
ReMarkable Paper Tablet - mtaksrud
https://blog.getremarkable.com/better-paper-better-thinking-432d8a283300#.g7jp42ohv
======
linuxkerneldev
For those feeling the impulse to empty their wallets, I urge caution. I just
got done being burned by the kickstarter for the goodreader equivalent.
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-
reade...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reader#/)

I see no evidence that the team behind this "remarkable" product has ever
completed anything of this scale.

Some of the claims are very suspicious.
[https://liliputing.com/2016/11/remarkable-10-3-inch-
writing-...](https://liliputing.com/2016/11/remarkable-10-3-inch-writing-
slate-goes-pre-order-379.html)

"reMarkable says the screen has 55ms latency for quick response from pen
input"

55ms would be impressive for an LCD. Even the iPad Pro has a latency of 60ms
[1]. So a 55ms claim for an E Ink panel? Should raise one's alarm detector.

[1] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9766/the-apple-ipad-pro-
review...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9766/the-apple-ipad-pro-review/9)

~~~
scottlocklin
They're just reusing the hardware module Sony uses on its Digital Paper DPTS1
thingee and putting Android on it. Assuming it's a legit project.

~~~
sandsmark
no, we don't use Android, unlike pretty much everyone else.

and the EPD is designed by e ink based on our requirements, e. g. the size and
high DPI.

~~~
linuxkerneldev
> no, we don't use Android, unlike pretty much everyone else.

Most companies making EPD products use the base OS provided by their SoC
vendor. Based on your spec which says 1GHz ARM A9 , I'm guessing you're using
the NXP (formerly Freescale, now Qualcomm) i.mx6 SoloLite since that's the
only 1GHz ARM A9 with an EPDC controller on the market. Freescale gives you a
Linux EPD and an Android EPD Linux BSP, both of which use the same epdc driver
with pretty much the same latency which is definitely pretty high, much higher
than 55ms for sure.

> EPD is designed by e ink based on our requirements, e. g. the size and high
> DPI

Are you claiming that E Ink manufactured a custom 10.3" panel just for you?

~~~
sandsmark
Again, I can't discuss too many technical details. But yes, it's an i.MX6SL, I
thought we mentioned that on the web page.

And there are actually several drivers for the EPDC available. Two from
freescale for the imx6 and imx7 (though there are some other improvements in
the _v2, apart from imx7 support). There's also another one written by lab126,
but I'm not sure if they actually use it. there's also some minor variations
in the drivers in the different kernel branches and trees from NXP. And then
you have the u-boot drivers. And I think there might be one in the bare metal
SDK, but I haven't looked. And then you have the 5bit waveform support, which
is a whole other story (with iffy GPL implications for some vendors I won't
name).

And the display was designed based on our requirements, but we don't have any
kind of exclusivity on it. there's already other devices coming out with it
(you can find them if you google the specs, especially the awkward resolution
we got thanks to the limits of the technology and our DPI requirement).

~~~
linuxkerneldev
> it's an i.MX6SL, I thought we mentioned that on the web page.

Your website only says: "Processor 1 GHz ARM A9 CPU"

> Two from freescale for the imx6 and imx7

Ok, but you are using imx6.

> There's also another one written by lab126

Nope. That's the same driver from Freescale. You can download the kindle
source to verify.
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720)

> then you have the u-boot drivers.

u-boot just draws a splash screen.

> you have the 5bit waveform support, which is a whole other story (with iffy
> GPL implications for some vendors I won't name).

I don't understand what you're trying to communicate. Why would a EPD waveform
have any GPL implications? An EPD waveform is not software, it is a set of
timing values and that's it.

> the display was designed based on our requirements

I'm having difficulty understanding what that means. It sounded like you were
saying E Ink designed a panel for you, but maybe what you're saying is just
that E Ink had a panel that met your requirements.

~~~
sandsmark
there are two epdc drivers in the kindle gpl releases. the source for the
lab126 one is only available in the tarballs you linked (named
mxc_epdc_fb_lab126.c).

as for the waveforms, I'm talking about support for the REAGL (sic) waveforms.
grep for it in the linux source in the tarballs you linked to.

and e ink did not have a panel that met our requirements, and designed a new
one after we talked with them.

edit; just to be clear, we don't use the lab126 driver, it was just an example
of there being more drivers for the imx6 generation epdc.

------
pttrsmrt
I was sold until this line:

"Your thoughts, whether they’re words or sketches, are instantly synced to
reMarkable’s cloud service"

Imagine for a company only five years back to literally say that your thoughts
are sent to their server. I welcome any product that understand we need less
distractions and less help from so-called AI, but there are many reasons to be
cautious about this one (preorder, latency claim and lack of technical details
being some of them).

EDIT: After looking a bit more around, their technical claims does seem
credible. Their CTO is/was even a developer at KDE, so let's hope they also
will support open standards and personal servers. If so then it's literally
the device I've always been dreaming of!

~~~
sandsmark
the reason we're a bit scant on technical details so far is partly because we
have spent most of our technical resources on actually making the device. but
we'll try to get out a more technical blog post soon.

another reason is that we can't share too much about what we're working on in
case some journalist picks up some wording as promising some feature we can't
deliver on. a lot of the stuff we're working on is stuff we don't know if we
can deliver in time, in a polished enough form. so what we're talking about is
what we have already solved, and which we believe is going to sell the device
best to the people we target.

lastly, Certain Companies that have tried to do this for years are really,
really interested in how we have solved the latency problem, and we don't want
to help them.

EDIT:

> Their CTO is/was even a developer at KDE

is, thank you very much (latest commit was to kio on saturday). even if I
don't have as much time for KDE stuff as I used to for obvious reasons.

~~~
pttrsmrt
Great to hear from you guys directly! I guess we (i.e techie internet folks,
you included) have been served so many crowd funded promises that it's
difficult to believe things that are too good to be true. Although I'm
personally a big advocate of keeping stuff open, I do understand that a small
company has to have some secrets for themselves.

Now I see you're also a developer at KDE which certainly gives credibility to
your statements! But on the same note I truly hope the information from the
device will be encrypted on your server, and that an opt-out of this sync will
be possible. And if there will be support for Owncloud or the like, you've
literally made my dream device!

I truly understand and support that you don't promise stuff that aren't really
made yet, and I really hope the privacy concerns will be taken as serious as
they are.

~~~
sandsmark
> I guess we (i.e techie internet folks, you included) have been served so
> many crowd funded promises that it's difficult to believe things that are
> too good to be true.

well, I personally have basically stopped contributing to crowdfunding
campaigns, I've been burnt a lot. and this is also why we haven't gone public
earlier, even when we've been working on this for years.

> I truly understand and support that you don't promise stuff that aren't
> really made yet, and I really hope the privacy concerns will be taken as
> serious as they are.

well, privacy is very important to me personally (I even have a couple of
commits in owncloud), and we've been discussing several ways to protect the
privacy. but until we know which way we do it we can't promise anything, even
just speculating will lead to people assuming and get angry if we go for
something else.

~~~
AlbertoGP
I appreciate your approach of avoiding speculation (apart from the mass-
production uncertainties) and I've just pre-ordered. I have a couple LCD pen
tablets (Samsung Note 10 and Surface Pro 3, apart from a USB Wacom Intuos 3)
and a Kobo Aura H₂O, and your device looks like something I'd use often.

Just to give you a little feedback, I don't expect any reply for now:

\- if the cloud sync can not be disabled I'll just nuke the packets at the
router, but I suspect the option will be there.

\- I want the SDK (mentioned as possible in your FAQ), unofficial-void-your-
warranty all the way to the moon if you want, to have a programmable
scientific calculator (maybe with Computer Algebra System functionality if I
find the time) on this device. Having to build a complete firmware image in my
laptop (Linux) and flashing it just to install my application is acceptable,
simply uploading the file as if it was a PDF is better.

~~~
sandsmark
> apart from the mass-production uncertainties

these uncertainties is why we hired Dragon Innovation early on. they're very,
very good at this and has a very good track record when it comes to hardware
startups (e. g. pebble and makerbot).

[https://www.dragoninnovation.com/customers](https://www.dragoninnovation.com/customers)

~~~
gpetersen
Funny you should mention Pebble, a company currently in its death throes. I
hope reMarkable survives longer than they do, since I have now pre-ordered
from both companies.

------
Qwertystop
What I would consider the killer features for this, if present (as in, if
guaranteed these, I would buy it):

\- The ability to use it as a drawing tablet for another computer. It's
already a perfectly good large touch-sensitive surface meant for drawing, why
should I need to buy a second one for Illustrator?

\- ssh, and some way to connect an external keyboard. E-paper is excellent for
a terminal, and this is big enough to be useful.

\- Some way to use purely as a display, whether by some plug or by X-server
broadcasting via SSH or some form of screen-sharing client. Most non-video
uses of a computer (if color is not crucial) work just fine on e-paper.

\- The ability to turn off cloud-sync. Sorry, but I'm not sending you
everything I write. For some people that might even go deeper than a personal
choice (NDAs, if they work on anything proprietary, depending on how they're
phrased).

So, basically, the ability to use it for its components and not just the
singular agglomeration of them that you envision. I put that above even the
ability to write your own software for it.

In other words, if ReMarkable has the following, I would have already pre-
ordered, even if it's got nothing else:

\- an e-paper touch display

\- plus Wi-Fi, USB, HDMI, etc.

\- the ability to disable automatic cloud sync

\- with four built-in programs:

\-- ssh

\-- drivers-for-use-as-drawing-tablet

\-- VNC client

\-- The reader/drawing program demonstrated in the video, for use alone

------
kartoffelmos
I've tried the prototype device, and I'm very excited that this is finally
coming to market!

That said, and it might be nitpicky of me, but the choice of micro-USB for
charging is a real annoyance. This is a premium device at a premium price
point which I'm expecting to keep for many years. USB-C for portable devices
is something that I'm considering a must-have at this point. Will probably
wait for the first hardware revision.

~~~
sandsmark
the reasons we decided against usb c are a) the device would have to be
thicker, b) our industrial designer didn't like how it would look, and most
importantly; c) I still have a hard time finding usb c cables. I always have
to bring my own.

~~~
kartoffelmos
As for point C: I fully believe that the opposite will be the case in three
years time. Just feels a bit... shortsighted. I mean, even Nintendo is going
for USB-C in their upcoming device (and even Apple, in their own hamfisted way
:P )

------
strgrd
Wow, the latency looks really bad. You would think that by August 2017 we
would be down to sub-frame latency for stylus input. At this point, I would
rather use a stylus with a cord if it meant shaving off 10ms. As is, it's just
unusable. I know for people that have been in the tablet-input world for a
while, 50ms sounds reasonable, but hand this to a kid, and they'll start
drawing all over the screen, waiting for the lines to catch up.

I'll be interested in this when the latency and DPI can keep up with the pace
of natural handwriting.

~~~
drhodes
What if the display sub system organized the screen into partitions and
prioritized the redraws based on which partition the input was happening in?
If that's where the eye is focused, then maybe any artifact from refresh-
neglect in the periphery would go unnoticed.

------
anexprogrammer
I really want this to succeed. I'd love to buy one. There's been quite a few
failed attempts.

From FAQ > own special operating system Codex / We might however release an
unsupported SDK for best developers

That's disappointing. I assume "best developers" means corporates. I'd have
hoped for a fully open SDK as you're not able to use anything from Android
etc. There's probably no end of utilities solo coders would piece together.
I'd probably be looking at whether I could make a few apps myself.

I'm a _little_ disappointed at no lighting, it's made a big difference to my
eReader. No doubt LEDs would add much to cost.

~~~
sandsmark
"best developers" was a bit tongue in cheek, it was late and I didn't have
time to come up with good wording (I'm not a good word person). but what I
tried to convey; we know that even _if_ we can release a toolchain, we can't
deliver a full, polished SDK. so "best developers" was more about developers
that don't need any hand-holding.

but again; we can't even promise that we have the time and resources to
package up a usable toolchain for third-parties.

~~~
michaelmior
Is it safe to assume that it will be possible to update the firmware on the
device so that some updates will be possible after shipping?

~~~
sandsmark
of course, one of the nice things with modern hardware is that we can deliver
more features after shipping the device.

edit; also, it is a device connected to the internet. not supporting updating
the firmware would be extremely irresponsible from a security perspective.

------
NoGravitas
I really like the idea. But I don't much care for it syncing to the vendor's
cloud server. If it would sync in open file formats to my NextCloud instance,
then that's attractive.

Also, there's definitely a balance to be struck between lack of distraction
and lack of features. It would be a waste for this not to have an epub reader,
for example. But while I'd really appreciate having email on it, that's
starting to get into distraction territory.

~~~
sandsmark
about epub, that's one format we're already committed to supporting. it's
listed in the FAQ. we're very careful about not over-promising, that's partly
why there aren't more features listed.

edit; really besides the point, but saw your nick. our internal name for the
prototype (in u-boot and the kernel) is zero-gravitas.

------
heinrichf
This is very reminiscent of the Noteslate vaporware:
[http://www.noteslate.com/](http://www.noteslate.com/)

~~~
sandsmark
except we waited until we had actual hardware prototypes before going public,
from an ODM we've been working on for a while. and (some of our team) are on
HN, which gives us much more street cred.

and you can find pictures of us. one of the reasons I've been skeptical about
the noteslate is because I couldn't really find out who was making it.

~~~
Tepix
Will you show your working prototypes at CES then?

~~~
sandsmark
we went to CES this year to see if there was any reason for us to go, but
based on that we decided not to. it's insanely huge and hard to get any kind
of exposure, even if people knew about us beforehand.

but seeing is believing, especially with this product, videos doesn't do it
justice imho. so we need some way of getting it into the hands of people,
probably some kind of ambassadors that have some reach and a lot of integrity.
but this has to wait until our ODM finishes the next batches of prototypes, so
we actually have devices that we can send out.

~~~
24gttghh
Please keep us up to date! This is definitely a "try before you buy" sort of
product for myself.

------
rtpg
For those who really want a PDF annotator, Sony sells a large mostly-
equivalent of this, there's the Sony DPT-S1

[https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-
DPTS1/?PID=I:digitalpa...](https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-
DPTS1/?PID=I:digitalpaper:digitalpaperproductpage)

This is a pro device, costs almost $1000. I don't own one but a friend does...
it's very magical looking, and feels nice for the 2 minutes I used it.

~~~
sandsmark
they've been dumping the price and trying to empty their warehouses, so I'm
not sure if you can actually buy it anymore. at least not outside of japan.

~~~
sevensor
If your device works well as a PDF annotator, it's going to have a _huge_
market among academics, who right now have a number of very bad solutions to
the problem. For me personally, I'm thrilled by the possibility of being able
to write unlimited marginalia.

~~~
sandsmark
academia is one of the biggest target groups, both in terms of marketing and
development focus.

~~~
gpetersen
Can confirm. I'm in academia and preordered this soon after hearing about it.

------
shostack
This looks amazing. If you don't mind, I have a couple questions...

\- I know you're not committing to certain things at this time, but can you
confirm yet that a subscription fee will NOT be required for full usage? Ie.
If I want to store locally or on Dropbox or Google Drive would something like
that be possible? I hesitate to preorder without knowing how your full pricing
model might be structured.

\- Is the stylus unique to the device, or will any old stylus work? Also, will
it need to be charged separately?

\- Will there be the possibility of low frame rate animations? I could see
that being super useful for diagrams.

\- Can you share any insights into the current state of eInk technology with
regards to color displays? Is it looking like something that might be
commercially viable in the next 5 years? 10?

\- As you acknowledge, this tech will likely be copied pretty quickly. How do
you build a business moat around that?

Awesome stuff and excited to see how this turns out.

------
pjc50
That looks rather lovely. The smart paper tablet that some of us have always
wanted.

"Better thinking" might be an overstatement, but it is quite a hassle to
doodle on a computer, and I do find that I think slightly differently while
handwriting.

------
awalGarg
Hi. I am a paper guy too. Until this thing hits the market wide, gets lots of
positive reviews and has its costs reduced, does anyone have tips for managing
lots of real paper? I feel like some organization tricks could help ease
dealing with paper problems.

I use paper to sketch out thoughts and draw diagrams, and I don't want
unlimited papers. 5 pages a day is enough for me. I wish I could say I read
books - I don't. So I only have to manage papers on which I write things and
refer to them quickly whenever possible. It works fine, but if someone has
tips to help, please share. Thanks.

~~~
titanix2
For a long time I tried to come up with systems for paper. Now I switched to a
simpler model: my (only) clipboard I used for the project I focus one, eg.
writing my master thesis. I also bought two thin soft binders. The green one
is for research and ideas highly related to my current research or projects. I
put some metadata on some of the sheet themselves or on small papers to remind
quickly what a sheet is about. The red one is for other all other ideas. Any
sheet not is a binder will likely roam on one of my desks and will be
forgotten. This is actually a feature, like survival of the fittest applied to
desk environment.

------
shubhamjain
This is huge! I don't want to sound contemptuous but to me, paper feels like
an inefficient artefact, just waiting to be disrupted by something that can
incorporate the few remnant benefits which current range of E-Readers don't
cover. I have had Kindle since about an year and I can't imagine ever going to
paper books. I can instantly check words, read in the dark, or purchase
whenever I like. The only thing I do miss is marking an important passage.

If notes, and highlighting work as advertised, will printed books have
anything to offer other than aesthetic value?

------
akavel
I understand the pen doesn't attach in any way to the device? Only the Folio
does attempt to help keeping them together?

The movies don't seem to do a good job of demonstrating the advertised
pressure and tilt sensitivity levels; I didn't seem to notice any variation in
line width.

It would be awesome if you could make Stylus Labs Write
([http://www.styluslabs.com/](http://www.styluslabs.com/)) work on your device
— or at least steal the ideas (esp. text moving) for your writing app.

~~~
jsilence
+1 for the Styluslab software! Having that on the reMarkable tablet would be a
real killer.

------
saboot
Very much want one, if it materializes I will feel very jealous of today's
college students. This would have been a godsend, I would take notes in class,
but organizing them was always a pain. I've lost several class notes I wish I
kept.

Will hold out until actual products are given to the public, I've seen several
pitches for this that haven't materialized. Best of luck though, I will be
waiting.

~~~
alimw
I too struggle (and fail) to keep physical papers organised. But I'm not sure
why electronic papers should be any easier? Unless there's some amazing
software that can recognise content automatically...

~~~
FroshKiller
You can't grep paper.

~~~
sandsmark
just to clear up any possible confusion; don't expect text recognition.

it's probably the most requested feature, but it's a really, really hard
problem.

but please send me a message at martin.sandsmark@remarkable.no if anyone have
any tips about solutions to this (we're talking with a couple of vendors, but
we might have missed some).

~~~
alimw
FroshKiller is right, a good search feature would make this device much more
useful.

Regarding that I do have a 'tip' for you. There is no need for an intermediate
textual representation. If a sequence of pen strokes is what you have
recorded, then a sequence of pen strokes is what you should search by.

For further tips (or an algorithm) I have to charge :)

------
amelius
They need to solve the "lag" problem. Then I'll consider buying one.

~~~
sandsmark
this is actually the problem we have solved (for epaper).

Compare
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKmfyThA9Sg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKmfyThA9Sg)
to [https://youtu.be/34I27KPZM6g?t=52](https://youtu.be/34I27KPZM6g?t=52)

~~~
davman
While you have certainly made huge and impressive improvements, I still don't
think I could call that "solved". I think _any_ latency is still going to put
people off when it comes to writing on this vs. paper.

~~~
sandsmark
our goal for solving it was to get it down to where it wasn't a detriment for
the writing and sketching experience. one of the first things we did was
gather data and read what research there was on what kind of latency was
noticeable and lead to writing feeling "wrong".

so we solved our goal, but it's always possible to get better.

~~~
davman
So obviously without actually trying one myself I can't say that you are
incorrect, but certainly the demo video you provided still has a feeling of
wrongness. Its like with animation, we're still stuck in the uncanny valley
but you are definitely climbing out of it.

~~~
sandsmark
this is one of the reasons we need to get this in the hands of some kind of
ambassadors that can test for themselves and give us some validation. imho the
video doesn't do it much justice.

------
IanDrake
Looks really cool. Hope you guys nail it.

I'm hoping to see more and more e-ink offerings. For myself, I would like a
50" curved e-ink monitor for work, black and white is fine. I know e-ink has
terrible refresh rates, but I'm working with code and consoles 90% of the
time. I could put web browsers and other stuff on another monitor.

~~~
freehunter
I don't want another monitor, I want a terminal strapped to my face so I can
sit wherever I want.

Seriously, a small VR system that's just an SSH client would be a pretty
massive improvement on my life.

~~~
Thimothy
I find the idea of using the most advanced VR technology for your olde command
line terribly funny. All those 80s cyberpunks imagining people actually
traveling through cyber-information highways, using them in combination with
feedback gloves to browse and actuate on the information in a myriad ways...
And we just want a command line. I'd love to go back in time to tell them that
this is a major use of VR and see the abject horror in their faces.

------
Nomentatus
Believe it or not, this is a product that could save an incredible number of
lives over time, by allowing us to spend more time outdoors:
[http://sunlightinstitute.org/research-
studies/](http://sunlightinstitute.org/research-studies/)

~~~
Tepix
It's (partially) replacing paper. You can already take paper outside.

~~~
sandsmark
sssh, it feels good to believe I'm saving the lives of children. :-(

------
d3ckard
This is simply awesome! For a long time I have waited for tablets to actually
incorporate the most natural way for making notes and generally working with
paper. Not going to preorder (waiting 8 months is kind of too long for me),
but probably going to buy just after it comes out.

------
fest
Few questions to the team:

1) Is the screen latency numbers applicable to full-page updates also? I.e.
scrolling a page of text.

2) How decent is the performance when dealing with large PDFs?

3) Is the digitizer pressure sensitive? Does it only work with a stylus? If
not, how good is palm rejection?

~~~
sandsmark
we can't release more technical details than what is on the webpage for now,
we're still working on the performance. but to give you a rough idea on where
we are on UI responsiveness and loading times, this is what we're using for
targets: [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-
times-3-important-...](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-
times-3-important-limits/)

and the digitizer is an EMR digitizer, completely separate from the touch
layer. so we don't have to worry about palm rejection.

edit; you can see the speed of the zoom in the video, which also needs to re-
render the page at a different scale. so that should give you an idea about
the speed of page flipping.

------
aamederen
For me, the keypoint is the haptic feeling. As a mechanical keyboard
enthusiast, for me the physical "feeling" of the things I use in daily life is
a very important and underrated aspect.

Most of the time I find myself switching between my pencil/notebook and google
docs. The feel of the pencil on the notebook, the friction, the feeling of
pressing on the notebook is a matter of satisfaction which we cannot find on
tablets. On the other hand, the flexibility of digital stuff is a must.

With iPhone 7, I am satisfied with the haptic feeling of pressing a button. A
similar achievement on a surface would be revolutionary.

------
jason_slack
I am a total paper person. I have notebooks, upon notebooks and still use a
paper planner. I could get excited about this once it starts shipping.

If you have an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil, I recently started using Nebo (by
MyScript) and it is working well for me. Handwriting, multiple notebooks, etc.
You must have an Apple Pencil to use the app.

For now, none of this will replace my paper, but I am hopeful someday.

ReMarkable Team - I'd love to share how I use paper everyday in hopes some of
my specifics make it into your product :-)

------
stcredzero
This is a lot closer, but still too far off the mark. It's still orders of
magnitude inferior in terms of lag, convenience, and reliability, while being
orders of magnitude more expensive.

Thinking about the iPhone briefly, I think the Steve Jobs formula is to wait
until the device can be less than an order of magnitude more expensive, only
half as convenient, and about as reliable as the thing it's displacing. I'm
also wondering if Microsoft did actually make the right long term decision
with regards to its Surface line of hardware.

~~~
refulgentis
Does that formula, beyond being about as reliable, apply to the iPhone? It
seemed the gate was if it was much more convenient.

~~~
stcredzero
The iPhone was much more convenient in a new context: having access to your
data in your pocket, all the time. It was a _worse_ cellphone, with regards to
charging and call reception. However, it was good enough as a cellphone, and
it enabled _something else_.

------
nmca
I really, really hope these guys are successful. Want one v. much

------
dantiberian
Can you talk about the resolution on the device? On the video, it looked to be
fairly low, probably lower than the Kindle PaperWhite which I have. I'd be
really interested in this for reading PDF's papers and PDF tech books, but
only if the text isn't too jaggy.

~~~
peatmoss
If I understand the eink tech correctly, large hi-dpi screens will have very
poor screen redrawing properties. Something about how the individual "pixels"
get toggled in series.

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boznz
Awesome... But I will wait for them to be shipped and the first reviews to be
in before I commit

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moron4hire
What is the bottleneck on eInk display refresh rate? Is it a fundamental
limitation of the tech, or is the slow refresh rate of devices like the Kindle
a power-saving feature?

~~~
Qwertystop
E-paper (E-Ink is a brand name) works by magnetically moving small black or
white particles (suspended in fluid) for each pixel whenever it needs to
change. It's a bit like an etch-a-sketch, it's an analog system at the low
level. At minimum, the movement takes time. Also, the current state of the
pixel affects the charge that needs to be applied for a given target state -
that means either taking more time to calculate, getting an afterimage, or
doing that whole-screen black-white flicker to clear everything out. Probably
all three due to precision limits.

~~~
moron4hire
I don't know a nice way to say this. Your reply has added nothing to my
understanding.

~~~
Qwertystop
Yes, it's a fundamental limitation. Changing colors means moving tiny bits of
magnetic dust, and the amount of charge needed is based on where they
currently are. This takes more calculation than just running electricity
through a light, which can be done regardless of whether or not you were
running electricity through it a moment ago. This extra calculation will
always take more time, unless the simpler tech reaches a fundamental physical
limit like how fast power can be cycled without something melting.

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deckiedan
I want one.

If anyone feels like supporting this project, but doesn't think they'd
actually use such a device, let me know, I'd happily accept one to test / use
/ etc.

~~~
fiatjaf
Let these be my words.

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gotrythis
I've been waiting for this with a microphone as a LiveScribe replacement. That
mythical device would never leave my side. Please consider for version 2.

------
jryan49
I really, really want something like this but I'm too scared to pre-order one
until a bunch of reviews come out first.

~~~
michaelmior
So was I, but you can apparently cancel up until the shipping date.

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Tepix
So, it looks great but

a) does it have a backlight

b) can I sync it with my own server instead of some 3rd party cloud service?

~~~
sandsmark
no backlight, and as I explained above we can't promise anything other than
what is written on the webpage already wrt. features.

~~~
throwaway98237
the primary reason i purchased an kobo aura one is the red led back light, so
i can read at night without messing with my sleep cycle. it's a killer
feature. you'd be wise to consider it.

~~~
sandsmark
we're far too late in the development process to add to the features of the
hardware, but backlight is one of the ideas for a next generation.

------
ommunist
Marker looks like a Pencil. I like the concept. Could be godsend for urban
sketching.

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wheelerwj
i don't understand why its a steal at almost $400. my tablet does all of this
better. except for drawing, which is significantly not as awesome.

i also don't know how adding a fourth device simplifies life at all.

~~~
Nomentatus
Stay indoors a lot do you? That ain't healthy.
[http://sunlightinstitute.org/research-
studies/](http://sunlightinstitute.org/research-studies/)

~~~
wheelerwj
what?

~~~
Nomentatus
What part of the URL seemed unclear?

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nerdponx
So a tablet-sized smartboard?

Who is the target market for a product like this?

~~~
lb1lf
I can see myself being in the target market (sw/hw developer) - while much of
my day-to-day work takes place on a computer, I still rely on pen and paper
for early sketches/brainstorming and the like, leading to an office with
(quite literally!) hundreds of notebooks on the shelves.

If it feels sufficiently paper-y to write on and PDF exporting is seamless-y
and with at least a rudimentary tagging function, I'd probably buy one.

~~~
nerdponx
Interesting. I'm actually envisioning this being a great tool for academic
research.

~~~
cschmidt
Yes, having .pdf versions of papers, that you could annotate would be very
cool.

------
Solinoid
from the close up this looks like etch-a-sketch magnet technology.

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swayvil
Is this the NoteSlate guys again?

