why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like guerrilla marketing.
ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
51–60 of 326 posts
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#52Nice and intriguing but unfortunately this is still priced as a premium product. Obviously the company making it has its reasons for pricing but a product like this needs to be priced as an accessible consumer electronics product (ie $50-$100).
I've been keeping an eye on largish-format epaper tablets for a while (I'm an avocational organist and singer, and would love to have my whole music library with me at all times). ReMarkable is actually on the cheaper end of the spectrum. I think it comes down to low volume and target users (professionals who wouldn't balk at paying this much for a business tool). Basically, a typical vertical market.
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a failure of their marketing that they didn't make this clear. The device is capable of working 100% offline. Notes are stored on the device, with cloud sync being optional. File transfer is possible with SSH, or the (poor) app or the equally poor web interface when connecting via USB. You don't have to create an account for the rM cloud, you can use the thing without ever connecting it to the Internet.
The marketing sounds like they've stepped up the app/cloud bits with a browser plugin, etc. Do you know for certain the second version still supports the non-cloud snycing? The support site is incompletely updated for the new device; it's not clear at all if they still permit private operation.
https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000670215...
Found an article in the "remarkable 2" section of the support site. No mention of support for offline/private syncing, which is a real shame. (The "read more" links go to v1 pages and seem to be autogenerated.)
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#54Nice and intriguing but unfortunately this is still priced as a premium product. Obviously the company making it has its reasons for pricing but a product like this needs to be priced as an accessible consumer electronics product (ie $50-$100).
I've been keeping an eye on largish-format epaper tablets for a while (I'm an avocational organist and singer, and would love to have my whole music library with me at all times). ReMarkable is actually on the cheaper end of the spectrum. I think it comes down to low volume and target users (professionals who wouldn't balk at paying this much for a business tool). Basically, a typical vertical market.
Hopefully they'll consider the functionally minded customer soon.
I would be happy with a cheapish form factor option, it doesn't have to be the slick looking product that is the only option currently available.
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
It weights about 400g, so about what a paper pad does I guess? In any case, it has a textured surface, and assuming it's similar to the reMarkable 1 it is not slippery.
a paper pad does not weigh 400g
Some math:
A US Letter sized pad made of 20lb paper is 1lb per 100 sheets[1] so an 88 page pad would weigh 400g, neglecting the cardboard backing. If it were made of 16lb paper then you would get a bit over 100 pages in 400g.
1: 20lbs means 500 sheets of the basis size weighs 20 lbs. The basis size for US Letter sized paper is 4 sheets (22x17), so 2000 sheets weighs 20lbs.
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#56Since the article is unviewable without throwing away your privacy, here is a primary source instead: https://remarkable.com/
From the video, it looks to me like they're pressing the stylus fairly hard on the tablet, I wonder what's up with that.
Also, I wish they were able to use an e-paper with a faster refresh rate, like ClearInk claims to be (see e.g. https://youtu.be/kE_byDwLjxk?t=34).
That said, it seems to look quite attractive as is already.
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#57Since the article is unviewable without throwing away your privacy, here is a primary source instead: https://remarkable.com/
I know I'm being too literal, but I got a chuckle when I read: > reMarkable’s virtually instant response and texturized surface make for an unprecedented writing experience. There is indeed a precedent for having literally instant response with a texturized surface: pencil and paper.
I took it as having an implied "...on an electronic device."
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#58the only thing i want is a device i can write on that has a refresh rate (or whatever) that's near realtime (so that I don't get the cognitive dissonance from the lag in the line appearing). does such a device exist? i've tried surface and ipad and etc. all of them still have quite noticeable lag when writing.
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#59> " The new tablet is just 4.7 mm (0.19 in) thick, thinner than the iPad Pro and Sony’s competing Digital Paper tablets, both of which are 5.9 mm. " At that thickness, I'd be worried about sturdiness and, in particular, bending, à la the problems with the iPhone 6. I can stick an iPad Mini or similar tablet into a jacket pocket or backpack and jog a couple of miles to a bus stop daily without concern. Will we be able…
Just attach it to a physical clipboard as you'd do with real paper (joke attempt)
While you joke, I actually used that method on a modified clipboard to hold mine in a zip up folio. I'm super happy with the way it is positioned now because I have it held in place with a clipboard.
https://imgur.com/a/thrkIww
Re: ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery
#60It hurts my heart how conflicted I am about this device. The hardware _is_ there. I love using the original reMarkable tablet _when it works_. But damn there are some stupid software decisions, alongside some absolutely genius ones. (Disclaimer: I've had the original reMarkable tablet for 3 months now) Here's a summary of my experience with it:
- It's sometimes unstable, and crashes while I draw. Not super often but maybe 4 or 5 times a week. I don't lose any data other than the last ~5-10 strokes.
- There is a notebook called Quick Sheets that is permanently there, even if I try to remove it's metadata over SSH. It gets generated on boot. No idea why this is here.
- You can SSH in, and there's a good hacker community around the tablet. A lot of cool open source software is written for it.
- Putting a file on the device for the first time, after doing the same on a kindle for years, is an adventure to say the least. There is no calibre plugin for it that I've found.
- I have never been able to use EPUBs properly on this tablet, a lot of my books just crash it. I have to convert them to PDF first on calibre. So highlighting is just markup on the PDF and not really selecting any text, but you can write directly on the book with notes.
- The first time I opened an EPUB, it took a while (10s) to load. When I tried to change the font of the EPUB on the reMarkable, it just stayed on the loading icon for hours, and I gave up on EPUBs then, and resorted to PDFs.
- There is no dictionary on the EPUB reader. I miss this feature a lot. And even if there were, I wouldn't be able to use it because I have to convert my EPUBs to PDF.
- Metadata for EPUBs or PDFs isn't visible, only the raw filenames. So no sorting by author, genre, etc.
- drawing and marking up is phenomenal, as is reading on such a huge screen. I absolutely love reading and journaling on this tablet.
- I have never succeeded in exporting my notebooks or marked up PDFs using the built in software after marking up or writing in 100+ pages, I have to use some community written software instead.
- It's $500 total after pen and cover.
- There is no backlight.
- OCR is done in the cloud, and not on the device.
- The iOS companion app is goofy, a lot of the navigation within the app seems to be done in a hacky way, instead of using the usual iOS SDK components. (They segment screen portions for scrolling on pages and for navigating the app, and it leads to just the most bizarre behavior).
I want to love this tablet. And all we need is a software update. The hardware was almost perfect, and now with USB-C, a magnet on the pen, and an eraser, the hardware is even closer to being perfect (I think the only thing left is a backlight).