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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

#251

Post by myself248 »

fragmede wrote: post #248
martin_a wrote: post #2

> They are moving towards a subscription model. This is the biggest minus point for me. I want devices that I own, that I can use like I want to. I don't want to be caught in another cloud and pay monthly for something I don't want to use. Currently I'm looking into getting a device from Onyx, because those support the Android App Stores, so I could set it up with Notion or my Nextcloud probably. Remarkable seems to…

Let's work out a deal. You pay me $7.98/month, and I'll "fiddle with shell scripts" for you! Of course if you don't trust me, you can always pay Remarkable $7.99/month, no fiddling necessary. And they'll even bundle it in their desktop app UI! If you can accept that you don't want to fiddle with shell scripts, then why is paying someone else for the privilege so far beyond the pale?

I'll pay you quite a bit to make my ReMarkable do what I want and then go away forever. But once it's working, I'm pathologically opposed to paying for the continued privilege.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#252

Post by ant6n »

> Not having searchable notes was almost a deal-breaker for me, and I still have hope that this behavior will be implemented in the future as an update.

The handwriting equivalent of Notepad that came with Windows Tablet edition (2002?), A software called Journal, allowed searching in handwritten notes. It worked pretty well, since searching does not require an exact OCR (it sometimes has some false positives, but it's actually better at finding then the most recent typed version of OneNote).

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#253

Post by nathell »

It depends on the mindset I guess. I’ve bought myself a reMarkable 2 with the approach that „I’m just getting an expensive toy” (ie not an everyday work tool, just a nice gizmo). And it’s been great, if a bit pricey.

Some things I’ve used it for, so far:

- As a notebook. Nothing much to mention here. Being able to pick a page template (plain/dotted/lined/squared) is nice.

- Reading PDFs. Kindle won’t quite cut it, even with k2pdfopt – the screen size makes a difference. Plus, you can annotate them!

- Reading code. `npx repo-to-pdf some-repo` and then proceed as above. Great for getting oneself into a full-focus mode.

- Live-sketching at conference calls. I just share the reMarkable screen to my Mac and then share the companion app’s window on Zoom. Tried it out twice during internal brown-bags, worked very nice.

- As an actual toy. Getting grandma’s picture onto an e-ink screen and being able to draw a moustache lights up a big smile on my 8yo niece’s face.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#254

Post by nicbou »

azeirah wrote: post #174
intrasight wrote: post #148

Slightly off topic, but what happened to "smart pens"? 15ish years ago,I had a pen that could draw on special paper, and do interesting things. I really thought that paradigm would have progressed by now. Sort of like the original optical mice needed a special pad but now can work on any surface. I like drawing on a paper notebook (I use one with a grid of dots). I'd be fine with all of the "intelligence" coming from…

There are multiple things in this space. * The Lenovo writing pad device - https://www.lenovo.com/nl/nl/yoga-book/ This thing is different from all other devices on the market. You can write on the device itself, or you can put a piece of paper on top of it and write on that which will simultaneously be digital iirc. * A smart clipboard, I'm sure there are non-kickstarter variations of this out there somewhere as wel…

The Moleskine one is surprisingly smooth, but it's not good if you're the sort of person who wants to use different, high quality pens.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#255

Post by [deleted] »

projectileboy wrote: post #243
epolanski wrote: post #239

The reMarkable is one of those devices for which I consistently feel like "I'll wait for the next one". Few reasons why: - backlight - ocr - better pen and eraser In my mind I'd like to make it a "programming sketchbook", where every time I save, text get OCRd, compiled and I get some compile information out of it. Obviously I would be just sending the buffer to an external computer and get the output, or something l…

What’s so weird is that it already has OCR, but only through a weird feature where you’re emailing someone a copy and paste, or some such. It’s like they’re sitting on the killer feature and can’t figure it out. Feels like a potentially great product in need of a great product manager.

[deleted]

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#256

Post by nfd »

soledades wrote: post #197
pantulis wrote: post #47

The reMarkable dilemma is that they got the hardware right --modulo backlighting, but that will come--. It's the services around such a powerful device that people will find lacking. Open source enthusiasts will state that they want freedom, while people who care less about that freedom will get suspicious as to what happens if the company ceases to exist. The latter will probably consider an iPad a better value prop…

The lack of backlighting is the one and only reason I went with Onxy Boox Note Air 2 over Remarkable2. Is it really on the way? Is there an ETA?

rM seems to omit backlight as a philosophical idea; if you're mainly interested in similar form-factor of hardware with backlights, https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ is upcoming. (Firmware/software support's not going to be up to "whatever-Android" or rM quality in a hurry, of course, but it's starting out as a hacking platform anyway.)

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#257

Post by nfd »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #103
captainmuon wrote: post #66

I have one, and I find the writing part nearly perfect. But there are a couple of downsides mentioned in the article that mean I barely use it: - Searching and organisation is really difficult. I wish everything would be OCRed transparently and you could instantly search for it (while keeping the original graphics) - It's unfortunate that the OCR runs on their cloud. It would be really perfect if it was a web app tha…

Wanting your documents and writings to not be fully accessible to CCP intelligence services....is not exactly "heightened security requirements" to me. This device is basically completely un-trustable. Leaking information related to financial stuff, research, invention, product design, or legal/government work. For a publicly traded company any manner of documents / notes on a device like this could spell trouble. Pl…

I was under the impression that rmcloud was an application grafted onto Google Cloud. Sure you're not mixing them up with Onyx?

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#258

Post by nfd »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #7

I would really like a color e-ink device though - like https://www.theverge.com/21507390/pocketbook-color-review-e-... but bigger.

Color e-ink probably isn't going to be at quality-parity with e.g. LCD displays anytime especially soon. Kaleido is still really cool, especially when it's used properly, but it's probably going to be a bit too weird for something really like reMarkable for a little while yet.

Sometimes there's Indiegogo hype for "ooh, a large color e-ink tablet!" and I'd encourage cautious pessimism about those listings. Might be a good idea to wait for them to ship, and to wait for some reviews.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#259

Post by nfd »

ijuhoor wrote: post #13

I’ve been using a Sony Epaper notebook for almost 2 years now and considering buying a Boox Note 5 or Air 2 (the remarkable didn’t make my short list) They are running almost stock android and the quality seems better than remarkable. I’ve watched My Deep Guide ( https://youtube.com/c/MyDeepGuide ) where they test every single feature of all note taking devices. This article says that you have root access on the rema…

rM support's statements in the past have been to the effect of "we aren't going to remove the root access; you need it for GPL compliance, and we need it for troubleshooting. And merely using it doesn't void the warranty, but we don't support third-party modifications." So if there's e.g. a flaw in the hardware that you didn't obviously cause by doing something absurd with modifications (e.g. overriding the temperature lockouts, deliberately wearing out the eMMC with writes, ...) they say that it shouldn't really effect your claim.

Now individual experiences with rM support have varied rather wildly between "they're great!" and "they're the worst!" so feel free to temper your expectations.

Re: The reMarkable as a notebook and eBook reader

#260

Post by detaro »

nfd wrote: post #259
ijuhoor wrote: post #13

I’ve been using a Sony Epaper notebook for almost 2 years now and considering buying a Boox Note 5 or Air 2 (the remarkable didn’t make my short list) They are running almost stock android and the quality seems better than remarkable. I’ve watched My Deep Guide ( https://youtube.com/c/MyDeepGuide ) where they test every single feature of all note taking devices. This article says that you have root access on the rema…

rM support's statements in the past have been to the effect of "we aren't going to remove the root access; you need it for GPL compliance, and we need it for troubleshooting. And merely using it doesn't void the warranty, but we don't support third-party modifications." So if there's e.g. a flaw in the hardware that you didn't obviously cause by doing something absurd with modifications (e.g. overriding the temperatu…

From a purely legal perspective, even attempting to void a warranty just for someone using the root access would likely be questionable.
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