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Using Two ReMarkables

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Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#51

Post by thereticent »

CrazyStat wrote: post #14
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #11

I just returned my ReMarkable Pro. I found that split screen was something I wanted and though I had a work around with using my iPad much like Op here, it wasn't ideal. The big nail in the coffin for me was difficulty integrating into my workflow / application stack. I had to use a couple scripts I hacked together to get the data from ReMarkable into the tools I use regularly. For the cost Invested I decided it was…

My Boox e-ink tablet has a split screen mode that I use regularly, but I wouldn’t use it on full page (A4/US letter) sized pdfs like journal articles as the text would be too small.

I chose the Boox over ReMarkable 2 for that reason and the color display. In split-screen, I pretty quickly got used to zooming in on a column or full body width and dragging the PDF around to read it. I guess it's not perfect, but still better than paper or traditional screen for me

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#52

Post by thimabi »

bloopernova wrote: post #21

I am so disappointed in Amazon for their 1st gen Kindle Scribe. Part of the selling point was being able to write notes by hand, but the only method to get your notes off the Scribe is to email yourself a PDF . Large size screen is nice for reading though.

Even worse: if you send the PDF back to the Scribe, all previously-written notes are uneditable.

It seems note taking is treated more like an afterthought. Of course, this means I only use my Scribe as a scratchpad for disposable notes.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#53

Post by oso2k »

bloopernova wrote: post #21

I am so disappointed in Amazon for their 1st gen Kindle Scribe. Part of the selling point was being able to write notes by hand, but the only method to get your notes off the Scribe is to email yourself a PDF . Large size screen is nice for reading though.

100+

The notes organization is awkward, imports/exports are not durable (as another poster mentioned), had several exports fail, and then the only method of export is email.

Definitely felt like a device meant for reading ebooks and writing comes a distant second.

But the screen and the backlight are far better than the RM2 as is the battery life. For me writing notes daily, I had to stick with the RM2 though.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#55

Post by criddell »

parasense wrote: post #38
Locutus_ wrote: post #6

I'm a heavy ReMarkable user, mostly as a note taking device when doing client meetings. For personal use I use it a lot for annotating philosophy papers and source materials, and the lack of a split screen feature is extremely frustrating. Writing annotations or commentaries on texts means writing in the margins or switching back and forth between books (often a paper book and the remarkable for writing, or 2 noteboo…

Hi Locutus_ I'm one of those people with "analysis paralysis" towards the E-Ink ecosystem. Remarkable Paper Pro came out while I was researching, and made me aware of the set of dichotomies around the notion of minimalism vs full blow Android, black & white only tablets vs Galery-3 vs Kaliedo, front lights vs having a screen closer to the surface without front lights... It's difficult to enter the e-paper market. For…

I have two main problems with Remarkable products:

1. They are too small. I want an A4/letter sized display for writing notes and for reading PDFs.

2. The pen is laggy. It’s very frustrating to use after using an iPad for a while.

Both of these are subjective though. Since Remarkable has a generous return policy, I recommend buying one and trying it for a couple of months. If you don’t find it useful, you can return it easily.

I’m hoping Remarkable comes out with a 13” display. There are others like the Fujitsu Quaderno, but it runs Android. I prefer a more focused device like the Remarkable.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#56

Post by freedomben »

openrisk wrote: post #44

The Paper Pro looks gorgeous, but its specific use case and the closed nature of the platform (despite it being a linux OS) makes it less appealing. It would be nice to have a paper tablet that is, indeed, focused on what it does best, but also seemlessly interoperates with linux laptops and desktops. Users having to juggle multiple closed platforms adds to the cognitive burden.

> the closed nature of the platform (despite it being a linux OS) makes it less appealing.

Seriously, I really hope some management and/or devs from Remarkable are seeing this. I want to shout it from the roof tops. I bought a Remarkable 2, and I would definitely be buying a Paper Pro, if it were a little more open. I'm appreciative that the device itself isn't locked down (that was enough to sell me a RM2!), but for the kind of money Paper Pro costs I need more out of it. If it was a very open system (like in my wildest dream, all software for it would be fully open source) I would take the plunge. As it stands, I'm leaning more toward the Daylight as it seems more hackable to me. I don't need much, not even a big ecosystem, just the ability to hack on it and/or install homebrew stuff from others. The ability to automate and/or easily run scripts on it would be killer.

Please Remarkable, embrace the spirit of openness that I know burns within you. It's a little hidden by conflicting business needs, but I know it's still there! Let those feelings be free, and create the masterpiece that you and I both really want.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#57

Post by ilt »

vtail wrote: post #35
rafaelmn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just looked into this and - this isn't e-ink just a grayscale LCD - at that point just get an iPad instead of an overpriced low end Android tablet.

It's a reflective LCD, much better in a direct sunlight. Our mileage certainly varies - I would not consider buying an iPad (I already have an iPad mini and don't want more of that), but this device I really like. It's hard to put a finger on it. I read other reviewers claiming that reading e.g. X in greyscale is less addictive, and I didn't really believe it until I tried it myself. Something is certainly different…

Did you try enabling grayscale in iPad and perhaps with a paper like screen protector? I use one such with my iPad Pro and it’s surprisingly pretty effective for me.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#58

Post by turtlebits »

dunefox wrote: post #18
Locutus_ wrote: post #6

I'm a heavy ReMarkable user, mostly as a note taking device when doing client meetings. For personal use I use it a lot for annotating philosophy papers and source materials, and the lack of a split screen feature is extremely frustrating. Writing annotations or commentaries on texts means writing in the margins or switching back and forth between books (often a paper book and the remarkable for writing, or 2 noteboo…

I find mine close to useless. The pen is sometimes really inconsistent, to the point where the ink gets applied 1mm from the pen tip. Also, no canvas for pdf annotation, no split screen, no search in pdfs and notes, only tags, etc. It's strictly worse than paper for me.

Have you contacted support? I've had one for over 4 years (and used up 2 packs of nibs) and it writes perfectly, and much prefer it over the iPad.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#59

Post by vtail »

ilt wrote: post #57
vtail wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reflective LCD, much better in a direct sunlight. Our mileage certainly varies - I would not consider buying an iPad (I already have an iPad mini and don't want more of that), but this device I really like. It's hard to put a finger on it. I read other reviewers claiming that reading e.g. X in greyscale is less addictive, and I didn't really believe it until I tried it myself. Something is certainly different…

Did you try enabling grayscale in iPad and perhaps with a paper like screen protector? I use one such with my iPad Pro and it’s surprisingly pretty effective for me.

No, I did not, and agree it would be an interesting experiment. Daylight Co still claims the absence of blue light, which cannot be achieved in an IPad from what I understand even with a filter.

Re: Using Two ReMarkables

#60

Post by jcgl »

codemonkey-zeta wrote: post #29
johnbellone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can enable developer mode and remote into the device. There are several API frameworks for building extensions. This has been one of the better experiences with hardware (RMP) I’ve ever had. What else are you looking for in a “jailbreak?”

Yeah parent comment might have missed that. RM2 gives you root access to a dead simple Linux system running on the device. There's literally nothing better than that. There's also a whole community of app developers for the RM, RM2 and now the newest one, search for Toltec. There's tons of options for writing simple scripts to interact with the Remarkable. It's my favorite feature!

Source: RM2 owner

I think you’re vastly overstating how hackable it is. Yes you have root, and yes that’s notable and praiseworthy.

However, it’s not “dead simple,” practically speaking. The parts you actually care about (the display/touch logic, library management, annotations, etc.) are all inside a single, proprietary binary. A group of dedicated and extremely impressive hackers has done excellent work reverse engineering and packaging their work for others to readily use. But they’re always swimming upstream, having to work around the myriad issues surrounding this vital, proprietary blob.

Case in point: the hacker community’s work on RM2 v3.4+ has been stalled for 6+ months now because of changes that Remarkable made to their proprietary system.

Another example of how not-open the core functionality is: you can’t hack in your own two-way ebook sync logic because the remarkable’s blob one-way-converts all books to a custom binary format before the user can read and annotate them. Sure, you can hook into some of the sync logic by mocking their API (iirc) and doing some custom one-way-sync stuff (using tools from the truly impressive hacker community). But two-way sync? I’m not aware of anything. And it’s definitely not as easy as mounting some fuse filesystem that does two-way sync with some service that you can load with books.

So yeah, the RM2 is just a simple Linux system only if you ignore the actual reading and writing functionality. It’s good to have root (I _never_ would have bought mine otherwise), but that’s not enough.

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