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I have a Remarkable 2 that I used to use religiously, now use sporadically, but cannot recommend because of the user-hostile changes to the subscription and the very restrictive underlying software.

One of the promises that lead me to buy one was the hackability - "It's Linux!" "You can SSH into it!", which, on paper (heh) is still true, but in practice very much isn't.

I think something like a Boox, which runs Android, might be more open to customization, but for now I am back to pencil and paper. That doesn't run Linux, but it also won't change its terms of service anytime soon.

RM2 was a game changer for me: I could take notes both physically and on a computer and have them seamlessly in one place. Until after a firmware update the device became slow to respond and writing quality declined as the pen did not write continuously or wrote without the tip touching. I’m still, reluctantly, using it, but the thing is only valuable, if it’s as immediate and reliable as paper. Yet another company, that can’t leave their product the hell alone. I did not need that firmware update. My device was perfect, thank you very much

I am happy to be proven wrong but I’m shocked they believe there is a market for this size at all, let alone at $450! The sample text on the stock images looks useless.

I wanted to love my RM2 so much. The write path is great. Writing notes on it during a meeting is a genuinely good experience. The read path: not so much. EInk UXs are so clunky especially when you’re used to how fluid phones are. Forget scrolling through your notes - It’s maddening.

Pretty good ereader though.

My wife got the RM1 then the RM2, as she is very organized and takes lots of notes. She absolutely loved it except for one thing -- the swipe motion to flip forward and backwards was terrible for her. She would try 10 times to get it to finally recognize what she was asking for. So if she wanted to flip forward a few pages to find something, it could take 30-50 swipes. It is sitting in a drawer now.

If anyone else had this experienced and figured out how to make it work, let me know.

Its unfortunate that the supply chain for eink/epaper displays all seem to be centering on typical mobile device aspect ratios (like 16:9 for this device) particularly because remarkables are marketed as productivity oriented replacements for notebooks.

I would much rather have a A6 or A5 sized display or any other standard size for paper notebooks.

I was deeply enthusiastic about epaper devices for awhile and I tried all kinds of things. Eventually, I decided paper is better. I used to like the idea of my notes being capture automatically but you can just take pictures of them if you use a notebook.

I'm considering a new reMarkable, but the lack of an official sdk for the cloud API is a major concern.

The community has built amazing tools for remarkable device, but their work is constantly being broken by software updates. This isn't a sustainable situation. For a company that charges for a cloud service, providing a stable, official API should be a priority. It would not only support the community's innovation but also provide a reliable foundation that developers and users can trust for the long term.

As long as a stable, official API isn't provided, I won't be buying a new device from them.

I am using the original RM1 nearly daily for the last 8 years or so as my primary note taking device. I bought it used because it was ridiculously expensive new. I was grandfathered in when they introduced the subscription. I really love the device, but I would never buy it with connectivity locked behind a subscription.

I really love that there seems to be a general renewed interest in e-paper devices. I personally have made the Daylight Computer my primary mobile computing device (even over a smartphone, which I really only use if I need GPS, which I only really need if I'm driving, and I sold my car :-D) and it has been lovely.

I use my DC-1 all the time, but I have so much more impulse control over my usage. The lack of color and the lack of notifications means it is very much not overstimulating, and I only use it if I make a conscious decision to.

Quick edit: it might be worth mentioning that I wrote this on my DC-1.

I've had the rm2 for a few years now. I recently installed toltec and koreader and I can now sync it with zotero with the zotero plugin. Reading 2 column pdfs in koreader is a much better experience and I also like the dictionary search when holding down a word. I just use the regular RM software as a disposable notepad now. I had to downgrade the RM software to get toltec, but I don't feel like I'm missing much from the latest update.

I’m not sold on e-ink devices being a creation device. The refresh rate is too slow and the resolution is too low.

I realized there was already a device that was perfect for note taking on an infinite canvas.

I use an iPad and Apple Pencil (bought refurb on backmarket.com) with paper like surface [1] I install nothing in it except Apple Freeform. (No distractions)

High refresh rate, Retina display, excellent pen pressure, and fast chip. Cheaper than RM2 if bought refurb.

[1] https://a.co/d/dHLwPp1

My biggest reservation about remarkable is the subscription service. How is the experience if you don’t pay for the Connect service?

I loved my RM1, by far the best e-ink reader/note taker I have had.

I had to switch to a Boox though, as I grew bored of having to maintain a Windows VM with a downgraded Calibre to convert my Amazon purchases to ebooks for reading on the Remarkable. I now have my Boox with the Amazon Kindle app and can natively read my books, and the writing feeling is almost as good as on the Remarkable.

I use a Kindle Scribe for reading eBooks and occasional note taking.

Personally, I like the bigger form factor better, both for reading and writing, could even be a bit bigger for reading PDFs.

After a short period of writing on ePaper, I'm now back to real paper. It's just a much better writing experience, lighter in the pocket, cheaper, more flexible (rearrange, give away, lay out on a table), more practical (write while you read, use big sheets when you need it), etc., etc.

A folded sheet and a small pen is all it takes. ePaper for writing might have a use case in professional workflows, but for personal use, it's a nice idea in theory, but not in practice, in my opinion.

Funny I almost wish I bought an RM2 (again)

I got a PineNote and it had a $100 import duty

This device for me is odd/too small it's like you'd have 2 phones. Though I've seen those e-ink phones.

The writing feel is great on the RM2 and the battery life wow. Charge it once a month deal.

They’ve poured effort into replicating the feel of a notebook: restricted toolset, textured screen, stylus handwriting, etc., but I'm at a loss why this is worth hundreds of dollars plus a subscription instead of just using paper notebooks.

- Paper-like feel? Actual paper still wins.

- Undo, folders, search, tags? Flipping through a notebook and adding sticky notes gets you there faster.

- Templates? A $10 pad of graph or dotted paper gives infinite variety.

Handwriting-to-text and cloud sync is perhaps the strongest case, but even there it's probably faster to draft on paper and digitize with keyboard or speech.

I've loved my Boox Nova C color for a few years... but the ability to run Android apps including paint and drawing apps is the real showstopper. I'd love to try this tech for the paper feel but I really like the Boox interface, including their homegrown reader and notes apps. I've been really pleasantly surprised at how their software just keeps getting better and addressing minor UI issues with each (optional) update, without ever getting bloated or annoying. If anything, they've just gotten better at making their own UI more transparent and seamless. Totally apart from the great experience I've had with their hardware, I think their software is just extremely well thought out compared to almost anything else out there.

I've been a reMarkable customer for quite a while now. I started with the reMarkable 2, then upgraded to the reMarkable Paper Pro. While I was using it consistently, it was a great device that allowed me to keep track of my notes in way I'd never been able to before.

They have some great features. Chief among them IMO is the ability to stream the tablet's screen to a desktop app, which you can then in turn share into a Zoom call and the like.

The issue for me is that as I began to spend more and more time in VR/AR - first with the Meta Quest 2/3 and Pimax Crystal, and then with the Apple Vision Pro - I simply stopped taking written notes while working. Now I mostly use it as a very fancy (and expensive!) eReader.

Couple that with the fact that most of what I was writing down as notes is now context that I shove in prompts and/or agent context files... I simply don't use it enough to justify keeping it.

They've fallen behind IMO with the rise of AI. This device would be amazing if they would automatically transcribe documents on the backend, feed them into a RAG, and allow access via a chatbot. They don't, though, and their API is undocumented and difficult to use. That kills it for me.

I should probably list it on eBay or Facebook Marketplace at this point, and put those funds toward something that gets more use.

I had am RM2 for years before upgrading to the Paper Pro. I love the Paper Pro. It provides me with an environment of deep thinking. It feels too big to carry all day long and I always felt even with the Type Folio I didn't want to damage the screen. I just ordered a Paper Pro Move to carry with me.

The one feature I miss is the ability to split the screen and have two items open at the same time. Like a PDF journal in one and taking notes on it in the other.

If people are looking for an alternative I have a ~3-4 year old Supernote a5 that's still going strong and still get updates once in a while. No subscription, cloud sync is included, mounts via usb if you want to, no faffery.

I took the plunge, I loved my RM2 but about a year ago I fell down stairs and landed on it.

I’ve ordered refurbed Paper Pro and Move.

Things that excited me about the device:

- with significant AI use I feel I need this more than ever. Drafting, thinking, note taking, annotating etc. - it looks wonderful for todos, shopping lists etc. - width designed to work with Paper Pro (and the landscape mode experience seems solid from reviews), so I will try the dual device setup - I didn’t always have RM2 with me, and I’m hoping this will now change to genuinely always. - I learned to love the constraints and for example I’ve discovered a love of Brandon Sanderson, Liu Cixin, Cory Doctorow, and countless other authors precisely because I went all in on DRM free ebooks, I want to expand that to graphic novels also hence the paper pro. - I do get random inspiration and obsidian has been my powerhouse for oh the go notes but I’m hoping scrybble.ink will now let me bring remarkable documents into obsidian. - very un-invasive to take notes in conversations etc.

Sure it’s a complete indulgence, but it helps me to enjoy note taking, being my library with me etc. and I find constraints foster my creativity and exploration and I lean into them.

Initially, I was very ready to buy this. A small notepad that I can carry easily in meetings? Sounds great!

But then I did exactly what they're probably scared of and thought about that impulse some more.

Most people bring either full-on laptops or huge padded notebooks with them into meetings. Me bringing my full-sized reMarkable was never an issue, and writing on it has been glorious. Bringing a smaller device wouldn't net the benefit I initially thought it would.

What I would LOVE to do with a Paper Pro is replace my BOOX Page 7 with it. I use my Page to read books and stuff on Reddit and posts on Hacker News. It works perfectly for this. However, Onyx has a very shady history with Android. They refuse to contribute to Android upstream, their ABIs are closed-source and, IIRC, their devices are stuck on older Android versions due to GMS certification issues. I trust reMarkable much more than I trust Onyx.

Nonetheless, they are dead-set on making their devices purely for note taking, so I have no reason to buy this, as cool as it looks.

I'm using my RM2 as an e-Reader, after installing Toltec and KoReader. And it turned out to be the best e-Reader I've ever used, the sharpness of the text and the form-factor are perfect for long books.

But their note-taking software is just crap. They have very weak language support, no Chinese, no Russian, or any other languages with non-Latin scripts. They don't even have software keyboards for them!

My wife's RM can't sync right now due to some time bug. RM's answer was to buy a new one and start paying the cloud subscription.

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I was tempted by a remarkable, my colleagues love theirs (as does my dad).

However my need is personal rather than professional usage, so I didn't get one in the end.

What I have found that is (to me) better is an ipad mini "pencil", with goodnotes. The pen is ok, not as good as a wacom, but it'll do.

Goodnotes does have a subscription, but it also works on mac as well, so it allows me to get access to it when my ipad is else where. It exports to PDF well.

I only really use it to make notes/designs. The handwriting transcription isn't going to work well for my handwriting, but it does a reasonable job, given how hard my scrawls are to read. For that it works well, is about the same price as a remarkable, and does other things apart from note taking.

But, that is also its downside. You can do other things, which means distractions. Obviously you can make your notes richer by copy/pasta from the internets, but also you can be distracted by the internets too.

This device has planned obsolescence written all over it. The pen includes a built-in rechargeable battery. The device's battery is also not user replaceable. These are the same issues that the Remarkable Paper Pro has.

They use the Linux kernel and some GPL software. They've made a change with Remarkable Paper Pro to only allow SSH access once the user has put the device in "developer mode". The device is marked as compromised until it is restored to factory or something else is done to it. It's not clear to me how the device is restored to factory or restored at all.

They provide tarball dumps via https://github.com/reMarkable/linux-imx-rm instead of a proper git repository for the kernel. Why is it so hard to find people able to push a git repository to Github? These dumps are also rather useless if they still lack the source code for the frame buffer and the display. https://github.com/reMarkable/linux is the Linux kernel for the older remarkable 2 and the remarkable 1. The kernel code from the Github repository for my remarkable 2 wasn't the one they shipped in the latest version running on my device a few months ago. There was a newer minor patch version running on my device.

The devices are very tied to the cloud account and their application. You must have an account and you must use their application if you want to use this device fully, even offline. The network over USB feature makes it possible to back up/download/restore documents. EPUB document handling is abysmal without their application installed on the PC. They really want their customers to use their software, to have an account and to use their cloud services. It's a non-starter if you really don't want to be locked in. EPUB documents still have issues on my Remarkable 2 due to the bugs their USB based document transfer tool has. Many documents simply fail to transfer without any feedback. They probably only update the account-based software they force people to use to get as much money from subscriptions as possible.

Hardware repairs for these devices are also not looking good. You're most like out of luck if the warranty has expired for your device. They couldn't care less. They’ll gladly sell you yet another device which has to be recycled when the battery isn’t able to hold a charge for more than a few minutes.

I wouldn't recommend any product from this company. This company's good old days are over. They've taken money from investors. They want to charge their customers as much as possible. The en*****ification is almost complete.

Actual paper is pretty good, very cheap, has very good haptic feedback and readability, needs no subscription, doesn't restric you to certain pen manufacturers, you can still read the contents when the paper-mill ceases to exiet and has a very well proven track record when it comes to archival, accessability etc.

So if devices like these try to beat paper, even if the hardware is perfect, it comes down to software and how open it is. As a serious note-taker one would think this was the perfect device for me, but I checked out the software side of things and it did not convince me. Paper is still superior.

I’ve been considering purchasing a ReMarkable device primarily for note taking. Has anyone tried both the Kindle Scribe and ReMarkable devices? It’s difficult for me to determine which one to go with and they’re quite expensive.

These things not being android based is always a deal breaker for me because I have so many sources of DRMed audiobooks or ebooks that would just be a hassle on a lot of these e-ink devices, which is something I really want out of these note tablets.

I got a boox air note 4c with the original intention of using it for comic books with some basic coloring, but have found it significantly more useful for notetaking over anything else. UX is still abysmal in some ways that make starting notes a chore, but it's increased my note taking and journaling significantly.

More tangential, but is anyone using screenless (or any) graphical tablets for taking notes/work? I try to have digital notes for things I know I will rewrite, extend or might want to search, and paper more for drafts and ephemeral todos. Thought that it could be nice to have modifiable and potentially searchable written notes. When on the go, I'm not likely to write anything important, so paper + phone for accessing other notes is fine. And when stationary, having a graphical tablet seems like a good deal.

I feel like the real opportunity for e-ink displays is white boards. I would love a 4 ft x 3 ft e-ink display that I could mount on the wall with calendar and note widgets and that I could also draw on like a white board.

Plus, remote teams would really benefit from a shared whiteboard device. A device with infinite scroll in both directions and shared editing. I mean, really adding infinite scroll and collaborative editing to existing remarkable devices would cover that use case.

What I don't understand is why I should pick a 480€ piece of paper over an actual piece of paper. For that price I could get a decent tablet or just type things into a note taking app.

My dream product for this kind of thing is a pen that is able to remember what to write on any paper. Like if you click it open it's a new "note" and it syncs to your computer/phone.

Nearly the same price as a new iPad mini (costs $50 less). Maybe it takes notes better (though I took notes with my mini just fine), but struggling to see the value at this price point.

Can't see myself paying more than $200 for this device.

This might be a simple take but - smaller and more expensive?

I have a RMPP and like it for reading and briefly annotating papers, journaling, drafting fiction. But I am so disappointed that they do not have split screen functionality. One of the core use cases for the device is reading a document and taking notes on it. Not being able to have a PDF open on one side of the screen and a notebook on the other is a huge miss.

What I use is boox note air, in fact I am writing this on it while browsing hn on it right now. I have edge and OneNote installed on it so all my notes and tabs are synced to my other devices (iPhone, MacBook, Windows PC). It really is amazing for hand writing and reading ebooks, PDF, websites. My setup is super usable, but: it is a Chinese device running American proprietary software...

Four hundred and fifty dollars for a simulation of a roughly-A5 notebook.

If you want a really nice A5 notebook it can run you an entire twenty five bucks. https://www.dickblick.com/products/leuchtturm1917-sketchbook... Wanna share what's on it? Your phone has a camera, right?

Pen-based handhelds designed around writing seem to gravitate to larger form factors than phones.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the similarity in size to the Apple Newton MessagePad from the 90s:

Original MessagePad: 184 x 114 mm (7.25 x 4.5 in)

reMarkable Paper Pro Move: 195.6 x 107.8 mm (7.7 x 4.24 in)

No comparison in thickness though, with the Newton being about 3x the thickness of the reMarkable (19 mm vs 6.5 mm).

Is there any alternative with ~A5 size?

I take a lot of notes, schematics, etc in paper notes a5 and I was thinking about moving to digital world, but definietely not for the price of any remarkable device…

Got kindle for reading - and I just love it, got back at reading everyday, and that was problematic with standard, paper books.

Kindle Comic Converter recently added fullscreen manga support for all ReMarkable models using a new PDF output option, the previous EPUB output option added large margins.

This feature is only available in the beta version built from current master, not in the current 9.0.0 release.

Looks like a great product. Always wanted one -- if they would cost a third of what they do. At this price point absolutely not! In general, these kind of products are too expensive, regardless of what make and model.

Does anybody know if they're working on improved epub support? Would make it a much more compelling buy if it wouldn't just convert epubs to pdfs. If this could be a replacement for my kindle + notepad, that would make it a great device.

For those on the market for something the size of a standard sheet of paper whats recommended? Side loading PDFs and the size I mentioned are the main requirements. I'd prefer not to jail-brake but I have and I can.

Can anyone weigh in on the Gallery versus Kaleido screen tradeoffs? I understand Gallery has better color but slower refresh but don't know how big a deal this is for various use cases.

I used to be a huge fan of these guys, going as far as buying their extremely expensive $800 device as gifts for a few friends, but now I advise anybody and everybody against ever giving them money

Two separate reasons.

One: they design hardware very poorly, and when advised and shown, do not fix it. I am convinced this is on purpose, and this saddens me. I can share my email exchange where i advised them on this. Did not go anywhere. This has been the cause of a lot of broken USB C ports on remarkable2. I have documented this extensively with photos on multiple devices. No sane person places a USB-C port that will interact with the a real user in the real world, handling insertion/removal forces on the very very edge (less than 1mm from edge) of a very very thin (0.4m thick IIRC) PCB, without affixing it to something else as well -- to take the load. They did. Predictably, it breaks.

Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/eu4P8fnaNtV9vhMo7 . The video in there, via microscope, you can see how the contacts peeled off. Larger photos show the PCB and how the connector is "affixed". Final photo is after it was fixed, but before the epoxy was added by me

Two: they took features that were part of the original very expensive product, bought under the understanding that "I pay you much $$, you do not nickel and dime me ever again", and locked them behind paywalls of monthly service years after original purchase. They did sort-of grandfather-in all existing users, but not if you reset the device or gift/transfer it. Devaluing/crippling products post facto is something that should never be rewarded. Companies that do that should fail.

Please help reMerkable fail for the above anti-user behaviour. They deserve it.

> PDF, PNG, SVG (exporting)

Are there no tablets that support proper digital formats that would support the basics of paragraph selection and text reflow? (assuming you convert all your handwriting into digital text)

Sorry, but A$799 for this one makes no sense when the ReMarkable 2 is A$699.

I find the name is a bit unrelated! Move as in move your data?

Cool but wish it was either a phone case (draw in e-ink on back of phone) or had good sync to my macbook (my letter paper size remarkable table is absolute garbage at sync - very painful process). This isn't convenient enough to warrant existing imo.

Ironically the $2 aliexpress lcd pad I bought gets more use than my remarkable these days (same as https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBPV4491 )

Huh. The smaller one is cheaper. Look at that.

It looks like they hired somebody from Redmond to name their products.

May I use to read books (epubs?). I am not carrying another device, but it could replace my Kindle.

Can't wait for the Paper Nano! /s

I really just want to turn my Remarkable 2 as an extended monitor with note taking... I'm on an article, send it there in one click or so and done.

I haven't used it in a while so that might be something that exists now and I'd be oblivious to it...

these clowns continue to produce fantastic technology that cant be properly managed in the enterprise space.

We have C levels's clambering for these things but we cant secure them and manage them. FIX IT! we'll buy them and use them but you guys need to grow up and mature your product first!

Hmm, I kind of want a Boox Palma with a stylus, and this is almost that, but not quite...

So it's like reMarkable 2 but:

* Phone-sized instead of tablet-sized

* Has color

* Has reading light

* Sensors detect when a folio is open or closed

Everything else is the same. Am I missing anything?

What operating system does this run?

Wonderful idea

Inexplicable price point

$700+, that's a little steep folks for replacing paper :)

Really can't see how it can sell well priced this high.

€479 euros... is a lot of money to stomach when I can get an iPad+Pencil for about the same price (does much more and is much faster).

Loved my remarkable pro, but it was too expensive.

I bought an RM1 and was ultimately highly disappointed in the software, and, for all its supposed openness, the lack of any open software development.

They sold me a tablet they touted as having hundreds of pressure levels and most of the simulated writing implements only recognize about 4.

My biggest complaint is that I hoped to be able to use it to make sketches and diagrams I could use on websites or art projects, or do live drawings like it was a digital version of an overhead projector. It works like garbage for both use cases because the software ecosystem has no support at all for anything but the ultra-low-quality stroking algorithms that are used on-device. Put those pen strokes that looked so beautiful on e-ink up on a 4k monitor and they just look like the cheapest of cheap garbage because there's no pressure interpolation at all...!!!

I understand that they deliberately make focused devices with no desire to have a million distracting features. That’s nice. I appreciate it.

But for the life of me, this thing screams to have a calendar app. My life involves plenty of meetings now. If I could take this to one meeting and look at it to see what my next meeting will be, I think I’d never want anything else.

Not anything fancy. Not even a way to add or edit appointments. Just show me a list of where I’m supposed to to be today.

(And to anyone who’s about to point out that I could lot that info down at my desk before I get up to walk to the meeting room, lemme stop you right there. That’s not happening.)

Ignoring my browser's language setting, defaulting to my IP's origin and then the language switcher widget is at the bottom of the page, and it doesn't work.

Remarkable needs to give the user the option to turn off the "infinite paper". That was the stupidist change ever made. I only ever activate it on accident.

Paper has edges. Remarkable is marketed as digital paper. Give me some fricken edge FFS.

Was so excited about Remarkable, and got disappointed with basically everything I was excited about. Not for me. I do look like the look and feel of the thing though, shame i know it won't fit what I need.

https://lengrand.fr/impressions-on-the-remarkable-2-one-mont...