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The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

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Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#121

Post by jessmartin »

lordgrenville wrote: post #90

I've been thinking of buying a ReMarkable, but all I really want is a reader without a backlight that can handle PDFs smoothly. (Ability to mark up is a plus but not necessary.) Based on this thread it seems like the RM/Boox are not really what I'm looking for.

I read PDFs (and highlight and annotate) on my RM2 daily. It's a _fantastic_ PDF reader, IMO. It's the ability to annotate that's killer for me. I mark things up extensively, writing notes in the margins, starring items, underlining, and writing on the RM2 screen is a paper-like writing experience.

It's e-reader software is a bit meh, so I still read books (fiction, mostly) on my Kindle Paperwhite.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#122

Post by stewbrew »

Tho85 wrote: post #14

I bought the Onyx Boox Note Air some months ago, and I must say that I'm really happy with it. Screen refresh is good, there's almost no ghosting in default mode, and refresh rates are acceptable. There are only two downsides about it: The vendor does not respect FOSS and does not publish the sources for their modified Linux kernel, and the device constantly phones home to China. However, the device can be rooted eas…

Is there any information on what data it sends home? Is the problem the server is in China? My Android phone always phones home to some US servers.

P.S. I own a rm2 but I'd be interested in an e-ink android tablet.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#123

Post by gspr »

mstipetic wrote: post #48
Deukhoofd wrote: post #19

I bought a Remarkable 2 myself, and I have to say I'm really happy with it. The built in e-reader was a bit mediocre, but a quick SSH session and a couple community scripts later and with just a long swipe across the screen I could access Koreader whenever I wanted.

I don’t understand how they put so little effort into software compared to hardware. They raised money recently they should be able to hire a decent software team, but I’m afraid they’ll start pushing towards subscription only features now

> but I’m afraid they’ll start pushing towards subscription only features now

Considering the hackability of the device, and how all the cloud services are opt-in, I don't see how that would do them any good.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#124

Post by jessmartin »

chrisweekly wrote: post #70

I'm really glad I bought my ReMarkable2 (and Marker "Plus"), as it suits my use case extremely well: replacing stacks of 8.5x11" graph notepads, while adding digitization / sync, undo/redo, select/cut/paste/resize/move, (modest) pan/zoom, etc. Battery life and form factor are great. The writing UX is really something: low-latency, ~perfect hand detection, and the "feel" of writing. Yeah, the software's mediocre, but…

Same here. I had literally dozens of moleskines that I've been writing in for nearly 15 years. I'm a huge fan of paper, but was looking for a solution that allowed me to digitize my note-taking without giving up the ergonomics of paper.

As you point out, the "writing UX" was so astonishing, it was probably the quickest "adoption" of any major tech upgrade for me.

I wrote some notes on my experience and the transition from paper here: https://jessmart.in/articles/remarkable

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#125

Post by markroseman »

Has anything improved recently for RM2 around secure sync to a LAN? Would like to experiment with one for my psychiatrist wife to replace her paper chart notes, but anything hitting an external cloud service is out of the question for patient information. Sync via cable would be too obtrusive. And I gather handwriting recognition etc. is done via cloud.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#126

Post by aerique »

wastholm wrote: post #111

I bought a Remarkable 2 a month or two ago because I wanted a cool hackable e-ink Linux computer. But instead I immediately started using it as an e-book and document reader and note-taking pad, and nothing else. And, so far at least, that's perfect. The screen is beautiful (a bit gray, but the black is really black so the contrast is still good), the device is thin and reasonably light, I only have to charge it once…

I use rMAPI to push and pull stuff from the machine. Not sure if it works for the rm2 as well.

Also, it requires storing your stuff on reMarkable's servers ('cloud').

https://github.com/juruen/rmapi

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#127

Post by Deukhoofd »

mstipetic wrote: post #48
Deukhoofd wrote: post #19

I bought a Remarkable 2 myself, and I have to say I'm really happy with it. The built in e-reader was a bit mediocre, but a quick SSH session and a couple community scripts later and with just a long swipe across the screen I could access Koreader whenever I wanted.

I don’t understand how they put so little effort into software compared to hardware. They raised money recently they should be able to hire a decent software team, but I’m afraid they’ll start pushing towards subscription only features now

The software is fine for note taking, and reading and annotating PDFs, which is what I mostly use it for at work. The reader does however not feel set up for reading books. With it being fairly trivial to install Koreader however this turned into a non-issue to me.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#128

Post by freeqaz »

wastholm wrote: post #111

I bought a Remarkable 2 a month or two ago because I wanted a cool hackable e-ink Linux computer. But instead I immediately started using it as an e-book and document reader and note-taking pad, and nothing else. And, so far at least, that's perfect. The screen is beautiful (a bit gray, but the black is really black so the contrast is still good), the device is thin and reasonably light, I only have to charge it once…

You can actually SCP into the device without any modification. It's under the Copyright section of the device. It'll show you the default SSH password for your device and then you can drop files in there. :)

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#129

Post by stewbrew »

wastholm wrote: post #111

I bought a Remarkable 2 a month or two ago because I wanted a cool hackable e-ink Linux computer. But instead I immediately started using it as an e-book and document reader and note-taking pad, and nothing else. And, so far at least, that's perfect. The screen is beautiful (a bit gray, but the black is really black so the contrast is still good), the device is thin and reasonably light, I only have to charge it once…

Since you can connect via ssh to the device you should be able to use SCP too, shouldn't you?

I personally prefer to mount the cloud via some fuse-based solution though.

Re: The rise of E Ink Tablets and Note Takers: reMarkable 2 vs Onyx Boox Note Air

#130

Post by gpm »

markroseman wrote: post #125

Has anything improved recently for RM2 around secure sync to a LAN? Would like to experiment with one for my psychiatrist wife to replace her paper chart notes, but anything hitting an external cloud service is out of the question for patient information. Sync via cable would be too obtrusive. And I gather handwriting recognition etc. is done via cloud.

There's no official solution, but,

It's just linux. It has ssh installed (it tells you the password in the "copyright and licenses" menu, and you can private keys on the device like normal). It connects to wifi. You can write a script that runs on the device and periodically syncs notes somewhere (I have this setup with restic for backups).

Handwriting recognition is done by cloud, and, I mean, unless you want to set up your own software for handwriting recognition (doesn't sound easy) you would need to give up that feature (I have)...

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