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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison I rarely use the pen on my iPad Pro. I think partially because of all the distractions, as soon as I grab my iPad there’s lots of other stuff I could be doing other than taking notes. And partially because the writing on glass never felt right. So it’s been more of an occasional use when I really need to sketch something. I was on the fence for the RM2 for a while for the same reasons you mentioned. Wo…

I've looked at it seriously a while back when it was on presale, but it's definitely a heavy chunk of change, especially since I'm Canadian and have to pay the exchange rate prices. I do like the idea of no distractions and being able to move stuff around and organize it, unlike with paper, but most of my life is at home (since I'm self-employed) and I already have a computer on all 3 floors of my house that I'm usua…

The hard back makes it like a clipboard so you could use it on a couch or sitting anywhere really, but I mostly use it for writing while at a table or my desk. I’d rather take notes by hand than type though. Previous attempts to type notes never worked out for long. Too many distractions on the computer for me.

If you’re already heavily invested in taking notes in OneNote then this probably won’t help much due to the overhead required to sync back and forth.

Getting OneNote on the Remarkable would be awesome though, I hope this will happen in some future version.

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

#392

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…

Me too!

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

#393
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for fewer polished features - but we don't get any of those. Prior to the latest updates I actively regretted my reMarkable 2 purchase. Now it's back to "a decent device that I would never recommend anyone pay full price for" Let's start with eReading: Hyperlinks in ePub and PDF didn't work. As such, your table of contents and index are worthless, you don't have quick access to footnotes, and so on. They only…

> I'm all for fewer polished features - but we don't get any of those. I don't think that the rest of your comment substantiates this. You don't have any arguments that the core functionality is lacking in some way - everything you say seems to be about non-core things. > Hyperlinks in ePub and PDF didn't work. Note the "didn't", and also PDF hyperlinks is not an "essential" feature for the purpose of the rm2, which…

>That's literally how it's marketed - "Writing, reading, and visualizing only".

>Not core to writing and annotating. You're looking for a document-navigation system, which the rm2 is not.

Document navigation is absolutely a core part of reading. When I read a book, I page around it because that's how books work. When I reference a book I've already read, I want to look in the index or the table of contents and go there.

There are 6 things that reMarkable claims the device does on their homepage. "All your notes, organized and accessible on all devices" and "Take handwritten notes, read, and review documents" are two of them. Reading and searching are core scenarios.

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

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty accurate, from someone who just got one as a gift. They are useful devices, however your criticism is spot on. That said, a couple big advantages I haven’t seen advertised: - I don’t have a dozen notebooks around, just one - easy to start a new notebook, plus the centralization, is sort of an “organized by default” mode - I can’t take notes on my computer, so it’s either this or paper - distraction fre…

One of the things I love about mine - I never realized that I get 'anxiety' about wasting paper or space on paper. Being able to write and keep a few lines per page has been great.

And being able to move text around once you write it!

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omg, I am the king of moleskin unused notebooks. What was awesome though was when my then 3 year old daughter found one of the moleskins and a pen and did a bunch of scribbles on every 10 pages or so. I truly love that little moleskin. I just recently (last week) bought an outdoor log with graph paper and some other logs.... Your comment makes me want to prove you (myself) wrong and actually use it. I've always been…

I literally have this comic on my wall: https://poorlydrawnstore.com/products/nice-notebook-print I also just bought a super mini and thick notebook for $10 that I haven't used, but was just so cool looking. I still feel like an idiot for buying it, but maybe I will use it someday.

That’s perfect. That’s exactly how I felt about nice notebooks and that’s why the digital version is so much better for me. The freedom to erase and reorganize removes that anxiety.

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

#396
I did buy the little ( boox poke 3) and the big boox note air, mainly to do some reading and drawing on the go.

What I also used it for during the lockdown was to switch it for the tablets my kids use to control their screen time (not so much fun in black and white) while allowing them to listen to music and audio books...

I like this trend also because I observe myself using the device different than my mobile or tablet... I am just starting out but I think it definitely has a niche to fill.

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

#397
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off and on. Started on it again just yesterday, hence my comment. >I'm never going to sit down and review the cards Well, don't sit down then. Standing up flip through the cards you filled during the day and toss them into garbage, unless one is really important. You're strictly better off than writing down nothing at all during the day, which is the default state for most people.

But what kind of things to you write?

I do this. Todo items that pop into my head, little notes about ongoing projects. Things I want to remember or process but aren't an immediate task.

Later in the day when I pull them out, many do get trashed. Lots of Todo items never make it to my digital Todo list because my brain processed them mostly in the background during the day. I find the physical nature of the cards means I can't avoid that processing step. The times I revert back to digital first, my notes end up everywhere (I input them in the fastest way, rather than finding the right place) and immediately begin rotting because now I have remember and force myself to condense and organize rather than it occurring naturally.

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

#398

I'm always super intrigued by the reMarkable 2, but I think it's because it paints an image of the type of person I think it'd be cool to be, someone who can just write down notes and draw stuff with a really cool, slim device. Someone who carries around moleskines and uses them, instead of just buying so many of them in different shapes and leaving them in a drawer packed to the brim with notebooks. The problem keep…

You described my problem so well. I have aspirations to be the sort of person that makes stuff like this: https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniecristea/14-study-notes-tha...

But I don't and I won't because that's just not how I work however much I'd like to. And that's OK. In fact, it's good to accept that about one's self.

Now that I know I have ADHD, I at least have an explanation why my desire to be something I'm not has always failed, but even without the diagnosis, we all have our personality quirks that mean that certain things just won't work for us. It's nice to have beautiful notebooks to give away as presents for other people though. :-)

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

#399

I'm always super intrigued by the reMarkable 2, but I think it's because it paints an image of the type of person I think it'd be cool to be, someone who can just write down notes and draw stuff with a really cool, slim device. Someone who carries around moleskines and uses them, instead of just buying so many of them in different shapes and leaving them in a drawer packed to the brim with notebooks. The problem keep…

I'm somewhat like you (aspiration-based notebook purchaser), but I actually did buy a remarkable - both the original and V2.

Bizarrely, I've ended up using the RM exclusively for work-related notes, and still keep all my personal ideas in a paper notebook. Aside from a subconscious desire to work through my stationery backlog, I have no idea why.

RM is nice to use and I'd definitely recommend to note-taking gadget lovers, but the software quality prevents me from calling it a more general must-buy device.

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

#400
post #378
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put a stack of 3x4 index cards in you back pocket, and write thing down as needed. In the evening, (eg when you pull keys/wallet out of the pocket) review the cards briefly and toss the used once into trash unless you really need to keep one. This is a low-commitment device that still achieves half the benefits of really writing things down.

If you want something slightly more techy; the ONLY app that I absolutely cannot live without is Blitzmail on Android (I believe there's an Apple equivalent?) It's simply an an ultra-simplified one destination email client. One button on your homescreen opens up a little text input window. Hit send, and it emails yourself. That's it, and it has been absolutely life changing, I've retained so much and simplified so ma…

I use Telegram to take notes on my phone. You can "message yourself", they changed it to "saved messages" but it's essentially just you chatting with yourself. Each message is a note, beginning with "Topic :", e.g. "Game design :".

Then about once a month I copy paste the whole chat into a text file on my workstation PC, date and archive it, and clear the chat. Telegram includes the exact time and date of each message in the paste, and my consistent "tagging" of the notes with the topic means that I can programmatically parse the text files later to organize them, maybe on my website.

After years of note-taking in various forms, I find that I rarely actually need to peruse my notes archive. It's the act of taking notes itself which helps with retention of ideas.

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