4 ms·

I'm a heavy ReMarkable user, mostly as a note taking device when doing client meetings. For personal use I use it a lot for annotating philosophy papers and so

I'm a heavy ReMarkable user, mostly as a note taking device when doing client meetings. For personal use I use it a lot for annotating philosophy papers and source materials, and the lack of a split screen feature is extremely frustrating. Writing annotations or commentaries on texts means writing in the margins or switching back and forth between books (often a paper book and the remarkable for writing, or 2 notebooks in the device which is a slow operation). A split screen mode would have been extremely useful, or lacking that a method for having a page-matched 'fold-out' so I can just associate a full blank page to each source page for my commentary. I know there's an unofficial hack that adds this, but why ReMarkable doesn't I can't fathom, especially as annotations and such are marketed as primary use cases for the device. /rant :)

dunefox 2y ago
I find mine close to useless. The pen is sometimes really inconsistent, to the point where the ink gets applied 1mm from the pen tip. Also, no canvas for pdf annotation, no split screen, no search in pdfs and notes, only tags, etc. It's strictly worse than paper for me.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  That is likely a problem with that specific stylus --- have you tried a different stylus?
- turtlebits 2y ago
  Have you contacted support? I've had one for over 4 years (and used up 2 packs of nibs) and it writes perfectly, and much prefer it over the iPad.
parasense 2y ago
Hi Locutus_ I'm one of those people with "analysis paralysis" towards the E-Ink ecosystem. Remarkable Paper Pro came out while I was researching, and made me aware of the set of dichotomies around the notion of minimalism vs full blow Android, black & white only tablets vs Galery-3 vs Kaliedo, front lights vs having a screen closer to the surface without front lights... It's difficult to enter the e-paper market. For me, I'm a science student currently struggling through classes like Integral Calculus, Linear Angebra, etc... So I'm usually writing math equations. My first question is how does Remarkable handle math writing? I'm guessing there is nothing to read things like a handwritten Sumation, or Integral, and then convert to Tex ? Is black and White really the best kind of e-ink, or is that the prejudice or bias of those old time e-ink users who have been using the tech a while now? What about screen size, is the 10.3 really that great (smaller that A4 paper)? Is Remarkable's "minimalism" claims actually legitimate, or more of a coping mechanism to explain away their apparent lack of features?
- bc569a80a344f9c 2y ago
  I’m currently doing a Masters in Computer Engineering, struggling through a lot of calculus and linear algebra. I have a Remarkable 2 for notes and working on math problem set homework to hand in as PDFs. It’s fine. It doesn’t do anything other than record your handwriting. You can try and have it convert it to text, this works for language but fails utterly at math. I got the better pen that you can turn around to use as an eraser as using the UI to change the tool from pen to eraser and back is incredibly annoying. I recently got an iPad to use instead mostly because I wanted one anyway, and because my handwriting is atrocious and iOS 18 pretties it up. I haven’t quite made up my mind on which one I’ll continue using. The iPad and its pen are more responsive, the fact that it improves my handwriting is a boon for the TAs, and solving some of the simpler math automatically is neat. The built in Notes app is garbage for handing in multi-page PDFs, bafflingly this is impossible, but the Goodnotes app is cheap and rather good. There’s other apps to convert handwritten math into Latex. The Remarkable produces much smaller file sizes (I’m not sure why I care, the web app I upload homework to sure doesn’t) and the battery lasts much longer. I find replacing the pen tips very annoying and have no idea why that is needed. I’ll probably end up using the iPad more, but I’ll guess I’ll see.
  - parasense 2y ago
    Hi bc569a80a344f9c, I also use a table for university, instead of a laptop I've got the bigass Samsung s9 ultra (or whatever it's called) because it's near A4 size for reading PDF papers, etc.. This tablet has a special accessory that is a screen overly that is textured glass, so the "Writing feel" seems more like a pencile or whatever paper-like... It's marketed towards artists or whatever creative types. I think the Remarkable has that feature built into the screen without any accessory. You might see if you can find something like that for Apple tablets. As far as a writing or note taking table goes, for people in the University, we really do need integration with things like Google or Microsoft. The whole idea that a minimal table requires the user to be subject to gatekeeping things like a computer/mobile app to do basic input/output of documents is quite frankly absurd. There is nothing distracting about saving a document into OneDrive or Google Drive. I really do suspect the whole "focus" of Remarkable, and similar, is a cope. I totally get people with ADHD exist, and those people appreciate the kind of devices that actively prevent them from straying off their path.... but this is ridiculous.
kweks 2y ago
Since a few updates ago, margins and pages are "limitless", so you can scroll a page (including PDFs) to the side to reveal a parallel page / much larger margin.

dunefox 2y ago

I find mine close to useless. The pen is sometimes really inconsistent, to the point where the ink gets applied 1mm from the pen tip. Also, no canvas for pdf annotation, no split screen, no search in pdfs and notes, only tags, etc. It's strictly worse than paper for me.

WillAdams 2y ago
That is likely a problem with that specific stylus --- have you tried a different stylus?
turtlebits 2y ago
Have you contacted support? I've had one for over 4 years (and used up 2 packs of nibs) and it writes perfectly, and much prefer it over the iPad.

parasense 2y ago

Hi Locutus_ I'm one of those people with "analysis paralysis" towards the E-Ink ecosystem. Remarkable Paper Pro came out while I was researching, and made me aware of the set of dichotomies around the notion of minimalism vs full blow Android, black & white only tablets vs Galery-3 vs Kaliedo, front lights vs having a screen closer to the surface without front lights... It's difficult to enter the e-paper market. For me, I'm a science student currently struggling through classes like Integral Calculus, Linear Angebra, etc... So I'm usually writing math equations. My first question is how does Remarkable handle math writing? I'm guessing there is nothing to read things like a handwritten Sumation, or Integral, and then convert to Tex ? Is black and White really the best kind of e-ink, or is that the prejudice or bias of those old time e-ink users who have been using the tech a while now? What about screen size, is the 10.3 really that great (smaller that A4 paper)? Is Remarkable's "minimalism" claims actually legitimate, or more of a coping mechanism to explain away their apparent lack of features?

bc569a80a344f9c 2y ago
I’m currently doing a Masters in Computer Engineering, struggling through a lot of calculus and linear algebra. I have a Remarkable 2 for notes and working on math problem set homework to hand in as PDFs. It’s fine. It doesn’t do anything other than record your handwriting. You can try and have it convert it to text, this works for language but fails utterly at math. I got the better pen that you can turn around to use as an eraser as using the UI to change the tool from pen to eraser and back is incredibly annoying. I recently got an iPad to use instead mostly because I wanted one anyway, and because my handwriting is atrocious and iOS 18 pretties it up. I haven’t quite made up my mind on which one I’ll continue using. The iPad and its pen are more responsive, the fact that it improves my handwriting is a boon for the TAs, and solving some of the simpler math automatically is neat. The built in Notes app is garbage for handing in multi-page PDFs, bafflingly this is impossible, but the Goodnotes app is cheap and rather good. There’s other apps to convert handwritten math into Latex. The Remarkable produces much smaller file sizes (I’m not sure why I care, the web app I upload homework to sure doesn’t) and the battery lasts much longer. I find replacing the pen tips very annoying and have no idea why that is needed. I’ll probably end up using the iPad more, but I’ll guess I’ll see.
- parasense 2y ago
  Hi bc569a80a344f9c, I also use a table for university, instead of a laptop I've got the bigass Samsung s9 ultra (or whatever it's called) because it's near A4 size for reading PDF papers, etc.. This tablet has a special accessory that is a screen overly that is textured glass, so the "Writing feel" seems more like a pencile or whatever paper-like... It's marketed towards artists or whatever creative types. I think the Remarkable has that feature built into the screen without any accessory. You might see if you can find something like that for Apple tablets. As far as a writing or note taking table goes, for people in the University, we really do need integration with things like Google or Microsoft. The whole idea that a minimal table requires the user to be subject to gatekeeping things like a computer/mobile app to do basic input/output of documents is quite frankly absurd. There is nothing distracting about saving a document into OneDrive or Google Drive. I really do suspect the whole "focus" of Remarkable, and similar, is a cope. I totally get people with ADHD exist, and those people appreciate the kind of devices that actively prevent them from straying off their path.... but this is ridiculous.

kweks 2y ago

Since a few updates ago, margins and pages are "limitless", so you can scroll a page (including PDFs) to the side to reveal a parallel page / much larger margin.