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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

#181
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…

If it phones home to China count me out. I’ll go for the reMarkable tyvm I can just see me working on a brilliant invention (one can dream , right?) and putting my notes into the note boox, only to realize it gets patented before me by a Chinese company.

> If it phones home to China count me out.

About 1 billion Chinese customers think the same like you, except they refuse products that phone home to USA.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I love rmapi and use it often with my rM2.

I find rmapi + fzf to be the easiest way to send ebooks in my Calibre library to my rM2.

Its probably possible to create a Calibre addon to do this, but its already makes syncing pretty easy.

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

#183
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have a 912 as well but its bugs were tiresome so I stopped using it. I can say that the rM2 is a very different beast from that. I didn't expect to like the rM2 and was anticipating returning it when I preordered it but now it pretty much accompanies me everywhere.

Can I ask two questions please? First, what don't you like about it now that you've used it for a while? Second, are you sharing data to and fro with a GNU/Linux desktop/laptop (if to is the workflow comfortable) or is it primarily a reader and note taker that generates notes that are sent one-way back to your computer?

My biggest dislike is the storage: my ebook collection is closer to 20GB and I'd love to be able to put it all in the device but it's not to be.

The sync story is itunes like (transfer+metadata), which I somewhat dislike, but the use of rmapi plus other mechanisms to transfer data to it (e.g. plug in via usb and then post/curl a file vs. using their somewhat silly front end directly) has made it work for me.

I use their app as an easy way to look at my notes on my work+personal laptop plus also use the send-as-email functionality to share notes. I also transfer content from my chromebook to it via the chrome plugin.

All in all, the storage limitation is my biggest criticism but in general the other improvements it's brought to my life have been much appreciated.

PS: I use the Staedtler Noris Digital Jumbo stylus instead of the stock due to the built in eraser. The writing experience is less realistic with this though but the eraser is handier; I wish I had bought the marker plus when I preordered.

Edit: I didn't really answer your 2nd question: I don't know of good approaches to share data with a Linux desktop in this case though I think rmapi would do well for it. It would be nice if they had a webapp vs platform dependent apps for sharing data. Some of the hacks people have developed for it might help in that case. I recommend joining their discord or checking out remarkablewiki.com

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

#184

I was one of the supporters for the first remarkable and pre-ordered with a bundle with case for $350 (I think) which seemed pretty expensive but I really wanted to support businesses developing these larger scale e-paper tablets. The battery life was really bad in the first software versions but seems to be a lot better now. I use it for recipes (I like to write my own version out even when working from a cookbook s…

I bought the RM2 and used to have a RM1. The battery life is much better, though I don't have any hard stats.

They also improved a lot of my complaints with RM1 such as difficulty erasing.

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

#185
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it phones home to China count me out. I’ll go for the reMarkable tyvm I can just see me working on a brilliant invention (one can dream , right?) and putting my notes into the note boox, only to realize it gets patented before me by a Chinese company.

> If it phones home to China count me out. About 1 billion Chinese customers think the same like you, except they refuse products that phone home to USA.

US (and EU, and indeed everywhere else), companies do not have as long and detailed a recent track record of IP theft.

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

#186

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…

My first thought was "if you can SSH then you can pipe" and, like magic, you can pipe the wacom device from /dev through SSH to a computer.

The result was this: https://gitlab.com/afandian/pipes-and-paper

Blog post https://blog.afandian.com/2020/10/pipes-and-paper-remarkable...

It's kind of abandonware now, but some others have made some great forks!

https://gitlab.com/afandian/pipes-and-paper/-/forks

https://github.com/flomlo/rm2canvas

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

#187
post #2

Why the ReMarkable doesn't have a backlight I do not understand.

Same here. I'm so used to reading with the backlight at night for years (kindle paper white and Oasis) that going back to clip-on external light (I haven't used one since the paperwhite came out, do then even sell those still???) is a non-starter for me.

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

#188
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…

It doesn't just phone home to China. The company actually refuses to comply with the GPL because of "anti-China sentiment" and closed down their support forum when people got angry (https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/hsyigm/on...)

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

#189
I bought the ReMarkable 2 when it was released. The hardware is beautiful (as well as the packaging and presentation). The software was pretty underwhelming, but they seem to be speeding up and fixing glaring deficiencies.

For my use case, it's lovely (reading and annotating technical books and papers, meetings, writing, even the drawing experience is better than expected).

Right now there are things that I could imagine myself wanting but not really _needing_. Maybe plugging in a keyboard would be appreciated.

I can really recommend it if you enjoy "thinking" with paper and writing by hand. I am barely use traditional notebooks anymore. Plus: it's a very open and hackable device.

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

#190

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…

Is it good to read PDFs?
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