The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

The cool thing about it is you can SSH into it/do whatever you want from what I've read. There are some cool repos out there (check the sub). Eventually... I would like to mess around with it. It is a cool device though, the drawing feeling because the screen is textured and it "feels good" writing on it. It's thin and lasts a long time. Has it changed my life or anything, no not really it mostly sits with my SG2 that I will use at some point.

As an aside, I also use this drawing (Krita) graphics tablet Kamvas Pro 12 GT-116 as an external monitor, just for anyone looking for a "drawing workflow extension" of some sort. I have used Sketch on the SG2 that's pretty nice too.

I bought a remarkable because I was thinking of buying a whiteboard. I hoped that the remarkable could be a replacement for that, but I was very wrong.

On the surface, remarkable seems pretty great and even feels pretty great. But for all it could be doing, it's almost not doing anything. The note-taking and drawing tools are extremely barebones. There are no line or shape drawing tools of any kind. There's no real way of using it as an infinite canvas kind of thing, because the canvas isn't infinite, and you can't scroll like that. You have to zoom in and out or resize your drawings and move them around.

The hardware is extremely hackable, which is the coolest part, but also makes it even more weird that the remarkable's software is so lackluster, because there are actually tools out there already you can use to make up for some of these.

I ended up not using mine very much because it's just not a very good experience for anything past simple note-taking, and then eventually sold it and bought a whiteboard instead. No regrets.

That reminded me, they had two different return sites. First one they sent me to didn't even recognize my order, and because it takes them at least 24 hours to respond to an email (sometimes 2+ days) that was 24 hours of me continuing to twiddle my thumbs while they sent the second return site to me, both of which they included incorrect instructions for.

But yes, part of the hassle was the return to Hong Kong I suspect. That said though, it shouldn't be on me to foot the bill for a product until their shipping company can deliver it to them. If I chose the shipping company, then sure, I guess I can see that. But it was their label, their return site, their rules, and I'm just stuck footing the bill until the product gets returned. What would they have done if it never actually arrived? Would I still be footing the bill? I had to file the dispute because the time period was running out on being able to do so AND I was then outside their 30 day return period because of the lengthy delay in their shipping provider moving the product. I sent it back less than a week after I got it, but it took another month for the stupid thing to end up in their hands.

Anyway, yea. It was entirely self inflicted by Remarkable. My assumption is they've been burned by people returning incorrect products or something, but if they handle it this way they're just upsetting legitimate returns.

I wasn't entirely dissatisfied with the product, it just wasn't in a state I could use it right now. Had the return gone better I may have purchased a newer version down the road. Now however, I will avoid them at all costs, and I am being vocal about it ... all they had to do was treat the customer appropriately and this all could've been very different for them. It just goes to show how important good customer support is.

I can agree. I had a WiFi issue with mine and the customer support had me reconfigure my router a few different ways to alleviate the issue until an update released. Then they stopped responding after the issue wasn’t fixed. From other anecdotes, I’ve determined that their policy is to string the customer along until an update is released or they’ve run out of options to diagnose the problem, then you’re trash. Even opening new tickets returned no response.

I advise people review other eink tablet options before considering Remarkable.

Addendum:

At some point, months later the issue was resolved via a software update. This issue was originally discovered a few days after unboxing and using the device. I did not expect the return process to be non-existent or refusal.

Some people say that it has a higher latency but that the coming update (in beta now[0]) is very very close to the reMarkable to the point of being hard to see a difference.

For me personally, on the stable kernel and as a first time user of such e-Ink writing device, I am very satisfied. I also mostly use the Lamy EMR pen because of the button to activate the eraser.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Supernote_beta/