reMarkable 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: reMarkable 2

#251

Post by sulam » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:12 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #227

kylecordes wrote: post #215

I really wanted to like the Remarkable. I saw people using them at a couple of conferences the idea seems so great. So I tried it. Twice, for a couple weeks each. Had a couple of other people borrow in between and try it. We all reached the same conclusion: Solid implementation of a great idea! ... but ... An additional object to carry? Nope. Get an iPad or a Surface Pro, if you need to both write/sketch and do other…

I know a board game illustrator currently using a reMarkable 2 for drawing his illustrations. Those illustrations are being used in final versions of games. They look extremely detailed. Not sure if he'd get the same level of detail on an iPad or Surface Pro. He thinks it was worth the purchase for him. Also I think part of the appeal for this is you're not staring at a backlit screen like you would be with those dev…

Sorry, but have you looked at Procreate? There is absolutely no comparison to what you can do on an iPad. It’s basically a Wacom plus one of the high end art apps. Anything that you can do on a Remarkable can be done better on an iPad with respect to drawing, once you add a Paperlike to replicate the texture. I guess if you only did pencil sketches outside, the Remarkable would win.

Re: reMarkable 2

#252

Post by throwaway277432 » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:12 PM UTC

afandian wrote: post #70

darkteflon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s absolutely insane. I’m exactly the kind of person that would be interested in the RM2 but every time it comes up on HN I learn something new that keeps me away. Strange business.

With this issue I think it’s just they’re in move fast break things mode still. Probably feeling the heat from the competition and focusing on competitive features. But as a user, my impression is that they don’t consider this feature to be existential enough to have a smoke test for. And I do.

That's very generous. Yes they're moving faster than before, but for a while it seemed like they didn't have any developers at all. Instead they spend an insane amount of money on marketing.

And for a long time (I'm an early v1 user) what they did deliver was miniscule, ignoring a lot of the feedback from core users about basic issues. Some of the "new" features being released recently even existed in early v1 releases, e.g. the screen sharing which used to work fine locally, but now doesn't anymore because it "needs" to go via their cloud.

The break stuff unintentionally too though, so you're right there. For a few releases they even broke the core writing feature - lines and drawings would be drawn all jaggy - and the fix took forever.

The marketing worked and tricked me into buying one, but it's clear to me now that reMarkable is first and foremost a marketing company, tech and users come second. I won't be spending any more money with them.

Re: reMarkable 2

#253

Post by geewee » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:14 PM UTC

akamaka wrote: post #223

nathell wrote: post #47

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. (On the flip side, I have a free subscription.) Some things I’ve used it for, so far: - To write handwritten.blog. - As a notebook. Nothing much to mention here. Being able to pick a page template (plain/dotted/lined/squared) is nice. - R…

Is it easy to use for reading daily news, or would that require some hacking to get my news content to transfer to it automatically?

Also have a remarkable. While hacking it is reasonably easy, you would need to do a bit of it to make this work smoothly I think.

Re: reMarkable 2

#254

Post by Aachen » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:14 PM UTC

Since when do things cost 50% more in euros than in dollars? I've always treated it as 1:1 in my head for convenience, but 280 USD or 350 EUR is a major difference. (Edit: Internet says it should be €280.)

Not sure if I'd use this device but it seems nice, and for 250 it's worth thinking about. For 350 it's not even a question.

Re: reMarkable 2

#255

Post by squarefoot » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:15 PM UTC

blindseer wrote: post #225

davidroetzel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These features were free to begin with! Then they got greedy (imo a marketing / sales background product manager thought they should price more aggressively) and started charging for basic features! Honestly the device was completely unusable at that point. And now they are reverting ONLY because Kindle Scribe is going to be out soon, and they need to look like they are a similar product. I can guarantee that unless…

Only time will tell. I'd be tempted to buy one, but at present I'd rather wait some more time for the PineNote to reach an usable state. My use case would be mostly at home, so it would be essential to be able to read from local NFS or SMB shares, caching on the on board SD card the latest accessed books, something that would be trivial to implement in a Open Source reader, but I doubt commercial ones would do. And of course any attempt to force me use a phone app or any online services would immediately turn me away.

Re: reMarkable 2

#256

Post by fredestine » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:16 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #254

Since when do things cost 50% more in euros than in dollars? I've always treated it as 1:1 in my head for convenience, but 280 USD or 350 EUR is a major difference. (Edit: Internet says it should be €280.) Not sure if I'd use this device but it seems nice, and for 250 it's worth thinking about. For 350 it's not even a question.

No post body was provided.

Re: reMarkable 2

#257

Post by sulam » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:17 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #243

tjoff wrote: post #213

A lot of people understandably have gripes about the subscription. But it is optional, right? The old one you could (after some trickery I suppose) ssh tp the device and sync via rsync etc. For me that fits way better into my workflow even if their cloud solution was perfect and free for life. I will not consider an eink device of this type that I cannot ssh into.

I am looking at this as a person, who is intrigued, but who effectively is hesitant to lock myself into another long term relationship with a corporation. The opening page says: "Try reMarkable and Connect risk free. If you decide to return it, we offer a full refund within 100 days. After your 1-year free subscription ends, Connect costs $2.99/mo. Cancel anytime." This may be intentional, but this does not automatic…

You absolutely can ssh into it. Their marketing team can be forgiven for trying to be appealing to the orders of magnitude more non-techies out there. It’s a hardware company, they’d go out of business very quickly just selling to hobbyist technical types.

Re: reMarkable 2

#258

Post by kennend3 » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:17 PM UTC

eps wrote: 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…

I've been considering getting one for some time, but they lost me at "subscription" as well. I have another tablet which works just fine, except their auth server was taken down and now it is a "precision-engineered dud" as you put it.

I will go with the Amazon version. Sure Amazon has its problems but it is more likely to be around in the next few years and less likely to make changes to a subscription service in order to "monetize the customer" or some business nonsense.

Re: reMarkable 2

#259

Post by selykg » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:23 PM UTC

Their support is horrendous. I’ve written about my experience previously. It was a disaster.

I would highly recommend avoiding them based on that experience alone.

It took forever to get my return processed and they dropped the ball repeatedly and refused to help actually make things right after waiting a month for delivery of the return to them. I actually had to file a dispute to get my money back.

Re: reMarkable 2

#260

Post by kennend3 » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 12:27 PM UTC

speed_spread wrote: post #240

Is the Canadian version moose-proof? CDN price is about twice the US price when the exchange rate is currently only 1.3. Nope, Sorry.

As a fellow Canadian i find this annoying as well.

If i find something on amazon.com and check the price on amazon.ca and find that after using the FX rates there is a $50 or more difference? Some sort of "being in canada" tax?

We are paid less and stuff costs more here?