems to be done in a hacky way, instead of using the usual iOS SDK components. (They segment screen portions for scrolling on pages and for navigating the app, and it leads to just the most bizarre behavior). I want to love this tablet. And all we need is a software update. The hardware was almost perfect, and now with USB-C, a magnet on the pen, and an eraser, the hardware is even closer to being perfect (I think the only thing left is a backlight).

capableweb 7y ago
As someone who is thinking of getting the reMarkable 2, what is some examples of "A lot of cool open source software"?
- blue_shirt 7y ago
  Not the grandparent, from what I've found is there's a lot written for the tablet since it is a Linux device that gives the user root access. Some examples of the open source stuff can be found on github [1] and their wiki[2]. [1] https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [2] https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start
  - capableweb 7y ago
    That's pretty cool and that it was really locked down was my only concern about it. Happy to see it seems relatively open, so just placed a pre-order. Thanks!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jshevek 7y ago
For what it's worth, I don't think my device has ever crashed. I wonder if there is a memory overflow bug such that different types of usage could lead to different crash frequencies? >No idea why this is here I agree it would be nice to turn off quick sheets for those who don't use it. For me, I love quicksheets. I often want to just grab the device, jot something down immediately, and put it away. Sure I could create a 'notes' file and put it somewhere obvious, but quicksheets reduces the time and effort for these quick notes.
mariushn 7y ago
Thanks for listing these. Hopefully the makers listen. Glad it's not hardware. I'd also love an open Kindle alternative. This is too much for my budget, but hope prices will come down in 1 year.

jesuslop 7y ago

I'd wish they did a hackable A4 version

webkike 7y ago

I really love the ReMarkable and this was an easy preorder. The only thing I personally disliked was 1. No eraser on the pen and 2. No USB-C support. Both are resolved here

jmiserez 7y ago
Yes, not having an eraser on the pen is basically the only gripe I have with the reMarkable 1.
gautamcgoel 7y ago
You only get an eraser if you pay an extra $50 for the Marker Plus, which is crazy to me.
- webkike 7y ago
  Yeah the prices are a little ridiculous but I can’t really complain considering how niche of a product this is and how amazing the reMarkable 1 is

dnquark 7y ago

What's their portability story? I don't want my personal knowledge store to be locked into a platform, particularly one that's not guaranteed to last. PDF exports don't cut it, my notes are living documents. I'm really sad that nobody has adequately addressed interoperability in the digital inking space; I'd gladly switch to an iPad or reMarkable, but so far I'm still the neckbeard inking in Xournal on an old Thinkpad.

Enginerrrd 7y ago
Not great, you can only officially export PDF, PNG, or SVG, though their cloud management does seem to work really well and as I understand, files are stored locally on each device once synced. That said, it runs linux so you could conceivably backup the files yourself. You can ssh into your tablet, run sftp, w/e. But they are in some proprietary .lines format. There's a wiki with more details (the file format stuff is further down): https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem It may be possilbe you could hack it to run xournal, but I've no idea.

chatmasta 7y ago

I can’t view this site on mobile, I get redirected to some “guce advertising” that’s blocked on my phone.

honkycat 7y ago

Good god, the scroll hijacking on that site is dreadful. Makes it impossible to scroll comfortably on mobile. That being said I’ve always admired the Remarkable tablets.

diffeomorphism 7y ago

Literally unviewable and it is not consent if there is no option to say "no". Ianal but this website is probably violating GDPR: https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/ https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/

matsemann 7y ago

The hardware on the first one was very good compared to others at the time, but some software features I'd like to have was missing. So I tested a friend's one, but never ended up buying one myself. But from the looks of it they have added and worked on much of that software the last years. Looks very compelling now.

diffeomorphism 7y ago

Since the article is unviewable without throwing away your privacy, here is a primary source instead: https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/

SiempreViernes 7y ago
Via yandex I found this repost: https://devsday.ru/news/details/75390 https://devsday.ru/news/details/75390 Dunno if the privacy is any better, but you can at least view it with adblockers on.
disqard 7y ago
Thank you! This is why I read HN comments before (or instead of) the article.
jbarberu 7y ago
Perfectly readable with Javascript disabled (or NoScript in my case)
- eurg 7y ago
  it redirects via a domain on common blocklists
jastingo 7y ago
I know I'm being too literal, but I got a chuckle when I read: > reMarkable’s virtually instant response and texturized surface make for an unprecedented writing experience. There is indeed a precedent for having literally instant response with a texturized surface: pencil and paper.
- jshevek 7y ago
  I took it as having an implied "...on an electronic device."
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I looked in to the remarkable a few months ago and I couldn't find any way the price justified the benefit over pen and paper. Unless you are reading lots of pdfs, it seems like a waste. At the new price point it might be decent though.

java-man 7y ago

I don't understand the fascination with super-thin devices. Can you hold it for any extended period of time without much strain? Will it slip and shatter when the palms get slightly moist?

magicalhippo 7y ago
It weights about 400g, so about what a paper pad does I guess? In any case, it has a textured surface, and assuming it's similar to the reMarkable 1 it is not slippery.
- java-man 7y ago
  a paper pad does not weigh 400g
  - magicalhippo 7y ago
    I just measured the A4 one I got, for which the reMarkable would be a replacement, and it is 391g. So pretty close in my view.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    Some math: A US Letter sized pad made of 20lb paper is 1lb per 100 sheets[1] so an 88 page pad would weigh 400g, neglecting the cardboard backing. If it were made of 16lb paper then you would get a bit over 100 pages in 400g. 1: 20lbs means 500 sheets of the basis size weighs 20 lbs. The basis size for US Letter sized paper is 4 sheets (22x17), so 2000 sheets weighs 20lbs.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

> "The new tablet is just 4.7 mm (0.19 in) thick, thinner than the iPad Pro and Sony’s competing Digital Paper tablets, both of which are 5.9 mm." At that thickness, I'd be worried about sturdiness and, in particular, bending, à la the problems with the iPhone 6. I can stick an iPad Mini or similar tablet into a jacket pocket or backpack and jog a couple of miles to a bus stop daily without concern. Will we be able to do the same with this, I wonder?

matsemann 7y ago
The problems with the phone is that it's often carried in pants pockets. I don't think something of this size will have the same kind of forces applied to it.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  This is much larger than a phone which increases the effects of small bends. I managed to break one of the early large-format ebook readers with a glass display in a jacket pocket, for example. I happen to have Sony's competing 13" e-paper tablet already and I'd be nervous about putting it into a backpack without something non-bendable next to it to prevent flexing.
- leggomylibro 7y ago
  Actually, I think that things which get thrown into bags on a regular basis face more stresses than a phone in your pocket. It could be jostling around with corners of large books, laptops, cables, random containers, etc. It can also have more space to accelerate when you swing your bag around, whereas a phone is held firmly your leg when you run/jump/etc. Durability in a bag is what separates great electronics manufacturers from decent ones. If I buy something and it doesn't survive bag life for several months, which is quite common, then I write off the manufacturer as a creator of fragile throw-away devices. But I've never had a phone have any sort of problem from pocket stresses.
rchaud 7y ago
I imagine most people will buy a case for this, as this tablet does not come cheap. When I take my tablet (in a case) out and about, it goes into a laptop sleeve before it goes into a bag. For me, it's not bending I'm worried about, but scratches.

pushcx 7y ago

Any details on whether they've fixed search? Zoom? Or made it a mountable USB drive so it doesn't require their app or similar janky solutions? The first one really looked nice, but all the reviews were full of practical usability issues and this promo doesn't touch on the topic.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
It still sounds as if it has the original's killer negative: everything you write is sync'ed to their servers, which is a huge no-no for work use without IT approval, at least at my workplace, or anything regulated by privacy laws like HIPPA. I'd love one of these things if it was able to function purely offline even if I had to sacrifice cloud features.
- ACS_Solver 7y ago
  It's a failure of their marketing that they didn't make this clear. The device is capable of working 100% offline. Notes are stored on the device, with cloud sync being optional. File transfer is possible with SSH, or the (poor) app or the equally poor web interface when connecting via USB. You don't have to create an account for the rM cloud, you can use the thing without ever connecting it to the Internet.
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds a bit awkward to use offline but that's acceptable, at least to me.
  - pushcx 7y ago
    The marketing sounds like they've stepped up the app/cloud bits with a browser plugin, etc. Do you know for certain the second version still supports the non-cloud snycing? The support site is incompletely updated for the new device; it's not clear at all if they still permit private operation.
    - 7y ago

scottwernervt 7y ago

> Hold it with your left hand and write with your right. Sorry, lefties. Well this sucks if it is not leftie friendly as the price and features had me sold.

orpheansodality 7y ago
wondering if that's just an assumption by the author -- can you not just rotate it 180°?
- achow 7y ago
  Has to be that way. Same as Kindle Oasis.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  It has a physical design with an up and down, so you would have it upside down, with the buttons on top.
- jshevek 7y ago
  [On the original, you could not] rotate the device 180 and use it normally, but you could click a toggle in the settings which would reflect the UI laterally, for left-handed people.
mandliya 7y ago
From remarkable website: Does the reMarkable adapt to left-handed people? If you're left-handed, don't worry. A few of our colleagues are also left-handed. They want to make sure all lefties have an excellent experience with their reMarkable device. You'll be able to set up your reMarkable to left-handed mode when you first set up your device. We've also made it easy to switch between right-handed and left-handed modes in the main settings.
- 7y ago

beezle 7y ago

The speed improvements are impressive. Wonder though if there is any physical change in the display? It seems to be identical, was hoping they could bring something with a whiter background.

beezle 7y ago
Also wonder about security of the pen if used with the book folio. Exactly how strong is that magnetic attachment?

jjuel 7y ago

I so badly wanted the first one. This one looks even better. However, with twins on the way probably still not in the cards, but damn I can dream.

floren 7y ago

I bought the original version but found that some PDF files absolutely destroyed it. Not massive files where each page is a scanned picture, just regular PDFs from academic journals. I'd open one, it would spend 20+ seconds displaying the "working" spinner, then often as not it would reboot. Had to return it. I was also pretty shocked that there was no way to get a list of all annotations you've added to a given PDF; I really wanted a way to read through a book making notes as I went, then get an overview of where I'd made notes. Even a way to bookmark a given page would have been useful. Fix those two issues and it would have been a great device for me; the page size was juuuust big enough to display pretty much any book at a readable size.

carlosdp 7y ago
I have a remarkable and use it for reading academic paper PDFs all the time. The software has gotten far better over time.
- floren 7y ago
  I'm very glad it's working well for you, but the software as of January 2020 was unable to properly read PDFs from a particular journal... it may have been Science.
  - jonahbenton 7y ago
    There might be something to do here to clean those up and make them more ergonomic for the device. I have de-DRMed most of my kindle books and turned them into PDFs, even some thousand page monsters with graphs and images, etc, and so far all work well on the device. There are a bunch of open source PDF utilities that may be able to help if desired. Cheers.

logfromblammo 7y ago

This is essentially an advertisement. There's no need to read, unless you are looking to buy a $400 convenience replacement for a $1 pad of paper plus a scanner.

ACS_Solver 7y ago

Terrible link, the actual reMarkable website is much better. It's a very niche device but I've owned mine for nearly two years and am a big advocate. In some ways, the first model was proof of concept. Excellent hardware and writing experience, but the early versions of the software were horrible, and the device itself is very ugly. The software has improved dramatically in the time I've owned it, going from horrible to bad, then to almost acceptable, and now it's decent. I'm happy to see the company is doing well enough to make a second generation reality. Looks like it will be an overall improved experience, with a magnetic marker, a slick-looking device and overall incremental improvements. I'd like to see some kind of trade up program though, it's expensive (and 50$ more for a marker with one extra sensor is ridiculous) and I can't justify paying that much for an incremental upgrade. My only concern about the new specs would be the thickness, or rather the sturdiness. The first generation is thick by modern standards, but it's very sturdy. I've dropped the device, I've dropped the bag with it, I've bumped into things with it - not a scratch. Very refreshing in the age of fragile devices. Hopefully the rM2 doesn't sacrifice much sturdiness to be thinner.

marvindanig 7y ago
This, centum percentum! If 'papery' was my need of the hour I'd go back to physical paper straight. This is lame marketing of an expensive lifeless product that aims to copy the dead tree. That's not what our new mediums are about.
- scroot 7y ago
  Whatever pushes progress in the low-power, reflective technology of epaper displays should be celebrated, I think. One could imagine hacking something like this tablet to have a true interactive Squeak like environment on it. Or, better yet, a Squeak-like environment designed from the ground up specifically for epaper displays...
  - marvindanig 7y ago
    Reflective or iridescent, the nature of light that falls into your eyes doesn't change. Low-power is definitely an attribute that I can get behind but modern batteries are good enough to not go underpowered when it comes to books. Downvoters: yes, you deserve the truth! :-)

aNoob7000 7y ago

Has anyone used this product? and how does it compare to like an IPad Pro? I have an IPad Pro, but I'm not in love with the writing experience or reading an eBook.

rchaud 7y ago
There are some fairly detailed review videos online. At the time it was released, the reception was mostly "too expensive for what it does".
smt1 7y ago
I have an ipad pro and a remarkable, and I use the remarkable a lot more. I mostly note take/doodle though. The writing experience is way better.

Edmond 7y ago

Nice and intriguing but unfortunately this is still priced as a premium product. Obviously the company making it has its reasons for pricing but a product like this needs to be priced as an accessible consumer electronics product (ie $50-$100).

organsnyder 7y ago
I've been keeping an eye on largish-format epaper tablets for a while (I'm an avocational organist and singer, and would love to have my whole music library with me at all times). ReMarkable is actually on the cheaper end of the spectrum. I think it comes down to low volume and target users (professionals who wouldn't balk at paying this much for a business tool). Basically, a typical vertical market.
- Edmond 7y ago
  Hopefully they'll consider the functionally minded customer soon. I would be happy with a cheapish form factor option, it doesn't have to be the slick looking product that is the only option currently available.

smt1 7y ago

I've had a Remarkable1 for about three months. It's one of the best investments I've made in a long time. Going to preorder this. Only caveats - I like aftermarket cases more than Remarkable's. I bought one one from Amazon for about 30$. Also I've been using staedtler's digital pencils, works great!

sooheon 7y ago
What makes it so good for you? Amazon reviews seem negative to middling.
- callahad 7y ago
  It's a notebook, but just digital enough. No browser, no clutter, just... really, really useful paper that's always there and doesn't get misplaced later.
- smt1 7y ago
  I looked over some of the amazon reviews, and they seem to be talking mostly about issues in older versions (2018) of the software, which I don't have direct experience with, but the software has gotten better, even in the time I've owned it (they just released version 2.x of the SW). That being said, there is still room for improvement, particularly with reading (vs writing, which this device is very good at). I mostly use it this to replace stacks of notebooks (my brain thinks better with pen and paper in hand, but with all the digital conveniences in hand. This device is the best that I've tried for writing (and I've tried many, including an ipad pro) Cons: historically, the price. No blacklight. Clearly the device has been optimized for writing, not reading, although supposedly 3rd party ebook readers like Apollo are good (the device is not locked down and has a hacker community).
mNovak 7y ago
What's the writing resolution like? My problem has always been that I write really small, so most tablets feel pudgy. I've long thought about getting one of these, but don't want to shell out $500 if I can't comfortably write on it.

pettycashstash2 7y ago

why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like guerrilla marketing.

jshevek 7y ago
>why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like guerrilla marketing. Are you accusing the people who posted these links of being employees of Remarkable? If so, you could just look at their comment histories to see if it seems likely before posting a general accusation. I am fascinated by this product. It is far more interesting to me than much of what Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, or Amazon have done in a tablet form factor in many years. I'm not surprised that others may have a similar level of interest.
- newen 7y ago
  Same. I bought the Sony DPT-S1 many years ago. It's serviceable but I've been waiting to see when a decent replacement comes out.
- pettycashstash2 7y ago
  I am not and did not accuse anyone. I simply noticed many links to many resources about same product in a short period of time. You can make your own judgement call on that. Are press releases standard - of course. I would ague that guerrilla marketing is standard ops for many new products/services and it should not be perceived in a negative way. Its a tool, i was simply curious if this was the case. In addition i'm fascinated at guerrilla marketing operations and am curious if they in fact are, how are they are engaged, paid etc.....
dang 7y ago
To add to what jshevek said: Please don't insinuate astroturfing or shillage without evidence. Internet users are overwhelmingly too quick to leap to such explanations from (at best) a handful of data points, and it leads them to smear each other's integrity in ways that are not good for community. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Much more explanation for anyone who wants it: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... In this case, a new product was launched today, it's normal for companies to coordinate that with press, and it's normal for multiple submissions on a story to show up on HN. It's also normal for humans to overinterpret streaks as something other than the randomness they usually are; we all do it, but it's not good to do it in ways that insinuate dishonesty in fellow community members.

throwlaplace 7y ago

the only thing i want is a device i can write on that has a refresh rate (or whatever) that's near realtime (so that I don't get the cognitive dissonance from the lag in the line appearing). does such a device exist? i've tried surface and ipad and etc. all of them still have quite noticeable lag when writing.

jshevek 7y ago
>does such a device exist? That is the goal of this device. The original Remarkable was superior to the surface and the iPad, and according to their marketing the next one will be twice as fast.
- throwlaplace 7y ago
  you can see very clearly in the demo video that there is still a very noticeable lag
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Get an old Windows PenPC with a Wacom sensor.

g123g 7y ago

Is it worth it to buy just for reading purposes? I have a Kindle but a want bigger screen to read PDFs and web pages. Also, any integration with the Android app store?

Jhsto 7y ago
I don't think it's that great for reading. It does not have a backlight. I own both the reMarkable and Kindle Paperwhite and I prefer to read books on the Kindle.
jshevek 7y ago
It is perfectly serviceable for reading, though it may lack some of the reading oriented features of other eink devices. I love the large size for some of my documents, which are unpleasant to read on smaller devices.
- ProZsolt 7y ago
  What you re missing?
  - jshevek 7y ago
    Based on other comments here, it seems that the Remarkable is missing several features that some people enjoy in their eReaders. The only one I can cite definitively is the lack of backlight. I can't speak to other allegedly missing features because I haven't investigated the issue. I am satisfied with the features I do use when I want to read certain docs on the large remarkable screen.
lottin 7y ago
It is suitable for reading PDFs, but don't expect much. It doesn't have a web browser and doesn't run Android apps.

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/YjZUI https://archive.md/YjZUI

funkaster 7y ago

I bought the original one during the initial sale, I think I paid something around $300 for it. Loved it and used it as my main reading/note taking device. I got an iPad Pro (12.9) last year and I've stopped using the remarkable, but will prob get the newer version. I find it much easier on the eyes and better to read using the remarkable. It was a great piece of hw before, the new one looks even better.

quartz 7y ago

Can any remarkable owners comment on the reliability/robustness of the document storage? Does it store versions and/or backups? I made the mistake of buying an equilpen2 at an apple store years ago. I say mistake not because I didn't like the product (I used it for hundreds of pages of notes over the year or two after I bought it and loved that it let me write on regular paper) but because the company gave up on the product and eventually released destructive app updates that deleted all my notes from my local machines. I was only able to recover my content because I had it synced to dropbox and now I'm paranoid about content creation devices like this potentially losing my content in the future if the company goes belly-up.

carlosdp 7y ago
The cloud sync/storage is pretty rudimentary, no versions or anything like that. But they have an app for desktop/phone so you can download and backup. There are unofficial client libraries for the cloud API as well, so it can be automated.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > But they have an app for desktop/phone so you can download and backup. Can I just... connect a USB cable and transfer files? Why do I want an app at all? The apparent requirement to transfer files through an app was the reason I didn't get a remarkable 1.
  - jonahbenton 7y ago
    I don't recall if it shows up as a USB storage device, but it will expose a webserver to you over USB to which you can put documents. I also wrote a utility to send documents up to their server side APIs, which them gets them automatically sync'd down to the device. Takes about a minute, works very well.
driverdan 7y ago
They have their own file syncing but it runs Linux and is very hackable. There are 3rd party tools to sync elsewhere. You can even use rsync. See https://remarkablewiki.com/ https://remarkablewiki.com/

lottin 7y ago

This is great but how many tablets do I really need to get rid of paper? At least two, because typically I will be reading and taking notes simultaneously, and often times more than two, because I may need to check multiple sources.

treve 7y ago

Does anyone know if this tablet is programmable? If so I would probably want one!

hcs 7y ago
For the original one at least, yes. The official stuff is at https://remarkable.engineering/ https://remarkable.engineering/ and there are a few Rust projects built around libremarkable https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable

tobethau 7y ago

People don't jerk off to magazines anymore.

mszcz 7y ago
As much as I appreciate the Silicon Valley reference, I don't think that this is a place for it...

carlosdp 7y ago

One thing that's rarely mentioned about this device, but is the reason I sprung for it, is that the developers left an SSH interface into the device over USB, so you can program custom apps! People have made some neat stuff, and there's a Rust library for making apps: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable

j0e1 7y ago
This is what I was looking for and their website fails to mention it on the landing page, at least. Would you know of any Emacs/org-mode extensions for this device? Thank you for sharing!
- lallysingh 7y ago
  You are my spirit animal. I just got a polar/readwise/orgmode/Anki setup together and I'd love to use this.
  - idmyn 7y ago
    Ooh, sounds cool! What does that workflow look like?
    - lallysingh 7y ago
      Polar and org feed into Anki. Readwise gets Kindle highlights, will try to get safari sync working.
      - willlma 6y ago
        Would love to hear more in general if you have time to go into more detail, but my main question is at what point do you convert highlights into question and answer or clozed deletion Anki cards and how do you reference the source on those Anki cards for when you want to go back and read more details from the original source? I guess that's two questions

tomerbd 7y ago

I'm using this $13 "NEWYES 12" LCD Writing Tablet Digital Drawing Tablet Handwriting Pads Portable Electronic Tablet Board ultra-thin Board with pen" As a better paper, without any distractions, works well!! I have one at work, on my desk, I have one for each kid doing maths with them on it, it's awesome. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32922602355.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.20be35ebRsLe35&algo_pvid=b80b35b5-cffe-4264-a633-c3eb479a3829&algo_expid=b80b35b5-cffe-4264-a633-c3eb479a3829-0&btsid=0ab6f83915844660455648904e3379&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32922602355.html?spm=a2g0o.p...

stronglikedan 7y ago
I presume you can save your notes somewhere externally, but it's not apparent from the product description. Is it doable, easy and, most importantly, reliable?
- 1023bytes 7y ago
  Well, you can take a photo of them. This is not a digital device, it's based on pressure sensitive liquid crystals. Electricity is only used to clear the display.
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    Ah, thanks, I should have known. Now that you mention that, my niece has a similar, albeit significantly smaller, device.
- tomerbd 7y ago
  When I need more permanent notes, I use this other $13 ereasable notebook: "2019 Elfinbook Smart Reusable Erasable Spiral A5 Notebook Paper Notepad Pocketbook Diary Journal Office School Drawing Gift 4.8". https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32859074901.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.3e7c4c4dnQ5m1g https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32859074901.html?spm=a2g0s.9... As for the previous one (single page scribble) then I found in the past that I usually have a new single page each day on my desk for tasks minor notes of that page and it's now replacing it - this is its main usage.

mavsman 7y ago

> Unfortunately I use Firefox, but I can make an exception for this. Unfortunate attitude that perpetuates (browser) lock-in.

smt1 7y ago
Personally, I just use this to print stuff from whatever app and send it to the remarkable: https://github.com/juruen/rmapi/blob/master/docs/tutorial-print-macosx.md https://github.com/juruen/rmapi/blob/master/docs/tutorial-pr... Works well, I'm guessing for other platforms, similar things exist using remarkable's api.

j0057 7y ago

Oh god, I love my reMarkable 1 so much that I'm having a hard time not impulse-buying this one. It's like having a superweapon on you if your work is to sling ideas and concepts.

fmela 7y ago

This looks interesting, but it's the software that will make or break the experience. Software aside, this is expensive ($479 when you select the pen with the eraser and the book cover), and the screen is not back-lit, so this won't be usable without other source of light. Why is it so hard to find an e-ink device that's good for reading books, PDFs, and web content (e.g. Pocket)? So far, everything I've tried has fallen short.

YetAnotherNick 7y ago
I find it cheap. For $400 even if I could use it for reading and writing and assuming that those are the only functionality provided, I am fine with it. If I didn't had an ipad pro with apple pencil($800 + $100) I would have bought it, as those are the only thing I bought the ipad for, not for having some fancy apps.
redindian75 7y ago
I got Mobiscribe from Amazon for around 250. Smaller screen, but has warm backlit eink screen. Decent ereader for ePubs, very good responsive notetaking. It comes with a note-folio & pen for $250

sergioisidoro 7y ago

I really liked Remarkable hardware, but I ended up returning it. The Software and general workflow to send and manage documents was cumbersome. Simple things like sharing meeting notes with colleagues shouldn't be that complicated. It's one of those cases where the hardware is amazing but the software is just too painful to use (and I really wanted to like it)

tesseract2 7y ago

While at that price point, many other, more feature complete devices become available, the ePaper devices do have their own niche. I tried to use iPad Pro as a full-time note-taking device and found that after writing on it for up 3-4 hours during the day, my eyes get very tired by the evening. I tried various things to mitigate it, such as using dark background, changing brightness etc, and nothing seems to help enough to make iPad a notebook replacement. I absolutely love the functionality offered by iPad-like device such as reading Kindle, browse web, notes taking, PDF annotation, scanner apps etc. I absolutely want to be able to use it as single device to hold all my hand-notes and downloaded or scanned documents. But can't avoid the eye strain. Devices like reMarkable etc can be used at length if your ask is just to carry around all your notes. I have misplaced all my notes from grad school days. I would love an easy way to be able to write and archive for posterity all my notes. I personally settled for Onyx Boox Max 3. It is at way higher price point, but is more functional - has Kindle, OReilly apps etc and quite functional note taking app. I tried the earlier version of reMarkable ran into a limitation that limited its usability for me. It did not allow copying a section of text and pasting it into a new document. I might be mis-remembering, but I think it did not even allow pasting a copied section of a note into a new page in the same notebook. All this severely limited what I could use it for. It was just a paper replacement, and not much more. Boox Max 3 did not have these limitations. Whats great about iPad-like devices is that you don't even expect that you will run into these corner cases. I hope this update to reMarkable add such small features that increase the usability. I absolutely hope that these kind of devices succeed. They are a solution to the problem of keeping and carrying with you a separate set of notes on varied topics where no single paper notebook would do justice, and they are usable for very long stretches of time with no more eye strain than with using paper.

intopieces 7y ago
> Onyx Boox Max 3. Can you tell me if the Onyx Boox Max 3 works with USB-C to USB-C cables? I had a Onyx Boox Nova and it was noncompliant somehow, I had to only use the USB-C to A cable that came with it. I ended up selling it for that reason -- I didn't want to carry around a single cable just for this device when all my other devices are USB-C.

zxcvgm 7y ago

I was looking for a device to serve as my paper replacement in 2018 and came across the ReMarkable 1 tablet. Shortly after, Apple had announced a new iPad 9.7", now with Pencil support. This put both devices in the same price bracket. After reading an in-depth review from GoodEReader [1], I concluded that an iPad, although not with an ePaper display, could also function as a regular tablet with access to a ton of apps. This was something that the ReMarkable was not able to do. The ReMarkable tablet does allow you to have SSH access though, as noted by other comments here. Just my 2c, if you are also looking at this for a paper replacement. [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-review-of-the-remarkable-writing-tablet https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-rev...

mattkevan 7y ago

I’ve been wanting a ReMarkable since the preorder. If I could afford it I’d buy one in a heartbeat - and the v2 looks like an fantastic improvement. Came close to buying one last year, but went for an iPad Air instead as they are cheaper and more versatile. While I’d still love an e-ink display, I found a screen protector for the iPad that has a paper-like texture and makes it significantly nicer to draw on.

a-saleh 7y ago

Damn! It is beautiful. If I were to become a manager, where my greatest contribution will be sending the best damn meeting-minutes I can, I am buying this. But I already have Onyx Boox for my note-scribbling-on-e-ink needs, and if push comes to shove, I can run termux from there :D

fma 7y ago
Which model of Onyx Boox do you have? Can you give a brief pro/con? I've never heard of the company but man their devices are tempting...
- eggie 7y ago
  The devices are conceptually great: just an android tablet with e-ink. The software is kind of low-quality. They're fun to use, and good for reducing eye strain while doing things that you'd typically do on a phone, laptop, or tablet, without limitations. But... the devices are absolutely the most fragile electronics I've touched in 20 years. I've had two break on me in as many months, babying them and being incredibly careful. The first one developed a line of stuck pixels within the first week of use. It happened while I was using it, which was surreal to watch. They replaced it, but I had to pay shipping, which wasn't cool. The second locked up a few days ago. I rebooted it, thinking it'd be OK, but discovered that the capacitive touchscreen was not recognized. I'm not the only one. You can see dozens of people complaining about this here: http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-capacitive-touchscreen-not-working/1852 http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-capacitive.... Now I have to use the pen, which doesn't work everywhere in the interface (e.g. for reading PDFs, it's impossible to turn pages) and the device locks up after ten minutes. So I'll be sending this one back too, because I'm outside of the limits for a full refund. Maybe the third one will last more than a month. Their design and quality control are horrific. The high price of the device only makes sense from the perspective of them having to replace everyone's device three or four times. I hope e-ink screen having android devices become commonplace and onyx gets competed out of existence.
  - a-saleh 6y ago

michaelschade 7y ago

Looks like they really upped their production quality with this release! Excite to see their team is still at it. Also pumped to see them officially releasing a Chrome extension to send to reMarkable. Long overdue. It doesn't look like it's out yet, so here's a link to the unofficial version I made last year (used by over 700 other reMarkable owners): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-remarkable/mcfkooagiaelmfpkgegmbobdcpcbdbgh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-remarkable... Open source at https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater

learc83 7y ago

What's the drawing latency like? High latency is what keeps me from switching away from paper.

kissgyorgy 7y ago
50ms was the 1st model, 20ms for this.
techslave 7y ago
i found v1 to be unusable due to latency

gfaure 7y ago

Is it possible to keep documents entirely local and guarantee that ReMarkable doesn't have access to data? From what I recall, their Terms of Service leave this possibility open. This made ReMarkable a non-starter for many companies that have policies around where internal data may be stored.

ACS_Solver 7y ago
I commented elsewhere that it's a big miss by marketing, they neglect to mention that all connectivity features are optional. You can use it without ever creating an account or connecting to the Internet.
jmiserez 7y ago
Yes. The USB interface works well on the reMarkable 1, you just plug it in and go to http://10.11.99.1 http://10.11.99.1 in a browser. The cloud service is the default, but it is optional [1]: >Our cloud service is a service we provide to our customers. You are more than welcome to use your reMarkable offline and store your documents in local storage if you prefer. Aside: I have setup (via SSH) rclone to sync files to my own cloud storage, but that's not something that is officially supported. [1] https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002648297-Connecting-to-the-reMarkable-cloud https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000264829...

dredmorbius 7y ago

I'd just written Remarkable voicing my concerns with the gen 1 tablet. One concern, the ability to access material off the Web, has been addressed. Another has not: the Gen 2 tablet still has only 8 GB storage. On my current, much-despised, Android tablet, I have a 128GB microSD card with over 32 GB of documents, in a range of formats -- the overwhelming majority are PDF and ePub, but also djvu, docx, txt, htmk, chm, ppt, pptx, and other formats. With the paltry cost of storage, cripling the Remarkable with anything less than 128-256 GB staggers the mind. I'd also very much like to have an eccessible, full-featured Linux userland, even if only console mode, as this is invaluable to me (the file extension-based counts and storage utilisation come via Termux utilities on the Android tablet). A keyboard (external, Bluetooth), and terminal driver, would be sufficient for this.

rattray 7y ago
While I'd love full linux, personally I'd happily settle for just a bluetooth (or even usb) keyboard and a decent "write plain text" app. My handwriting is terrible, and while I'd love to unplug for reading/writing, I haven't found an acceptable solution for doing so beyond a Chromebook with wifi turned off and/or a "self control" web extension. EDIT: from elsewhere in this thread, I see https://github.com/dps/remarkable-keywriter https://github.com/dps/remarkable-keywriter which looks interesting. Curious to hear how it plays with the remarkable 2, esp around lag
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The Linux userland is there. A terminal would expose it. Utility afforded is immense. Termux on Android, crippled as it is, is the one thing on the platform that does not completely and abjectly suck.
  - jonahbenton 7y ago
    Hmm, one can enable an ssh service, as I recall, to get in. There is something there- what kind of userland is it?

e12e 7y ago

Anyone have any look developing and running software on this thing? https://remarkable.engineering/ https://remarkable.engineering/ Isn't easy to find from the official site (remarkable.com), and I've yet to find a simple "Hello, world"-example from ReMarkable... Ed: i see there already are some comments on this topic. I think I just might pre-order an rm2.

jxy 7y ago
This is really interesting. Does it run nethack? I wonder if anyone has gotten something like frotz running, so we can have some good old interactive fiction.
rnotaro 7y ago
https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
jonahbenton 7y ago
I have not tried software on the device itself, but I have written against the (community documented) APIs they use for sync'ing, etc. They work well. From the visible quality of the software engineering, I would have high confidence in deploying something on the device.

shock 7y ago

> Note and file syncing between reMarkable tablet and reMarkable apps for MacOS, Windows 7 and newer, iOS, and Android I would very much like to order it, but it doesn't support linux :( Please, please add linux support!

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
devnonymous 7y ago
Actually, it has a webapp which you can acess via your browser over the wireless or USB connection ip, which allows you a rudimentary upload/download : https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002661337-Transferring-files-using-a-USB-cable https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000266133... That said, there are whole lot of sync tools that users have created which work very well with Linux (for example, I personally use remarkablefs, which is a Fuse based filesystem to mount your remarkable) https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable/blob/master/README.md#device-tools https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable/blob/master...
jmiserez 7y ago
There used to be a Linux client, but not anymore it seems. If you can live without the convenience of cloud sync on the PC, USB transfer should also work on Linux. You'll need to physically connect the device to your PC though.

m-p-3 7y ago

I know it would probably go against what they're aiming for (distraction-free, no social media), but it would be an instant-buy for me if I could have an email client (IMAP, Exchange), calendar (CalDAV, Exchange), RSS feeds (along with popular services like Feedly, Inoreader or your own server) and why not a service like Instapaper/Pocket/Wallabag builtin. Being able to do work-related stuff other than taking notes would be easier to justify the premium price.

Brakenshire 7y ago
https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable There’s a script to upload files from Instapaper on, not sure how well it works.
Zenbit_UX 7y ago
Sounds like you want an iPad...

mskalski 7y ago

I guess that using safari online on remarkable is not possible or at least difficult with exporting chapter by chapter. Any recommendation for 10 inch e-ink which works with safari online?

kybernetikos 7y ago

Judging by the technical specifications on https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/ it seems not to have a microsd card or much in the way of onboard storage. I wonder if the device can recognize a storage device attached to the usb-c port. The writing experience, battery life and hackability are very appealing to me, but it also looks like it's not as good a reading device as high end readers, where really good lighting and water resistance are common. It's also slightly big for me. The size would be great for academic pdfs, or reference works but for normal books, or even for normal note taking (rather than sketching) it's a little on the large side. Maybe if it had less bezel, the size could be closer to best of both. I don't mind it having a high price point, but I hoped that it would compete with high-price point e-readers (kobo forma / kindle oasis) too.

beezle 7y ago
You won't find a high end reader (other than Sony?) that is in this size which is quite useful for those reading scientific papers, a bit blind, or who want to use it for sketch/art. It is only slightly larger than a typical hard cover.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  I think my point for comparison is a moleskine or a paperback. Certainly different use cases.

narenkeshav 7y ago

So can I use other cloud providers to sync? Say OneDrive, GDrive, Dropbox or Box? How can I import pdf files & export them to a cloud solution?

jasondclinton 7y ago

I'm very interested but am curious what the ebook consumption experience is like. Can any gen 1 owner comment?

jmiserez 7y ago
It's rather basic (i.e. not great), and only supports DRM-less epub and pdf.
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  Have you tried the non-stock software? There’s a port of Plato in one of the repos listed above.
  - jmiserez 7y ago
    No, sorry. But there's two Youtube videos of Plato in the original Reddit announcement: https://youtu.be/JHdsqD4xxik https://youtu.be/JHdsqD4xxik https://youtu.be/a2mqXTGGTDE https://youtu.be/a2mqXTGGTDE

rb808 7y ago

BTW I bought Kobo Forma with a 8in screen and its great for tech books which don't work in a regular sized kindle. Cheaper than Remarkable.

pricci 7y ago

This seems great and the price is much more achievable now. I personally can't read PDF books from a normal screen. I need paper. I own a Kindle DX but the screen is not big enough and the software is showing its age. The fact that you can even use a pencil I this device is a big plus.

jonahbenton 7y ago
I replaced my pool of failing Kindle DXes with the RM1. Wrote some tools to automate DeDRMing my Kindle books so I have them on the RM1 now. Very similar reading experience. The RM1 is faster than the DX, but the software is slightly less reader friendly (harder to get to table of contents, go to specific pages, etc). I didn't use zoom on the DX, don't know if RM1 has it or how usable it is. The ability to notate on PDFs on the RM1 is very valuable.

WalterBright 7y ago

This looks very cool, but at the price I'm still kinda stuck using my $0.73 spiral notebooks. I fill them up with my scribblings, then run them through the scanner and archive them. I use colored pens on them, too. It's very, very hard to beat this. Note to ereader makers: Please, PLEASE make the screen saver show the last page read! I'd throw away my Kindle and buy a new one just to get that. I'd pay extra for it. I will stop complaining about my ereader if you do this.

Groxx 7y ago
>Note to ereader makers: Please, PLEASE make the screen saver show the last page read! I'd throw away my Kindle and buy a new one just to get that. I'd pay extra for it. I will stop complaining about my ereader if you do this. Would this be... not having a screensaver? Or are you thinking of something more specific? Having typed it out, it's sorta odd that there's a screensaver at all, rather than just always acting like it's up and running. I'd probably love it if ereaders would just show a "booting..." indicator when necessary, and otherwise never have an "off" screen except when serving some critical need (e.g. low battery warning).
- WalterBright 7y ago
  You're quite right. Simply turn off after a timeout, and leave whatever is on the screen on the screen. It's like in a modern car when you stop for a stop light - the engine turns off. Step on the gas, and the engine turns back on.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  EInk displays only use power when they're changing what's on the screen, right? They work by giving a static charge to a bubble full of ink, and that charge should remain for a while, even if the screen loses power. So I don't see why screensavers are necessary.
  - Groxx 7y ago
    You may be able to argue burn-in issues (I'm not sure if any are permanent, but they can definitely last quite a few black/white cycles), but that's about it AFAICT...

knolax 7y ago

When looking at e-paper tablets in the past I found that the ReMarkable does not support using an external SD-card. If you google around you'll find many e-ink tablets using the same screen and stylus technology (as in they literally use the same parts from Wacom) that run slightly modified Android and do have an sd-card slot. If anyone else is interested in buying an e-ink tablet you should look into those.

techslave 7y ago

tested it for 1 minute at that “beta” store. must have been the old version of course. it’s terrible. the response time makes it very awful.

angry_octet 7y ago

What is the security of these things? I'd really like a good encrypted notebook, but tbh I would want iOS like security (hardware enclave, so I can use a short PIN and still have moderate security). Also, is it too much to expect colour?

npalmer76 7y ago
For doctors to be able to use this they need encrypted at rest. I think this would be an amazing device for them but without encrypted storage it is a non-starter. I reached out to the manufacturer to find out.

smilekzs 7y ago

Years ago I tried an early adopter's unit. While I was impressed by the "feel", ultimately the lack of color was the deal-breaker for me, as I love using colors in note-taking + PDF annotation. Ended up sticking to my Surface Pro 4 (2015) with the latest Surface Slim Pen. I pretty much only use my Surface the same way as I would use a hypothetical ReMarkable with even only RGBK colors, and considering the Surface is a $1k+ device fully loaded, such a "colored ReMarkable" would be a steal for me. Kinda disappointed it does not exist... Colors, please!

FriendlyNormie 7y ago

This article falsely claims the device cannot be used by left-handed people. There is a left-handed mode in the settings.

nocoder 7y ago

What is the main reason that make these devices so expensive? Is it low demand? complex technology? or something to do with patents?

azeirah 7y ago
Niche market, there are barely any competitors. I believe Sony has a competing device for business, costs around 1k$ Onyx also has one, it's a bit cheaper than the remarkable. All of these devices have major flaws and upsides.

qbaqbaqba 7y ago

I wonder how well the older model will be supported. Interesting device but uses closed software and formats.

crimsonalucard 7y ago

How does this compare with the ipad and the apple pencil? Is it worth it to get even when you already own an ipad and an apple pencil?

nudpiedo 7y ago

I am the kind of person who takes notes and write on paper daily, for pleasure, and I have no problem managing or carrying paper notebooks. Does anyone know were could I personally try reMarkable 2 in Germany or Europe? Does anyone know on whether it is possible to read kindle purchased books or converted ebooks? What about custom software?

nudpiedo 7y ago
Now that I read almost everything online: - You can't read Kindle books directly on the reMarkable (DRM not supported) - It has support for ePub and PDF - It runs a Linux accessible by SSH and hacker friendly (check awesome remarkable on github)

eequah9L 7y ago

What I don't understand is why the display is not vertically symmetrical. Then the software could eventually be made to allow 180 degree rotation of the interface. This way the device could be used by both left-handed and right-handed people equally.

thrower123 7y ago

I bought one of these for my fiance for Christmas, and she loves it. She uses it to take notes during meetings, and then convert them to text and import into OneNote. It seems to work fantastically for that. I was a little leery, after my experience buying a similar e-ink tablet years ago through indiegogo, which took forever to get delivered, shipped with a painfully obsolete version of Android, and bricked itself in short order, but this seems like a very solid product.

archon810 7y ago

Is there a way to get Google Play Books on this thing? Kindle?

npalmer76 7y ago

Does anybody know if the devices storage is encrypted at rest?

Awtem 7y ago

I'd love to give this another go, however, my experience with the first remarkable are reMarkably poor, and the new revision supposedly has the same display hardware - the display is not very sharp, has poor contrast, and no active illumination - also, despite there being no display illumination, reading in the sun was not possible, as it immediately resulted in the display bulging notably from the absorbed sun/heat. - seriously buggy software Let me know, if you have information that the new revision has improved on those aspects.

goatherders 7y ago

The price point is now low enough that I'm down to preorder. I could use pen and paper (as I do) forever and probably not spend $400 but the price is low enough for a gadget that would be fun and novel for now.

daswolle 7y ago

Do they have any ergonomics for left handed people? All the photos show users holding the device with their right hand.

guruz 7y ago
It's in the FAQ section here: https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 Answer: Yes!

elric 7y ago

Is there a way to set up a self hosted sync server yet?

SZJX 7y ago

Would love to see a bigger (13.3-inch) version. Many PDF books are Letter or A4 size by default and I don't like having to read them with (smaller) scaled fonts. Otherwise I would go for it as its software seems to be more complete than that of Sony's Digital Paper, which I've been using for a couple of years already.