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reMarkable 2

remarkable.com

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Re: reMarkable 2

#162
Nice. Lost me at subscription.

(Edit, to clarify - not because of what it offers, but because the very existence of a subscription tends to create wrong incentives for the company so to try and push people onto them. Maybe not now, but this will happen. Guaranteed.)

Also, I don't see a properly supported way to actually get docs to/from the device without a cloud service, theirs or someone else's.

For example, [1] says

  Transferring files using a USB cable

  NB: This functionality is currently experimental,
  as we haven't fully implemented it yet.

  1. Connect the reMarkable with a USB cable to your computer.
  2. ...
  3. ...
  4. Open a browser window on your computer and enter the address 10.11.99.1.
What the heck. They report their tablet as a network interface? And then use their app to configure it? Meaning that I can't get anything in or out the tablet if their app's not installed.

If they will go bankrupt, the app will stop launching and you'll end up with a pretty precise-engineered dud. Worse yet, they'll get acquired and you'll be forced into a subsciption. No bueno.

This thing needs proper support for being accessible as a mass storage device. The rest is secondary.

[1] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Transferring-files-...

Re: reMarkable 2

#163

I bought a rm2 a while back but abandoned it when I discovered it had extremely weak security: no fde, a weak remotely-resettable 4 digit pin, no local file syncing (doesn't appear as a mass storage device when plugged in as a usb, doesnt support standard file transfer protocols), non-e2ee (!!) cloud syncing (their company can see my notes unencrypted). Now I use an android tablet that I locked down + synching and i…

Like it or not, they're pitching it as an appliance to replace a notepad. I think the marketing is quite clever, and I applaud their focus. But it does mean that they deliberately exclude bells and whistles that you would expect from a general-purpose software device. Though IMHO with every added feature, they are scope-creeping away from the spartan value prop. FWIW the USB exposes it over a virtual network which le…

You still cannot simply rsync (+ some processing?) the files contained on the device though, because PDFs and their annotations (your scribblings) are stored as separate files and their rendering software is proprietary

Re: reMarkable 2

#165
A friend of mine uses a kid's writing tablet for taking notes. Search for "writing tablet for kids" to see the kind of thing I mean.

It's great for taking notes without wasting paper, then for ones he wants to digitize, he takes a photo with his iPhone and lets iOS do the magic with OCR.

For £10 it's actually not a bad alternative and quite nice to have on the desk, plus the battery lasts for months.

Re: reMarkable 2

#166

A friend of mine uses a kid's writing tablet for taking notes. Search for "writing tablet for kids" to see the kind of thing I mean. It's great for taking notes without wasting paper, then for ones he wants to digitize, he takes a photo with his iPhone and lets iOS do the magic with OCR. For £10 it's actually not a bad alternative and quite nice to have on the desk, plus the battery lasts for months.

Would be interesting to have someone do the actual computation of the CO2 / energy waste / etc of building this writing tablet and compare it with the number of paper sheets and pen that you have to use to offset it, just to know

Re: reMarkable 2

#167

I honestly cannot see the value in ReMarkable after the Kindle Scribe announcement. The kindle has a newer faster, 300dpi display vs 226dpi on the ReMarkable. I am waiting on reviews before ordering one for myself, but I can already see that Kindle Scribe is going to be disruptive for this segment.

I bought a Remarkable 2 - the UI design wasn’t there for me yet and I only persisted with it for a few days, but I am a big believer in the product category and would certainly give the next one a try. However, I think it will be forever niche. Not many people have any interest in writing by hand, and of those that do, only an few are so keen on digital organisation that they would buy one of these. It seems like a permanently small (but well heeled and discerning) target market, something for boutique tech companies to focus on, not giants. So I find it weird that Amazon is targeting this market at all - I don’t see how they plan to grow it into something big enough for them to care about. I feel like Kindle Scribe might just be an experiment that they will kill in a few years.

Anyone got any thoughts on this? Does Amazon have some big strategy that I’m missing here? How do they plan to persuade large numbers of people to buy into digital handwriting?

Re: reMarkable 2

#168
post #162

Nice. Lost me at subscription. (Edit, to clarify - not because of what it offers, but because the very existence of a subscription tends to create wrong incentives for the company so to try and push people onto them. Maybe not now, but this will happen. Guaranteed.) Also, I don't see a properly supported way to actually get docs to/from the device without a cloud service, theirs or someone else's. For example, [1] sa…

FWIW, there is a tiny webapp on the device that you access when you follow the instructions above. You do not need to install anything and it worked perfectly fine for me so far.

Also, you can ssh into the device and even get root access. I have not tried it yet but I guess scp would work as well.

Last but not least: They recently changed their subscription service in a big way, opening up a lot of features that were subscription-only before to all device owners: https://remarkable.com/blog/big-changes-are-coming-to-the-re...

Re: reMarkable 2

#169

A friend of mine uses a kid's writing tablet for taking notes. Search for "writing tablet for kids" to see the kind of thing I mean. It's great for taking notes without wasting paper, then for ones he wants to digitize, he takes a photo with his iPhone and lets iOS do the magic with OCR. For £10 it's actually not a bad alternative and quite nice to have on the desk, plus the battery lasts for months.

I always wondered how hackable these devices are... Maybe it's time to have a look.

Re: reMarkable 2

#170

I bought a rm2 a while back but abandoned it when I discovered it had extremely weak security: no fde, a weak remotely-resettable 4 digit pin, no local file syncing (doesn't appear as a mass storage device when plugged in as a usb, doesnt support standard file transfer protocols), non-e2ee (!!) cloud syncing (their company can see my notes unencrypted). Now I use an android tablet that I locked down + synching and i…

Like it or not, they're pitching it as an appliance to replace a notepad. I think the marketing is quite clever, and I applaud their focus. But it does mean that they deliberately exclude bells and whistles that you would expect from a general-purpose software device. Though IMHO with every added feature, they are scope-creeping away from the spartan value prop. FWIW the USB exposes it over a virtual network which le…

Is it? I think this will doom the device and the company. They exclude a lot while not being cheaper than competitors and they shove basic functionality into a subscription. And yet this notebook replacement doesn't even come with the pen in the box either.

Why would anyone spend $300+$80 for a Remarkable 2 when a Kobo Elipsa or Kindle Scribe is less and they are better at book reading, have features like a screen light and don't need a subscription to do things like cloud sync? Marginally better note taking feel?

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