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The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

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211–220 of 530 posts

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have even rediscovered the visceral pleasantness of writing by hand. A bit unrelated, but I’ve often wondered if I’m in the minority that hates writing by hand. Compared to typing, I’m much slower, and it looks terrible — I print in caps just so that it’s remotely legible. I avoid handwriting at all costs, and loath the few times it’s required.

I took the LSAT on a lark about 20 years ago, and at the time they required an essay written in cursive. Took me a couple of hours just to reconstruct my distant memories of how to write cursive, and I hated every minute of the essay itself.

Yes, this exact single moment in my life is often recalled any time the subject of handwriting in cursive comes up.

That essay was a complete mess. I was even thinking of that as I wrote my above post. Hilarious that someone else mentioned it.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#212
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it phones home to China count me out. I’ll go for the reMarkable tyvm I can just see me working on a brilliant invention (one can dream , right?) and putting my notes into the note boox, only to realize it gets patented before me by a Chinese company.

> If it phones home to China count me out. About 1 billion Chinese customers think the same like you, except they refuse products that phone home to USA.

As they are free to do.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#213
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it phones home to China count me out. I’ll go for the reMarkable tyvm I can just see me working on a brilliant invention (one can dream , right?) and putting my notes into the note boox, only to realize it gets patented before me by a Chinese company.

> If it phones home to China count me out. About 1 billion Chinese customers think the same like you, except they refuse products that phone home to USA.

Makes sense? After all, you're crossing legal jurisdictions.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remarkable is really a device for people who explicitly don't want those features. They're betting hard that the market exists, although it probably isn't as large as the market for an as-powerful-as-possible general-purpose computing device. I've seen it mentioned that someone got an USB keyboard working, and the device is pretty hackable overall (you can SSH to root over wifi out of the box!), but I think if you wa…

> you can SSH to root over wifi out of the box! Yeah. Let me rush to put that on my main network.

You have to explicitly turn on SSH access, and each device has its own unique SSH password which is only accessible from the device itself. It's not a set of generic admin/admin creds.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#215
post #14

I bought the Onyx Boox Note Air some months ago, and I must say that I'm really happy with it. Screen refresh is good, there's almost no ghosting in default mode, and refresh rates are acceptable. There are only two downsides about it: The vendor does not respect FOSS and does not publish the sources for their modified Linux kernel, and the device constantly phones home to China. However, the device can be rooted eas…

If it phones home to China count me out. I’ll go for the reMarkable tyvm I can just see me working on a brilliant invention (one can dream , right?) and putting my notes into the note boox, only to realize it gets patented before me by a Chinese company.

I know that this is obvious, but worth noting.

This anxiety is not just China as a destination, but it just as relevant if it phones home to any company in any _country_.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#216

I bought a Remarkable 2 a month or two ago because I wanted a cool hackable e-ink Linux computer. But instead I immediately started using it as an e-book and document reader and note-taking pad, and nothing else. And, so far at least, that's perfect. The screen is beautiful (a bit gray, but the black is really black so the contrast is still good), the device is thin and reasonably light, I only have to charge it once…

> I have even rediscovered the visceral pleasantness of writing by hand. A bit unrelated, but I’ve often wondered if I’m in the minority that hates writing by hand. Compared to typing, I’m much slower, and it looks terrible — I print in caps just so that it’s remotely legible. I avoid handwriting at all costs, and loath the few times it’s required.

I hate my handwriting, but the physical act of longhand absolutely helps me with retention, so I have a reMarkable. It's a pretty great device.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have even rediscovered the visceral pleasantness of writing by hand. A bit unrelated, but I’ve often wondered if I’m in the minority that hates writing by hand. Compared to typing, I’m much slower, and it looks terrible — I print in caps just so that it’s remotely legible. I avoid handwriting at all costs, and loath the few times it’s required.

I long hated writing, and like you only wrote in block capitals, until I decided to re-learn to write cursive. Mostly I wanted to be able to write sweet paper notes to my lovers that didn't look like a 5th grader wrote them. I've found that when the process is approached as art, maybe even meditation, it's far more pleasurable than an act simply meant to record words on paper.

Can you share any resources you used to learn and improve your writing? My love letters can always be better.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#218

I want one but I don’t know what I’d use it for. Weird problem to have I guess.

I'm in the same boat. If I could get Kindle e-books for free alongside the physical purchase of a book on Amazon, and these devices could import them I'd be all ears for a new toy to play with. Alas, two things which will never happen. :(

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#219
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I don't know. I have the Onyx Poke 3 and I find the software pretty janky. For instance, in order to install a dictionary, I have to jump through a whole series of hoops to download one to a PC and then upload/install it on the tablet. I could install the Kindle app (after I enable the Google Play Store), but then I might as well buy a Kindle. In order to upload epub or pdf documents to the Poke3, I have to inte…

I use Syncthing [1] to do all the syncing, works like a charm. I have a folder synchronized between my reader, my PC and my phone, and whenever I need to send a document to the reader or from the reader to my PC, I just put it into that folder. [1] https://syncthing.net/

Syncthing is maybe my favorite software discovery this year. It does exactly what I want it to no fuss. I'll shill for Syncthing all day.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#220

I bought a Remarkable 2 a month or two ago because I wanted a cool hackable e-ink Linux computer. But instead I immediately started using it as an e-book and document reader and note-taking pad, and nothing else. And, so far at least, that's perfect. The screen is beautiful (a bit gray, but the black is really black so the contrast is still good), the device is thin and reasonably light, I only have to charge it once…

I have been looking at the Remarkable 2 and other devices in the category. My use case is taking notes on CS and maths, which both often require diagrams and other drawings. Can you speak to how well it works for something like this and how it compares to note-taking with a pen and paper?
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