7 ms·

I'm a fairly early adopter of the RM, and bought it for keeping handwritten notes. I don't produce a great amount of notes as a student might, but I find that t

I'm a fairly early adopter of the RM, and bought it for keeping handwritten notes. I don't produce a great amount of notes as a student might, but I find that the experience of writing really helps me think. Some thoughts on the device: * The writing experience is top notch. It feels like pen and paper. I recently had the chance to try Onyx Boox Max 2 (very briefly), and it's nowhere close to the RM as far as the tactile feeling goes. This is the main selling point of the RM, and it's very good. * It's an open-source Linux-based device but not entirely. The actual UI application isn't open source. But as others have said here, it has pretty good hacking potential, and it's definitely more open than most commercial devices. The company's support of open-source was another reason for me to buy it. * The on-tablet software started out really bad but has improved. The first version had a bug that dramatically reduced battery life. It took a few more updates to get essential features like inserting a blank page in the middle of a notebook. * The off-tablet software is bad. There's a file manager webapp with remarkably poor UX, the cloud sync API isn't particularly convenient for automation, and so on. * As a reader, it's mediocre at best. PDFs formatted for large screens look good, but rendering is slow, navigation is poor, etc. I would absolutely not replace my Kindle with the RM. To summarize, I think the RM is a very good device if you treat it as a digital paper replacement. That's what it is for me, and I'm happy. But if you want a good e-book reader, or any advanced software at all, this isn't the right device.

diggan 7y ago
> * It's an open-source Linux-based device but not entirely. The actual UI application isn't open source. But as others have said here, it has pretty good hacking potential, and it's definitely more open than most commercial devices. The company's support of open-source was another reason for me to buy it. Can you tell us a bit more about this? Took a look at their website and searched around a bit, but don't find anything about it. What makes ReMarkable more open than most other commercial devices? Seems any device running Android and alike would be more open to hacking. Also can't find anything about the company's support of open source.
- ACS_Solver 7y ago
  For one, unlike most Android devices, you don't have to root the RM. It comes with SSH running and you have the root password. The company's Github [1] has most of the source code, from their Linux kernel to the software update daemon. Their CTO, Martin Sandsmark, is a long-time KDE developer. Unfortunately, xochitl (the device's main UI) isn't open. It's a major miss in their open approach, and frankly I don't get why they would keep it closed - the RM's competitive advantage is in the hardware design, the xochitl software is merely okay and could only benefit from user patches. [1] https://github.com/reMarkable https://github.com/reMarkable
  - knolax 7y ago
    > It comes with SSH running and you have the root password Is the password different for every device? Is the ssh daemon updated regularly? Seems like a massive security vulnerability otherwise.
    - ACS_Solver 7y ago
      The password is randomly generated for each device, yes. And of course the network only becomes available once you connect the device to your WiFi, or via cable to a PC. Once you're connected, you can also change to key-only authentication if you want. The SSH daemon is Dropbear, and it doesn't seem to be updated though: > reMarkable: ~/ dropbear -V > Dropbear v2016.72
      - sandsmark 7y ago
        Hmm, I thought we were at 2017.75, are you sure your device is up to date? We shipped the first software with an old dropbear, though it had backported patches for the known CVEs: http://cgit.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/tree/meta/recipes-core/dropbear/dropbear?h=krogoth http://cgit.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/tree/meta/rec...
        ACS_Solver 7y ago
jdeeny 7y ago
The software, on and off tablet, feels like it was an MVP and now they are improving it gradually. The quality of the existing software is actually pretty good, everything is smooth and polished. It is just not very packed with features. It is incredibly easy to come up with must-have and would-be-nice features for this device. The hardware is a dream and there is clearly a huge potential. I saw they are hiring software developers, hopefully that will speed up development.
- ACS_Solver 7y ago
  > The quality of the existing software is actually pretty good, everything is smooth and polished. It is just not very packed with features. I would say it's very far from polished, but it's finally okay now. It took a long time to get there though. I don't even want any particular features for the device, it should be just like a paper notebook, with minimalistic software. It was only in this spring's update, a few months ago, that they finally shipped features to manage notebook pages, such as moving a page or inserting a blank page. It's one of the very basic features the device should have, but I had owned the RM for over a year before finally getting that. I understand they're a small company with a small software team, but I think it's still important to point out the software weaknesses while saying that the hardware is indeed amazing.
justinclift 7y ago
Would it be feasible to put alternative PDF reader software on it instead? Since it seems like their proprietary software stack is crap, but the hardware is good, then getting decent software on it may be the better route. :)
diffeomorphism 7y ago
Is the writing feel due hardware or software? I remember reading that remarkable spent quite a bit of work on getting the latency of the pen input very low (which I guess is important for the feel). However, for the tactile feel I would guess that the screen coating and the pen nib material are even more important (e.g. felt nibs or matte screen protectors)?
- ACS_Solver 7y ago
  Hardware primarily. They've done a great job with the latency as well, but if you close your eyes and write on the RM, it's almost like writing in a paper notebook. It's the combination of the screen and the marker tips. As the marker tip gets worn out, the paper feeling gradually gets worse.

diggan 7y ago

> * It's an open-source Linux-based device but not entirely. The actual UI application isn't open source. But as others have said here, it has pretty good hacking potential, and it's definitely more open than most commercial devices. The company's support of open-source was another reason for me to buy it. Can you tell us a bit more about this? Took a look at their website and searched around a bit, but don't find anything about it. What makes ReMarkable more open than most other commercial devices? Seems any device running Android and alike would be more open to hacking. Also can't find anything about the company's support of open source.

ACS_Solver 7y ago
For one, unlike most Android devices, you don't have to root the RM. It comes with SSH running and you have the root password. The company's Github [1] has most of the source code, from their Linux kernel to the software update daemon. Their CTO, Martin Sandsmark, is a long-time KDE developer. Unfortunately, xochitl (the device's main UI) isn't open. It's a major miss in their open approach, and frankly I don't get why they would keep it closed - the RM's competitive advantage is in the hardware design, the xochitl software is merely okay and could only benefit from user patches. [1] https://github.com/reMarkable https://github.com/reMarkable
- knolax 7y ago
  > It comes with SSH running and you have the root password Is the password different for every device? Is the ssh daemon updated regularly? Seems like a massive security vulnerability otherwise.
  - ACS_Solver 7y ago
    The password is randomly generated for each device, yes. And of course the network only becomes available once you connect the device to your WiFi, or via cable to a PC. Once you're connected, you can also change to key-only authentication if you want. The SSH daemon is Dropbear, and it doesn't seem to be updated though: > reMarkable: ~/ dropbear -V > Dropbear v2016.72
    - sandsmark 7y ago
      Hmm, I thought we were at 2017.75, are you sure your device is up to date? We shipped the first software with an old dropbear, though it had backported patches for the known CVEs: http://cgit.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/tree/meta/recipes-core/dropbear/dropbear?h=krogoth http://cgit.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/tree/meta/rec...
      - ACS_Solver 7y ago

jdeeny 7y ago

The software, on and off tablet, feels like it was an MVP and now they are improving it gradually. The quality of the existing software is actually pretty good, everything is smooth and polished. It is just not very packed with features. It is incredibly easy to come up with must-have and would-be-nice features for this device. The hardware is a dream and there is clearly a huge potential. I saw they are hiring software developers, hopefully that will speed up development.

ACS_Solver 7y ago
> The quality of the existing software is actually pretty good, everything is smooth and polished. It is just not very packed with features. I would say it's very far from polished, but it's finally okay now. It took a long time to get there though. I don't even want any particular features for the device, it should be just like a paper notebook, with minimalistic software. It was only in this spring's update, a few months ago, that they finally shipped features to manage notebook pages, such as moving a page or inserting a blank page. It's one of the very basic features the device should have, but I had owned the RM for over a year before finally getting that. I understand they're a small company with a small software team, but I think it's still important to point out the software weaknesses while saying that the hardware is indeed amazing.

justinclift 7y ago

Would it be feasible to put alternative PDF reader software on it instead? Since it seems like their proprietary software stack is crap, but the hardware is good, then getting decent software on it may be the better route. :)

diffeomorphism 7y ago

Is the writing feel due hardware or software? I remember reading that remarkable spent quite a bit of work on getting the latency of the pen input very low (which I guess is important for the feel). However, for the tactile feel I would guess that the screen coating and the pen nib material are even more important (e.g. felt nibs or matte screen protectors)?

ACS_Solver 7y ago
Hardware primarily. They've done a great job with the latency as well, but if you close your eyes and write on the RM, it's almost like writing in a paper notebook. It's the combination of the screen and the marker tips. As the marker tip gets worn out, the paper feeling gradually gets worse.