4 ms·

How does it compare to, say, a remarkable tablet? I found the latter great for writing and reading well-formatted pages. But reading a typical whizzbang webpage

How does it compare to, say, a remarkable tablet? I found the latter great for writing and reading well-formatted pages. But reading a typical whizzbang webpage or using an app to be painful. The lack of a mouse made life particularly difficult.

Lio 4y ago
I guess one of the big differences would be the laptop form factor and having a keyboard. I’m less bothered about surfing the web on something like this. When writing I find it easier to type and edit what I’ve put down. Not sure if Remarkable has an optional keyboard or not but I think using a pen requires more thought overhead for me, if that makes any sense.
- rcoder 4y ago
  No direct keyboard support on the reMarkable, but you can trivially get a root shell over USB-C — while charging, unlike older USB OTG setups on phones and tablets with one micro-USB connector — so it’s totally something you can hack together. None of the bundled software is designed for using a keyboard, of course, so it’s going to be just as DIY as the very earliest Linux handhelds. (Anyone else remember the awful HP “iPaq” PDA Linux environment? I set one up because I could, and them never see the device again because the UX and battery life were so bad.)
  - Lio 4y ago
    That actually sounds like it would be totally be ok. If the goal is to get a distraction free writing tool all you really need is something like Vi, emacs or Wordstar/Joe in a terminal. I never had an ipak but I did have a couple of Sharp Zaurus PDAs running Linux back in the day. Just for kicks. I never did much with them.
will0 4y ago
I have a Onyx Boox Note Air, and it's amazing for reading / writing. I have an SSH app on it (it's Android) and the experience starts to fall apart there. I can type significantly faster than it can refresh and render the characters. That being said I'm sure there's some magic you could do to reduce latency here if you tried. I know it does some magic behind the scenes with the drawing to improve responsiveness.
- pjerem 4y ago
  > I know it does some magic behind the scenes with the drawing to improve responsiveness. The way I understand the technology : refresh time looks related to how many pixels you draw at once. When you write with a pen, very few pixels have to change state on a given unit of time (the pixels under the stylus) the "magic" behind fast writing on e-ink is to draw the pixels under the pen as fast as possible then if needed add details once the user stops writing. The problem with your terminal is once you reach the bottom of the screen and you start scrolling : from now on, every new line will redraw the entire screen. Now you are exactly drawing as much pixels as any e-book which is … slow. You would need a terminal without scrolling (or some mid-page scrolling). This could probably be done but you would probably have problems with a lot of cli programs.

Lio 4y ago

I guess one of the big differences would be the laptop form factor and having a keyboard. I’m less bothered about surfing the web on something like this. When writing I find it easier to type and edit what I’ve put down. Not sure if Remarkable has an optional keyboard or not but I think using a pen requires more thought overhead for me, if that makes any sense.

rcoder 4y ago
No direct keyboard support on the reMarkable, but you can trivially get a root shell over USB-C — while charging, unlike older USB OTG setups on phones and tablets with one micro-USB connector — so it’s totally something you can hack together. None of the bundled software is designed for using a keyboard, of course, so it’s going to be just as DIY as the very earliest Linux handhelds. (Anyone else remember the awful HP “iPaq” PDA Linux environment? I set one up because I could, and them never see the device again because the UX and battery life were so bad.)
- Lio 4y ago
  That actually sounds like it would be totally be ok. If the goal is to get a distraction free writing tool all you really need is something like Vi, emacs or Wordstar/Joe in a terminal. I never had an ipak but I did have a couple of Sharp Zaurus PDAs running Linux back in the day. Just for kicks. I never did much with them.

will0 4y ago

I have a Onyx Boox Note Air, and it's amazing for reading / writing. I have an SSH app on it (it's Android) and the experience starts to fall apart there. I can type significantly faster than it can refresh and render the characters. That being said I'm sure there's some magic you could do to reduce latency here if you tried. I know it does some magic behind the scenes with the drawing to improve responsiveness.

pjerem 4y ago
> I know it does some magic behind the scenes with the drawing to improve responsiveness. The way I understand the technology : refresh time looks related to how many pixels you draw at once. When you write with a pen, very few pixels have to change state on a given unit of time (the pixels under the stylus) the "magic" behind fast writing on e-ink is to draw the pixels under the pen as fast as possible then if needed add details once the user stops writing. The problem with your terminal is once you reach the bottom of the screen and you start scrolling : from now on, every new line will redraw the entire screen. Now you are exactly drawing as much pixels as any e-book which is … slow. You would need a terminal without scrolling (or some mid-page scrolling). This could probably be done but you would probably have problems with a lot of cli programs.