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I love my remarkable 2. Bought it before "Connect" was a thing, so I don't have a subscription. But I cannot recommend it to anyone. There are better alternativ
by laserbeam 2y ago
I love my remarkable 2. Bought it before "Connect" was a thing, so I don't have a subscription. But I cannot recommend it to anyone. There are better alternatives out there and MyDeepGuide (youtube) has reviewed them all better than I ever could.
The software is moving too slowly and often in a wrong direction. Especially since they released the keyboard folio most updates were around typing (which is supar on any eink device)... and they generally made my experience as a pen user worse.
I don't care if the new hardware is awesome, whenever mine breaks I will switch to a competitor.
EDIT: the reviewer I mention is excited about the device https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkEg8WLeW4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkEg8WLeW4Q
- RyeCombinator 2y agoSupernote is a good choice!
- xrd 2y agoI excitedly went to that channel. I'm overwhelmed! Can you tell me the top three devices he recommends so I can review those videos? Man, he makes a lot of stuff!
- funksta 2y agoI believe he has said the Supernote A5X is his favourite. There's a newer A5X2 coming out later this year to update it (though it has repeatedly been delayed)
- widowlark 2y agoThe A6X2 is great as well, and fits a surprisingly small niche for smaller writing devices. I would also love a device that is the size of a pocket notepad someday
- NoahKAndrews 2y agoI like my A5X
- desert_rue 2y agoI like my A6x
- vadansky 2y agoLooking at the video there is a significant lag in the rendering. Is it noticeable when you're writing? Also looks like there is no pressure sensitivity so all the notes are come out in that ugly fat style. Maybe I'm just spoiled with my Wacom though!
- gpm 2y ago> Looking at the video there is a significant lag in the rendering. Is it noticeable when you're writing? Speaking from my experience with a remarkable, not on that device. I think two factors contribute to this. One is that there are different rendering modes, and it uses a very fast one for updating pen strokes so there is less delay than you would guess by looking at larger updates. The other is that the stylus obscures the very end of the line anyways.
- ahci8e 2y agoI have a Supernote A5X! It's great! I got it to replace my old rm and never looked back. I also recently bought the Supernote A6X2. Not sure which I prefer size-wise. Sometimes the smaller A6X2 is great, especially for reading. Other times drawing on the A5X is more comfortable. One thing I don't like about the A6X2 is that there is a noticeable gap between the screen and the pen. This gap isn't there (or maybe is just way smaller) on the A5X. The screen on the A6X2 is also textured, I guess to try to mimic paper, but I grew to like the gel pen feel of the A5X screen.
- Loic 2y agoAlso a very happy user of the A5X. Using it for about 3 years now, with a Lamy pen. I could not imagine reviewing papers sent to me as pdf without it.
- laserbeam 2y agoHe does have best-of videos. There's at least one at the end of each year, but there was also one a few days/weeks ago.
- wellthisisgreat 2y agoI went through all of these devices a couple years ago, and chose Supernote A5X which seems to be the winner on that channel too. I think they are about to release Sueprnote A5X2 in a few weeks also
- mancerayder 2y agoI've just ordered the Supernote Nomad. Small but my first experience with these things. Hopefully I haven't made a mistake!
- mempko 2y agoI bought one. No regrets yet. I use it for both reading and note taking.
- _ph_ 2y agoWhich device would work better than the remarkable for its intended purpose of note taking?
- freilanzer 2y agoFrom my searches, Supernote A5x or Samsung Tab 9 series.
- dotancohen 2y agoI'm typing this on my Boox Note Air 2 Plus. I absolutely love this device. I usually use it without the backlight, but sometimes at night I'll use the backlight and the adjustable blue light filter is an absolute must. This is my fifth or sixth E-Ink device, and probably my favorite. It's an Android device, so everything that I was already using works on it. Notably Firefox when properly configured, and Ankidroid.
- bee_rider 2y agoI just worry about using Android… this sort of e-ink device seems somehow even more personal than a laptop or cellphone (which are already quite personal); like a journal or something. I’d love one that had a community developed OS, like Linux or BSD.
- pjmlp 2y agoBy now it is more than proven that devices with community developed OSes never take off to the amount to keep a sustainable business, and then there is the whole FOSS OS distribution politics on top.
- agentultra 2y agoReMarkable2 is running on Gentoo iirc.
- pjmlp 2y agoThey use their own in-house OS, based on Linux, Codex.
- dTal 2y agoI don't think that's true, but in any case it doesn't have to be "community developed" to not be Android.
- DavideNL 2y ago> "I just worry about using Android…" Exactly, I'm avoiding them for the same reason, I don't want to use a personal e-ink device running on an OS created by the biggest advertiser in the world. I was hoping Pocketbook would release something new this year running some Linux distro / with less tracking, and more privacy. PS. Also: i want a light sensor to automatically adjust brightness/night mode based on lighting conditions (previous Pocketbook models don't have this.)
- wavemode 2y agoLast time I shopped for an e-ink device (as a gift for my brother), I considered the remarkable, and even purchased one. Ended up returning it. It's just too limited in too many unnecessary ways. I got a supernote instead. He couldn't be happier with it.
- JeremyNT 2y agoI believe what you say is true for the average HN reader. I also believe the subscription is kind of ridiculous. However, I also believe there is a market out there for a device like this that is 1) extremely limited and 2) very focused on a few specific tasks (handwriting and document review workflow) Sometimes the other stuff is a distraction. My wife owns the remarkable 2 and it is really good for what she wants ("just" a replacement for paper).
- boomskats 2y agoI've owned a rm2 since xmas 2020 and really used to love it. I even brought an old obsidian plugin for it back from the dead. But the power button gave up 13 months in and they were dicks about it, and then when the pen nib holder disintegrated and they insisted it wasn't a known defect, I just gave up and it's been sat on my shelf ever since. For anyone still into them though, a Lamy EMR pen coupled with the Wacom felt pen nibs (pn ACK22213) is an incredible upgrade which makes it feel like a real fineliner. Similarly, I found the various titanium nibs that you can get off amazon made it feel like a real ballpoint [0]. [0]: https://reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/1545mn9/excelsior_a_fix_for_all_those_outofwarranty/ https://reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/1545mn9/excel...
- sp1rit 2y agoThey absolutely know about this, given that the seemingly reworked markers for this tablet have a redesigned nib holder that doesn't look like it breaks as easily as the old ones. This is a common enough issue that there are people on ebay selling caps to replace the broken nib holder, but they seem to expensive for what amounts to a piece of 3D-printed plastic; I might just look into your solution with the lamy pen. It's just a shame that reMarkable is handling those issues so badly. They force you to buy a new pen for $130 because a little piece of broken plastic.
- juahan 2y agoNot sure if country of residence makes any difference (I’m in EU), but at least I got a new pen from warranty when the nib holder broke. And I think it was even little over 2 years after the purchase.
- VeejayRampay 2y agostopped using mine because of the nib holder (mainly because I was furious at the build quality)
- DavideNL 2y ago> "But the power button gave up 13 months in" I had the exact same issue on mine... you can just feel it's bad quality.
- adastra22 2y agoEvery single update has made my reMarkable tablet worse. I’ve stopped using it as a result. I have absolutely no idea why they went all in on keyboard input, when the whole freaking point of the tablet was that you could write on it like paper.
- bccdee 2y agoI imagine a lot of people bought reMarkables, enjoyed the stylus handwriting for a few weeks, and then remembered that they actually prefer typing to writing by hand. So the product shifted to become a keyboard-driven device with an e-ink screen that incidentally offers handwriting as a novelty, rather than a primarily handwriting-driven device.
- geoelectric 2y agoI think they just realized they could get Freewrite’s market too if it did both.
- adastra22 2y agoMaybe? Anicdata, but nobody I know who has a reMarkable tablet uses that interaction mode. If I want a keyboard, I'll use a laptop.
- CapeTheory 2y agoI've been using a reMarkable since the first release and have never experienced what you describe. Yes, the updated focus on typing more recently - but what else can they really do for the writing experience without new hardware? Lots of updates I don't care about, but none that make it "worse".
- laserbeam 2y agoI really hate accidentally hitting the text input button when reaching out to change my pen/tool. All other tools I can easily just spam and click through, but the text one is slow and messes up the display with the virtual keyboard. I get the physical keyboard, but the virtual one has so far only annoyed me.
- geniium 2y agoIs it just me or the camera man has Parkinson !?
- karaterobot 2y agoIf anybody else is wondering whether you need a Connect subscription to use the device, it seems the answer is no[1]. I watched the linked video and got kind of excited about buying one, and I was wondering about whether they'd pull the move of making me pay them a subscription to even use the thing I already paid them to own. That would basically make the whole device a non-starter for me. Somewhere in the midst of this, I realized the actual reason I won't buy it is that I have no real use case for it, even though I think the technology is cool. Your mileage may vary. [1] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Using-reMarkable-without-a-subscription https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Using-reMarkable-wi...
- destraynor 2y ago100 times this. The hardware is great. The software sucks. I literally can't believe in 2024 it's still not straight forward to "send a blog post from my phone to my remarkable" without some mangling happening along the way. It was genuinely jawdropping for me, I ended up contacting an employee on LinkedIn to confirm that this wasn't a well supported workflow
- qiqitori 2y agoOther people in this thread are saying that you can run your own software on it. If that is the case, it should be easy to integrate whatever you want, or am I mistaken?
- kchr 2y agoI believe adding extra components (i.e. custom software) would classify as the "mangling" GP wanted to avoid.
- paulcole 2y agoIt’s 2024, like 6 people read blog posts lol. Not surprising they don’t support this. Sending a PDF from phone to Remarkable is dead simple.
- wpm 2y agoFriend, like 50% of the content on this website is blog posts. Are there only six of us? Are all these accounts just bots? Are you even real? Am I even real????
- maximus-decimus 2y agoI regret buying mine. I like my Sony dpts1 much better which was 13 inches (a great size for reading book pdfs) while managing to be lighter somehow. I also used that to take university notes and do university cs homework. I just can't recommend an e-book reader that's smaller than a piece of A1 paper if its purpose is to replace A1 sized paper (either books or notebooks)
- nenaoki 2y agoA4 surely. A1 paper is massive.
- justinlloyd 2y agoThe kind of ebook reader you open to the crossword puzzle and say "harrumph" an awful lot whilst sitting in your high back wing chair in front of the fireplace where discrete employees refill your brandy snifter. You may occasionally bend down one corner of the ebook reader as you peer askance at the likes of who they are letting in these days. There is a member of staff whose sole job it is to stand nearby with a real news paper and snap the pages to show your displeasure as you return to crossword. Five down, "someone who adds nothing to the conversation beyond pointing out the minor flaws in another's statements." Begins with P... With P... Hmmm... ;-) I kind of like this A1 ebook idea. Time to get out the wallet.
- hyperbrainer 2y agoGet a touchscreen TV?
- justinlloyd 2y agoTo difficult to swat flies with and the hired help cannot spread them on the kitchen floor after mopping so that the floor dries faster.
- mkl 2y agoA4 paper has a diagonal of about 364mm (≈14.3 inches). I've not seen an e-paper e-book reader that big. Several companies lie and claim to have A4 screens when they're considerably smaller.
- eli4d 2y agoI have a ReMarkable 2. I 100% agree with this - hardware is great but the software is terrible and it isn't being improved. They think of themselves as Apple in terms of the design but they forget that Apple also has decent software. A couple of other things: - The Connect subscription: you don't need to use it if you use a USB connector to your computer and run the reMarkable app (but it's annoying). Because they use a custom OS they can't have a Dropbox, Google Drive, or One drive app. If they used Android than they could have this. - They have a document type called Notebook. You can create a Notebook and it comes with different templates for page designs (lined, graph, etc..). The galling thing is that they don't allow you to load your own template. You can do so if you ssh in and modify the OS but then any update destroys everything. I contacted them about this and the answer was basically "we don't give a crap". I will NEVER buy anything from this company. They like to naval gaze at their hardware and they don't care about the software nor their users.