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The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

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Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#211

Post by nicbou »

I was seriously considering one but ended up buying the latest iPad Mini. It was the right decision. It was the Moleskine replacement I was looking for. The software is simply excellent. I use Notability and Procreate. The software on the remarkable doesn't compare.

There are a few features that I didn't know I needed: using a photo as a reference, using the camera to pick colors, browsing notes like they're pages in a notebook, annotating websites, sending drawings with telegram, etc.

I never leave the house without my iPad. I never use it for browsing or watching videos. It doesn't show any notifications. It's strictly a notebook replacement, and It's brilliant.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#212

Post by rglullis »

newaccount74 wrote: post #193
rpastuszak wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> edit: lots of people mentioning that you have SSH on the Remarkable. Good thing, but fiddling with shell scripts (yeah, no big deal for others, new for me) to sync with a cloud service of your choice... not sure I want that. I mean, yeah, as much as it sounds fun, I pay for things like this to have more time/ease doing other stuff (drawing, taking notes, etc), so this seems to defeat the point. iPad Pro + paperwhit…

Setting up Syncthing takes maybe 15min, so if that's compatible it would be sweet.

Yes, syncthing works fine.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#214

Post by salamandersauce »

amcoastal wrote: post #134
extreme_orang wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ps. I also own a Boox Note Air, and the remarkable quite simply blows it away. When I bought the Boox I loved it, but after getting the Remarkable there really is no competition. I do like the Boox for its novelty value, running weird things on an e-ink display, but I don't use it for notes or reading anymore.

Can you elaborate why? I'm stuck between the two as a purchasing decision. I value the android apps but if the writing and reading experience is way low I may skip out on boox

If reading anything other than PDFs is important the Boox is a better choice. Remarkable lags super far behind in ePub support, AFAIK it converts an ePub to PDF and then displays that. A large book will take a very long time to adjust the font size or other formatting because of that. General rendering support seems poor and it doesn't support any DRM scheme or library system so you're stuck stripping DRM off books and monkeying around with their app to get it onto the device. Boox of course can just run the Kindle or Libby Android apps.

Main thing people like about the Remarkable is writing feel which mainly comes down to the surface and the pen nib. You can literally use the RM pen and nibs on the Boox Air and a matte screen protector. MyDeepGuide on YouTube has recommendations on how to get a better feel on the Boox Note Air.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#215

Post by sireat »

I have a feeling that reMarkable hired some remarkable hardware wizards with GPL in their blood and then let some beancounters ruin the frontend.

reMarkable is great looking hardware with subpar software.

I should not need to SSH into a device to install Koreader to get an acceptable ereading esperience.

I rarely use my reMarkable 2 much preferring an old Kobo HD for bedtime reading and the original 13 inch Sony dpt-rp1 for larger A4 texts.

As the article says: "If you are familiar with dedicated ebook readers, you will miss a dictionary, bookmarks and annotations. You can highlight parts of the text, but there is no index of annotations anywhere. This makes it unsuitable for some types of editing and annotated reading."

Surely those are not remarkable features to ask for?

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#216

Post by selykg »

6chars wrote: post #196
selykg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 susp…

I wonder how much this has to do with their being a Norwegian company. I have no idea what the expectations of customer service are over there. I'm just going on my experience working at a Scandinavian company and the incredulity I've heard Europeans express about the US's "the customer is always right" attitude, so I apologize if this is extremely ignorant. Regardless, they have a lot of room for improvement. Have y…

I did offer feedback whenever it came up, but it was just to whomever I was talking to via support. They acknowledged the feedback but they kept repeating the same problems over and over so it was clear it wasn't going to improve in the immediate term. Some of it was simple, like, "please just use the right snippet, or if you need separate snippets for this, make separate snippets" and some was obviously more complex, like "if you are going to say something, like that you'll refund me, you should stick to what you said, rather than back out of it and not stick to your word."

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#217

Post by secondaryacct »

tluyben2 wrote: post #86
akavel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, and with a disclaimer that I myself unfortunately failed to live by ideals in this case and did buy, Onyx seem to have their own issue, which is violating GPL: https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/p9ztru/lets_help...

Yeah, it is annoying that there is so little competition. I was made aware of this after being a very happy Boox (A4 size; I use it literally for everything I used paper for before when reading, writing, sketching, flow charts, mockups etc) user for 6 months. I am not going to toss it away and so far, after trying the reMarkable from a friend, I would buy the Boox again instead... ...if not this gpl issue. Edit: also…

The GPL issue doesnt matter for your buying decision. In fact, becoming a client expand your voice: you can now say you're even paying support already to listen to you whine about why they didnt publish the 5 patches they made to some broadcom drivers.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#218

Post by jdgoesmarching »

michaelt wrote: post #135
sofixa wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a subscription they have no incentive to update the software of already sold or older model ( which they already do). Considering the price and the niche market, they probably can't rely on future sales only to improve the software.

A subscription doesn't give someone an incentive to update software. If anything, it does the opposite: if I'll get paid whether I add a feature or not, why spend the money to add the feature when I could just pocket the money? That's why companies love the subscription model so much: Instead of having to find compelling new features and updates to sell new versions or attract new customers, they can just sit back, p…

You’re making a lot of faulty assumptions about how customers engage with subscription models. When I pay for software every month, I’m evaluating the value of it every month. That includes things like the update frequency, how often I use it, etc.

I know subscription pricing isn’t popular around here, but these wild speculations about how things work are getting a little silly. Especially coming from people who, I’m guessing, don’t use that many subscription apps.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#219

Post by laurex »

My reMarkable 2 is sitting in a drawer waiting for me to get motivated to sell it. It completely lived up to all the promises, but in the end I couldn’t make the migration from a notebook, partly because I have terrible handwriting and finding things I’ve written down requires me to use the physical cues of paper to go back later. The only other knock was that I couldn’t seem to get it to import my bullet journal format in PDF in a way that made it easy to use as a daily note template.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#220

Post by turtlebits »

sireat wrote: post #215

I have a feeling that reMarkable hired some remarkable hardware wizards with GPL in their blood and then let some beancounters ruin the frontend. reMarkable is great looking hardware with subpar software. I should not need to SSH into a device to install Koreader to get an acceptable ereading esperience. I rarely use my reMarkable 2 much preferring an old Kobo HD for bedtime reading and the original 13 inch Sony dpt-…

All the marketing on the site is as a writing device.

I could imagine that the e-reader experience would be sub-par, which is a shame. (although I have yet to sideload any ebooks onto it).

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