
ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery - sharcerer
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/remarkables-redesigned-e-paper-tablet-is-more-powerful-and-more-papery/
======
ACS_Solver
Terrible link, the actual reMarkable website is much better.

It's a very niche device but I've owned mine for nearly two years and am a big
advocate. In some ways, the first model was proof of concept. Excellent
hardware and writing experience, but the early versions of the software were
horrible, and the device itself is very ugly. The software has improved
dramatically in the time I've owned it, going from horrible to bad, then to
almost acceptable, and now it's decent.

I'm happy to see the company is doing well enough to make a second generation
reality. Looks like it will be an overall improved experience, with a magnetic
marker, a slick-looking device and overall incremental improvements. I'd like
to see some kind of trade up program though, it's expensive (and 50$ more for
a marker with one extra sensor is ridiculous) and I can't justify paying that
much for an incremental upgrade.

My only concern about the new specs would be the thickness, or rather the
sturdiness. The first generation is thick by modern standards, but it's very
sturdy. I've dropped the device, I've dropped the bag with it, I've bumped
into things with it - not a scratch. Very refreshing in the age of fragile
devices. Hopefully the rM2 doesn't sacrifice much sturdiness to be thinner.

~~~
harshalizee
It looks amazing. My concern is that it's around $500. That's about the price
of an iPad and Apple pencil. Is it really worth the asking price?

~~~
ACS_Solver
People often compare it to an iPad initially, which completely misses the
point in my view. The rM has nothing in common with an iPad, and the word
"tablet" in the name makes people think of the completely wrong thing.

The rM is best thought of as a pen and paper notebook, except of effectively
infinite size. There are no apps. The UI (the only user-facing program) has
minimal features, most of which are there just to mimic what you can do with
an actual paper notebook. There are only a few exceptions, like being able to
drag your notes/scribbles on the page. The device won't integrate with any 3rd
party services, it doesn't have search, etc. If a physical notebook doesn't
have it, then the rM probably also doesn't.

That definitely makes the rM a very niche device, but I'm getting great use
out of mine, while I never managed to get much good use of an iPad.

~~~
ScottFree
Does the "convert to text" feature work as nicely and smoothly as advertised
in the Remarkable 2 launch video[0]? If yes, then that alone is worth the
price for me. I've tried a number of solutions that have claimed to do this
over the years and none of them really work.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWY_bwFMxro&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWY_bwFMxro&feature=youtu.be&t=125)

~~~
ACS_Solver
There are, as you might expect, a few caveats.

The conversion relies on some kind of cloud service (possibly Google's Cloud
Vision API). So you need to be connected and there are privacy/security
implications. And, it's very dependent on your handwriting. I cannot get
coherent results with that feature, but my handwriting is as readable as
base64-encoded Perl. I've seen it produce impressively good results when other
people try it.

The process itself is indeed smooth, select an item in the menu and a few
seconds later you have the text, which can then be emailed.

------
carlosdp
One thing that's rarely mentioned about this device, but is the reason I
sprung for it, is that the developers left an SSH interface into the device
over USB, so you can program custom apps!

People have made some neat stuff, and there's a Rust library for making apps:
[https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable)

~~~
j0e1
This is what I was looking for and their website fails to mention it on the
landing page, at least. Would you know of any Emacs/org-mode extensions for
this device? Thank you for sharing!

~~~
lallysingh
You are my spirit animal.

I just got a polar/readwise/orgmode/Anki setup together and I'd love to use
this.

~~~
sharcerer
Same setup almost! I am a student, just starting to use Anki, been using Polar
since it same out, will get Readwise subscription soon. Just want to integrate
RM2 pdf highlights with Polar.

Will buy RM2 when pocket permits. It's going to be a tough decision be an iPad
and RM2, recently came across Liquidtext iPad app, it's so good.

~~~
lallysingh
I've been really happy with an x1 yoga so far.

------
floren
I bought the original version but found that some PDF files absolutely
destroyed it. Not massive files where each page is a scanned picture, just
regular PDFs from academic journals. I'd open one, it would spend 20+ seconds
displaying the "working" spinner, then often as not it would _reboot_. Had to
return it.

I was also pretty shocked that there was no way to get a list of all
annotations you've added to a given PDF; I really wanted a way to read through
a book making notes as I went, then get an overview of where I'd made notes.
Even a way to bookmark a given page would have been useful.

Fix those two issues and it would have been a great device for me; the page
size was juuuust big enough to display pretty much any book at a readable
size.

~~~
carlosdp
I have a remarkable and use it for reading academic paper PDFs all the time.
The software has gotten far better over time.

~~~
floren
I'm very glad it's working well for you, but the software as of January 2020
was unable to properly read PDFs from a particular journal... it may have been
Science.

~~~
jonahbenton
There might be something to do here to clean those up and make them more
ergonomic for the device. I have de-DRMed most of my kindle books and turned
them into PDFs, even some thousand page monsters with graphs and images, etc,
and so far all work well on the device. There are a bunch of open source PDF
utilities that may be able to help if desired. Cheers.

------
diffeomorphism
Since the article is unviewable without throwing away your privacy, here is a
primary source instead:

[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)

~~~
jastingo
I know I'm being too literal, but I got a chuckle when I read:

> reMarkable’s virtually instant response and texturized surface make for an
> unprecedented writing experience.

There is indeed a precedent for having literally instant response with a
texturized surface: pencil and paper.

~~~
jshevek
I took it as having an implied "...on an electronic device."

------
dredmorbius
I'd just written Remarkable voicing my concerns with the gen 1 tablet.

One concern, the ability to access material off the Web, has been addressed.

Another has not: the Gen 2 tablet still has only 8 GB storage.

On my current, much-despised, Android tablet, I have a 128GB microSD card with
over 32 GB of documents, in a range of formats -- the overwhelming majority
are PDF and ePub, but also djvu, docx, txt, htmk, chm, ppt, pptx, and other
formats.

With the paltry cost of storage, cripling the Remarkable with anything less
than 128-256 GB staggers the mind.

I'd also very much like to have an eccessible, full-featured Linux userland,
even if only console mode, as this is invaluable to me (the file extension-
based counts and storage utilisation come via Termux utilities on the Android
tablet). A keyboard (external, Bluetooth), and terminal driver, would be
sufficient for this.

~~~
rattray
While I'd love full linux, personally I'd happily settle for just a bluetooth
(or even usb) keyboard and a decent "write plain text" app.

My handwriting is terrible, and while I'd love to unplug for reading/writing,
I haven't found an acceptable solution for doing so beyond a Chromebook with
wifi turned off and/or a "self control" web extension.

EDIT: from elsewhere in this thread, I see [https://github.com/dps/remarkable-
keywriter](https://github.com/dps/remarkable-keywriter) which looks
interesting. Curious to hear how it plays with the remarkable 2, esp around
lag

~~~
dredmorbius
The Linux userland is there. A terminal would expose it.

Utility afforded is immense. Termux on Android, crippled as it is, is the one
thing on the platform that does not completely and abjectly suck.

~~~
jonahbenton
Hmm, one can enable an ssh service, as I recall, to get in. There is something
there- what kind of userland is it?

~~~
dredmorbius
Debian, or close to it, based on several reports.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072748)

Some (thin) additional details, though no specifics, on the Wiki:
[https://remarkablewiki.com/start](https://remarkablewiki.com/start)

------
tomerbd
I'm using this $13 "NEWYES 12" LCD Writing Tablet Digital Drawing Tablet
Handwriting Pads Portable Electronic Tablet Board ultra-thin Board with pen"

As a better paper, without any distractions, works well!! I have one at work,
on my desk, I have one for each kid doing maths with them on it, it's awesome.
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32922602355.html?spm=a2g0o.p...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32922602355.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.20be35ebRsLe35&algo_pvid=b80b35b5-cffe-4264-a633-c3eb479a3829&algo_expid=b80b35b5-cffe-4264-a633-c3eb479a3829-0&btsid=0ab6f83915844660455648904e3379&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_)

~~~
canada_dry
I also use one of these as my quick-grab sketch/note pad.

The huge downside is being unable to erase any part of the screen without
erasing the entire screen - so by the end of a long brainstorming session I
have lots of scribbled out parts and lines directing the eye to follow my
flow.

I desperately want something like the remarkable2, but I just can't bring
myself to spending $800CDN (for the package) as a replacement for paper or the
"Boogie Board"!

~~~
greenshackle2
FYI the new one is on pre-order for 600CAD for the package including taxes and
shipping. Tempted to buy one myself.

EDIT: Ok, 719CAD if you want the marker with an eraser and the book-style
cover instead of the pouch.

------
michaelschade
Looks like they really upped their production quality with this release!
Excite to see their team is still at it.

Also pumped to see them officially releasing a Chrome extension to send to
reMarkable. Long overdue. It doesn't look like it's out yet, so here's a link
to the unofficial version I made last year (used by over 700 other reMarkable
owners):

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-
remarkable...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-
remarkable/mcfkooagiaelmfpkgegmbobdcpcbdbgh)

Open source at
[https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater](https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater)

------
e12e
Anyone have any look developing and running software on this thing?

[https://remarkable.engineering/](https://remarkable.engineering/)

Isn't easy to find from the official site (remarkable.com), and I've yet to
find a simple "Hello, world"-example from ReMarkable...

Ed: i see there already are some comments on this topic. I think I just might
pre-order an rm2.

~~~
rnotaro
[https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable)

------
quartz
Can any remarkable owners comment on the reliability/robustness of the
document storage? Does it store versions and/or backups?

I made the mistake of buying an equilpen2 at an apple store years ago. I say
mistake not because I didn't like the product (I used it for hundreds of pages
of notes over the year or two after I bought it and loved that it let me write
on regular paper) but because the company gave up on the product and
eventually released destructive app updates that deleted all my notes from my
local machines.

I was only able to recover my content because I had it synced to dropbox and
now I'm paranoid about content creation devices like this potentially losing
my content in the future if the company goes belly-up.

~~~
carlosdp
The cloud sync/storage is pretty rudimentary, no versions or anything like
that. But they have an app for desktop/phone so you can download and backup.
There are unofficial client libraries for the cloud API as well, so it can be
automated.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> But they have an app for desktop/phone so you can download and backup.

Can I just... connect a USB cable and transfer files? Why do I want an app at
all?

The apparent requirement to transfer files through an app was the reason I
didn't get a remarkable 1.

~~~
jonahbenton
I don't recall if it shows up as a USB storage device, but it will expose a
webserver to you over USB to which you can put documents. I also wrote a
utility to send documents up to their server side APIs, which them gets them
automatically sync'd down to the device. Takes about a minute, works very
well.

------
scottwernervt
> Hold it with your left hand and write with your right. Sorry, lefties.

Well this sucks if it is not leftie friendly as the price and features had me
sold.

~~~
orpheansodality
wondering if that's just an assumption by the author -- can you not just
rotate it 180°?

~~~
achow
Has to be that way. Same as Kindle Oasis.

------
ThrowawayR2
> " _The new tablet is just 4.7 mm (0.19 in) thick, thinner than the iPad Pro
> and Sony’s competing Digital Paper tablets, both of which are 5.9 mm._ "

At that thickness, I'd be worried about sturdiness and, in particular,
bending, à la the problems with the iPhone 6.

I can stick an iPad Mini or similar tablet into a jacket pocket or backpack
and jog a couple of miles to a bus stop daily without concern. Will we be able
to do the same with this, I wonder?

~~~
matsemann
The problems with the phone is that it's often carried in pants pockets. I
don't think something of this size will have the same kind of forces applied
to it.

~~~
leggomylibro
Actually, I think that things which get thrown into bags on a regular basis
face more stresses than a phone in your pocket.

It could be jostling around with corners of large books, laptops, cables,
random containers, etc. It can also have more space to accelerate when you
swing your bag around, whereas a phone is held firmly your leg when you
run/jump/etc.

Durability in a bag is what separates great electronics manufacturers from
decent ones. If I buy something and it doesn't survive bag life for several
months, which is quite common, then I write off the manufacturer as a creator
of fragile throw-away devices. But I've never had a phone have any sort of
problem from pocket stresses.

------
kybernetikos
Judging by the technical specifications on
[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/) it seems not to have a
microsd card or much in the way of onboard storage. I wonder if the device can
recognize a storage device attached to the usb-c port.

The writing experience, battery life and hackability are very appealing to me,
but it also looks like it's not as good a reading device as high end readers,
where really good lighting and water resistance are common. It's also slightly
big for me. The size would be great for academic pdfs, or reference works but
for normal books, or even for normal note taking (rather than sketching) it's
a little on the large side. Maybe if it had less bezel, the size could be
closer to best of both.

I don't mind it having a high price point, but I hoped that it would compete
with high-price point e-readers (kobo forma / kindle oasis) too.

~~~
beezle
You won't find a high end reader (other than Sony?) that is in this size which
is quite useful for those reading scientific papers, a bit blind, or who want
to use it for sketch/art. It is only slightly larger than a typical hard
cover.

~~~
kybernetikos
I think my point for comparison is a moleskine or a paperback. Certainly
different use cases.

------
WalterBright
This looks very cool, but at the price I'm still kinda stuck using my $0.73
spiral notebooks. I fill them up with my scribblings, then run them through
the scanner and archive them. I use colored pens on them, too. It's very, very
hard to beat this.

Note to ereader makers: Please, PLEASE make the screen saver show the last
page read! I'd throw away my Kindle and buy a new one just to get that. I'd
pay extra for it. I will stop complaining about my ereader if you do this.

~~~
Groxx
> _Note to ereader makers: Please, PLEASE make the screen saver show the last
> page read! I 'd throw away my Kindle and buy a new one just to get that. I'd
> pay extra for it. I will stop complaining about my ereader if you do this._

Would this be... not having a screensaver? Or are you thinking of something
more specific?

Having typed it out, it's sorta odd that there's a screensaver at all, rather
than just always acting like it's up and running. I'd probably love it if
ereaders would just show a "booting..." indicator when necessary, and
otherwise never have an "off" screen except when serving some critical need
(e.g. low battery warning).

~~~
hannasanarion
EInk displays only use power when they're changing what's on the screen,
right? They work by giving a static charge to a bubble full of ink, and that
charge should remain for a while, even if the screen loses power. So I don't
see why screensavers are necessary.

~~~
Groxx
You may be able to argue burn-in issues (I'm not sure if any are permanent,
but they can definitely last quite a few black/white cycles), but that's about
it AFAICT...

------
pushcx
Any details on whether they've fixed search? Zoom? Or made it a mountable USB
drive so it doesn't require their app or similar janky solutions? The first
one really looked nice, but all the reviews were full of practical usability
issues and this promo doesn't touch on the topic.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
It still sounds as if it has the original's killer negative: everything you
write is sync'ed to their servers, which is a huge no-no for work use without
IT approval, at least at my workplace, or anything regulated by privacy laws
like HIPPA. I'd love one of these things if it was able to function purely
offline even if I had to sacrifice cloud features.

~~~
ACS_Solver
It's a failure of their marketing that they didn't make this clear. The device
is capable of working 100% offline. Notes are stored on the device, with cloud
sync being optional. File transfer is possible with SSH, or the (poor) app or
the equally poor web interface when connecting via USB. You don't have to
create an account for the rM cloud, you can use the thing without ever
connecting it to the Internet.

~~~
pushcx
The marketing sounds like they've stepped up the app/cloud bits with a browser
plugin, etc. Do you know for certain the second version still supports the
non-cloud snycing? The support site is incompletely updated for the new
device; it's not clear at all if they still permit private operation.

~~~
pushcx
[https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/36000670215...](https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360006702157-Can-I-sync-files-between-my-reMarkable-and-my-phone-
or-PC-Mac-)

Found an article in the "remarkable 2" section of the support site. No mention
of support for offline/private syncing, which is a real shame. (The "read
more" links go to v1 pages and seem to be autogenerated.)

------
webkike
I really love the ReMarkable and this was an easy preorder. The only thing I
personally disliked was 1. No eraser on the pen and 2. No USB-C support. Both
are resolved here

~~~
gautamcgoel
You only get an eraser if you pay an extra $50 for the Marker Plus, which is
crazy to me.

~~~
webkike
Yeah the prices are a little ridiculous but I can’t really complain
considering how niche of a product this is and how amazing the reMarkable 1 is

------
zxcvgm
I was looking for a device to serve as my paper replacement in 2018 and came
across the ReMarkable 1 tablet. Shortly after, Apple had announced a new iPad
9.7", now with Pencil support. This put both devices in the same price
bracket.

After reading an in-depth review from GoodEReader [1], I concluded that an
iPad, although not with an ePaper display, could also function as a regular
tablet with access to a ton of apps. This was something that the ReMarkable
was not able to do. The ReMarkable tablet does allow you to have SSH access
though, as noted by other comments here.

Just my 2c, if you are also looking at this for a paper replacement.

[1] [https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-
rev...](https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-review-of-
the-remarkable-writing-tablet)

------
smt1
I've had a Remarkable1 for about three months. It's one of the best
investments I've made in a long time. Going to preorder this.

Only caveats - I like aftermarket cases more than Remarkable's. I bought one
one from Amazon for about 30$.

Also I've been using staedtler's digital pencils, works great!

~~~
sooheon
What makes it so good for you? Amazon reviews seem negative to middling.

~~~
smt1
I looked over some of the amazon reviews, and they seem to be talking mostly
about issues in older versions (2018) of the software, which I don't have
direct experience with, but the software has gotten better, even in the time
I've owned it (they just released version 2.x of the SW).

That being said, there is still room for improvement, particularly with
reading (vs writing, which this device is very good at).

I mostly use it this to replace stacks of notebooks (my brain thinks better
with pen and paper in hand, but with all the digital conveniences in hand.
This device is the best that I've tried for writing (and I've tried many,
including an ipad pro)

Cons: historically, the price. No blacklight. Clearly the device has been
optimized for writing, not reading, although supposedly 3rd party ebook
readers like Apollo are good (the device is not locked down and has a hacker
community).

------
enricozb
It hurts my heart how conflicted I am about this device. The hardware _is_
there. I love using the original reMarkable tablet _when it works_. But damn
there are some stupid software decisions, alongside some absolutely genius
ones. (Disclaimer: I've had the original reMarkable tablet for 3 months now)
Here's a summary of my experience with it:

\- It's sometimes unstable, and crashes while I draw. Not super often but
maybe 4 or 5 times a week. I don't lose any data other than the last ~5-10
strokes.

\- There is a notebook called Quick Sheets that is permanently there, even if
I try to remove it's metadata over SSH. It gets generated on boot. No idea why
this is here.

\- You can SSH in, and there's a good hacker community around the tablet. A
lot of cool open source software is written for it.

\- Putting a file on the device for the first time, after doing the same on a
kindle for years, is an adventure to say the least. There is no calibre plugin
for it that I've found.

\- I have never been able to use EPUBs properly on this tablet, a lot of my
books just crash it. I have to convert them to PDF first on calibre. So
highlighting is just markup on the PDF and not really selecting any text, but
you can write directly on the book with notes.

\- The first time I opened an EPUB, it took a while (10s) to load. When I
tried to change the font of the EPUB on the reMarkable, it just stayed on the
loading icon for hours, and I gave up on EPUBs then, and resorted to PDFs.

\- There is no dictionary on the EPUB reader. I miss this feature a lot. And
even if there were, I wouldn't be able to use it because I have to convert my
EPUBs to PDF.

\- Metadata for EPUBs or PDFs isn't visible, only the raw filenames. So no
sorting by author, genre, etc.

\- drawing and marking up is phenomenal, as is reading on such a huge screen.
I absolutely love reading and journaling on this tablet.

\- I have never succeeded in exporting my notebooks or marked up PDFs using
the built in software after marking up or writing in 100+ pages, I have to use
some community written software instead.

\- It's $500 total after pen and cover.

\- There is no backlight.

\- OCR is done in the cloud, and not on the device.

\- The iOS companion app is goofy, a lot of the navigation within the app
seems to be done in a hacky way, instead of using the usual iOS SDK
components. (They segment screen portions for scrolling on pages and for
navigating the app, and it leads to just the most bizarre behavior).

I want to love this tablet. And all we need is a software update. The hardware
was almost perfect, and now with USB-C, a magnet on the pen, and an eraser,
the hardware is even closer to being perfect (I think the only thing left is a
backlight).

~~~
capableweb
As someone who is thinking of getting the reMarkable 2, what is some examples
of "A lot of cool open source software"?

~~~
blue_shirt
Not the grandparent, from what I've found is there's a lot written for the
tablet since it is a Linux device that gives the user root access.

Some examples of the open source stuff can be found on github [1] and their
wiki[2].

[1] [https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable) [2]
[https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start](https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start)

~~~
capableweb
That's pretty cool and that it was really locked down was my only concern
about it. Happy to see it seems relatively open, so just placed a pre-order.
Thanks!

------
tesseract2
While at that price point, many other, more feature complete devices become
available, the ePaper devices do have their own niche.

I tried to use iPad Pro as a full-time note-taking device and found that after
writing on it for up 3-4 hours during the day, my eyes get very tired by the
evening. I tried various things to mitigate it, such as using dark background,
changing brightness etc, and nothing seems to help enough to make iPad a
notebook replacement.

I absolutely love the functionality offered by iPad-like device such as
reading Kindle, browse web, notes taking, PDF annotation, scanner apps etc. I
absolutely want to be able to use it as single device to hold all my hand-
notes and downloaded or scanned documents. But can't avoid the eye strain.

Devices like reMarkable etc can be used at length if your ask is just to carry
around all your notes. I have misplaced all my notes from grad school days. I
would love an easy way to be able to write and archive for posterity all my
notes.

I personally settled for Onyx Boox Max 3. It is at way higher price point, but
is more functional - has Kindle, OReilly apps etc and quite functional note
taking app.

I tried the earlier version of reMarkable ran into a limitation that limited
its usability for me. It did not allow copying a section of text and pasting
it into a new document. I might be mis-remembering, but I think it did not
even allow pasting a copied section of a note into a new page in the same
notebook. All this severely limited what I could use it for. It was just a
paper replacement, and not much more.

Boox Max 3 did not have these limitations. Whats great about iPad-like devices
is that you don't even expect that you will run into these corner cases.

I hope this update to reMarkable add such small features that increase the
usability. I absolutely hope that these kind of devices succeed. They are a
solution to the problem of keeping and carrying with you a separate set of
notes on varied topics where no single paper notebook would do justice, and
they are usable for very long stretches of time with no more eye strain than
with using paper.

~~~
intopieces
> Onyx Boox Max 3.

Can you tell me if the Onyx Boox Max 3 works with USB-C to USB-C cables? I had
a Onyx Boox Nova and it was noncompliant somehow, I had to only use the USB-C
to A cable that came with it. I ended up selling it for that reason -- I
didn't want to carry around a single cable just for this device when all my
other devices are USB-C.

------
fmela
This looks interesting, but it's the software that will make or break the
experience.

Software aside, this is expensive ($479 when you select the pen with the
eraser and the book cover), and the screen is not back-lit, so this won't be
usable without other source of light.

Why is it so hard to find an e-ink device that's good for reading books, PDFs,
and web content (e.g. Pocket)? So far, everything I've tried has fallen short.

~~~
redindian75
I got Mobiscribe from Amazon for around 250. Smaller screen, but has warm
backlit eink screen. Decent ereader for ePubs, very good responsive
notetaking. It comes with a note-folio & pen for $250

------
chatmasta
I can’t view this site on mobile, I get redirected to some “guce advertising”
that’s blocked on my phone.

------
smilekzs
Years ago I tried an early adopter's unit. While I was impressed by the
"feel", ultimately the lack of color was the deal-breaker for me, as I love
using colors in note-taking + PDF annotation. Ended up sticking to my Surface
Pro 4 (2015) with the latest Surface Slim Pen. I pretty much only use my
Surface the same way as I would use a hypothetical ReMarkable with even only
RGBK colors, and considering the Surface is a $1k+ device fully loaded, such a
"colored ReMarkable" would be a steal for me. Kinda disappointed it does not
exist...

Colors, please!

------
java-man
I don't understand the fascination with super-thin devices. Can you hold it
for any extended period of time without much strain? Will it slip and shatter
when the palms get slightly moist?

~~~
magicalhippo
It weights about 400g, so about what a paper pad does I guess? In any case, it
has a textured surface, and assuming it's similar to the reMarkable 1 it is
not slippery.

~~~
java-man
a paper pad does not weigh 400g

~~~
magicalhippo
I just measured the A4 one I got, for which the reMarkable would be a
replacement, and it is 391g. So pretty close in my view.

------
j0057
Oh god, I love my reMarkable 1 so much that I'm having a hard time not
impulse-buying this one. It's like having a superweapon on you if your work is
to sling ideas and concepts.

------
Awtem
I'd love to give this another go, however, my experience with the first
remarkable are reMarkably poor, and the new revision supposedly has the same
display hardware

\- the display is not very sharp, has poor contrast, and no active
illumination

\- also, despite there being no display illumination, reading in the sun was
not possible, as it immediately resulted in the display bulging notably from
the absorbed sun/heat.

\- seriously buggy software

Let me know, if you have information that the new revision has improved on
those aspects.

------
thrower123
I bought one of these for my fiance for Christmas, and she loves it. She uses
it to take notes during meetings, and then convert them to text and import
into OneNote. It seems to work fantastically for that.

I was a little leery, after my experience buying a similar e-ink tablet years
ago through indiegogo, which took forever to get delivered, shipped with a
painfully obsolete version of Android, and bricked itself in short order, but
this seems like a very solid product.

------
m-p-3
I know it would probably go against what they're aiming for (distraction-free,
no social media), but it would be an instant-buy for me if I could have an
email client (IMAP, Exchange), calendar (CalDAV, Exchange), RSS feeds (along
with popular services like Feedly, Inoreader or your own server) and why not a
service like Instapaper/Pocket/Wallabag builtin.

Being able to do work-related stuff other than taking notes would be easier to
justify the premium price.

~~~
Brakenshire
[https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable)

There’s a script to upload files from Instapaper on, not sure how well it
works.

------
dnquark
What's their portability story? I don't want my personal knowledge store to be
locked into a platform, particularly one that's not guaranteed to last. PDF
exports don't cut it, my notes are living documents.

I'm really sad that nobody has adequately addressed interoperability in the
digital inking space; I'd gladly switch to an iPad or reMarkable, but so far
I'm still the neckbeard inking in Xournal on an old Thinkpad.

~~~
Enginerrrd
Not great, you can only officially export PDF, PNG, or SVG, though their cloud
management does seem to work really well and as I understand, files are stored
locally on each device once synced.

That said, it runs linux so you could conceivably backup the files yourself.
You can ssh into your tablet, run sftp, w/e. But they are in some proprietary
.lines format.

There's a wiki with more details (the file format stuff is further down):
[https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem](https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/filesystem)

It may be possilbe you could hack it to run xournal, but I've no idea.

------
knolax
When looking at e-paper tablets in the past I found that the ReMarkable does
not support using an external SD-card. If you google around you'll find many
e-ink tablets using the same screen and stylus technology (as in they
literally use the same parts from Wacom) that run slightly modified Android
and do have an sd-card slot. If anyone else is interested in buying an e-ink
tablet you should look into those.

------
funkaster
I bought the original one during the initial sale, I think I paid something
around $300 for it. Loved it and used it as my main reading/note taking
device. I got an iPad Pro (12.9) last year and I've stopped using the
remarkable, but will prob get the newer version. I find it much easier on the
eyes and better to read using the remarkable. It was a great piece of hw
before, the new one looks even better.

------
aNoob7000
Has anyone used this product? and how does it compare to like an IPad Pro?

I have an IPad Pro, but I'm not in love with the writing experience or reading
an eBook.

~~~
smt1
I have an ipad pro and a remarkable, and I use the remarkable a lot more. I
mostly note take/doodle though. The writing experience is way better.

------
jjuel
I so badly wanted the first one. This one looks even better. However, with
twins on the way probably still not in the cards, but damn I can dream.

------
mattkevan
I’ve been wanting a ReMarkable since the preorder. If I could afford it I’d
buy one in a heartbeat - and the v2 looks like an fantastic improvement.

Came close to buying one last year, but went for an iPad Air instead as they
are cheaper and more versatile.

While I’d still love an e-ink display, I found a screen protector for the iPad
that has a paper-like texture and makes it significantly nicer to draw on.

------
nocoder
What is the main reason that make these devices so expensive? Is it low
demand? complex technology? or something to do with patents?

~~~
azeirah
Niche market, there are barely any competitors. I believe Sony has a competing
device for business, costs around 1k$

Onyx also has one, it's a bit cheaper than the remarkable.

All of these devices have major flaws and upsides.

------
sergioisidoro
I really liked Remarkable hardware, but I ended up returning it. The Software
and general workflow to send and manage documents was cumbersome. Simple
things like sharing meeting notes with colleagues shouldn't be that
complicated.

It's one of those cases where the hardware is amazing but the software is just
too painful to use (and I really wanted to like it)

------
SZJX
Would love to see a bigger (13.3-inch) version. Many PDF books are Letter or
A4 size by default and I don't like having to read them with (smaller) scaled
fonts. Otherwise I would go for it as its software seems to be more complete
than that of Sony's Digital Paper, which I've been using for a couple of years
already.

------
nudpiedo
I am the kind of person who takes notes and write on paper daily, for
pleasure, and I have no problem managing or carrying paper notebooks. Does
anyone know were could I personally try reMarkable 2 in Germany or Europe?

Does anyone know on whether it is possible to read kindle _purchased_ books or
converted ebooks? What about custom software?

~~~
nudpiedo
Now that I read almost everything online: \- You can't read Kindle books
directly on the reMarkable (DRM not supported) \- It has support for ePub and
PDF \- It runs a Linux accessible by SSH and hacker friendly (check awesome
remarkable on github)

------
matsemann
The hardware on the first one was very good compared to others at the time,
but some software features I'd like to have was missing. So I tested a
friend's one, but never ended up buying one myself. But from the looks of it
they have added and worked on much of that software the last years. Looks very
compelling now.

------
daswolle
Do they have any ergonomics for left handed people? All the photos show users
holding the device with their right hand.

~~~
guruz
It's in the FAQ section here:
[https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2](https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2)

Answer: Yes!

------
gfaure
Is it possible to keep documents entirely local and guarantee that ReMarkable
doesn't have access to data? From what I recall, their Terms of Service leave
this possibility open.

This made ReMarkable a non-starter for many companies that have policies
around where internal data may be stored.

~~~
jmiserez
Yes. The USB interface works well on the reMarkable 1, you just plug it in and
go to [http://10.11.99.1](http://10.11.99.1) in a browser. The cloud service
is the default, but it is optional [1]:

> _Our cloud service is a service we provide to our customers. You are more
> than welcome to use your reMarkable offline and store your documents in
> local storage if you prefer._

Aside: I have setup (via SSH) rclone to sync files to my own cloud storage,
but that's not something that is officially supported.

[1] [https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/36000264829...](https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360002648297-Connecting-to-the-reMarkable-cloud)

------
learc83
What's the drawing latency like? High latency is what keeps me from switching
away from paper.

~~~
kissgyorgy
50ms was the 1st model, 20ms for this.

------
a-saleh
Damn! It is beautiful. If I were to become a manager, where my greatest
contribution will be sending the best damn meeting-minutes I can, I am buying
this.

But I already have Onyx Boox for my note-scribbling-on-e-ink needs, and if
push comes to shove, I can run termux from there :D

~~~
fma
Which model of Onyx Boox do you have? Can you give a brief pro/con? I've never
heard of the company but man their devices are tempting...

~~~
eggie
The devices are conceptually great: just an android tablet with e-ink. The
software is kind of low-quality. They're fun to use, and good for reducing eye
strain while doing things that you'd typically do on a phone, laptop, or
tablet, without limitations.

But... the devices are absolutely the most fragile electronics I've touched in
20 years. I've had _two_ break on me in as many months, babying them and being
incredibly careful.

The first one developed a line of stuck pixels within the first week of use.
It happened while I was using it, which was surreal to watch. They replaced
it, but I had to pay shipping, which wasn't cool.

The second locked up a few days ago. I rebooted it, thinking it'd be OK, but
discovered that the capacitive touchscreen was not recognized. I'm not the
only one. You can see dozens of people complaining about this here:
[http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-
capacitive...](http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/boox-note-pro-capacitive-
touchscreen-not-working/1852). Now I have to use the pen, which doesn't work
everywhere in the interface (e.g. for reading PDFs, it's impossible to turn
pages) _and_ the device locks up after ten minutes. So I'll be sending this
one back too, because I'm outside of the limits for a full refund. Maybe the
third one will last more than a month.

Their design and quality control are horrific. The high price of the device
only makes sense from the perspective of them having to replace everyone's
device three or four times.

I hope e-ink screen having android devices become commonplace and onyx gets
competed out of existence.

~~~
a-saleh
damn! I am glad I didn't run into the hardware problems

------
eequah9L
What I don't understand is why the display is not vertically symmetrical. Then
the software could eventually be made to allow 180 degree rotation of the
interface. This way the device could be used by both left-handed and right-
handed people equally.

------
pricci
This seems great and the price is much more achievable now. I personally can't
read PDF books from a normal screen. I need paper.

I own a Kindle DX but the screen is not big enough and the software is showing
its age.

The fact that you can even use a pencil I this device is a big plus.

~~~
jonahbenton
I replaced my pool of failing Kindle DXes with the RM1. Wrote some tools to
automate DeDRMing my Kindle books so I have them on the RM1 now.

Very similar reading experience. The RM1 is faster than the DX, but the
software is slightly less reader friendly (harder to get to table of contents,
go to specific pages, etc). I didn't use zoom on the DX, don't know if RM1 has
it or how usable it is.

The ability to notate on PDFs on the RM1 is very valuable.

------
lottin
This is great but how many tablets do I really need to get rid of paper? At
least two, because typically I will be reading and taking notes
simultaneously, and often times more than two, because I may need to check
multiple sources.

------
angry_octet
What is the security of these things? I'd really like a good encrypted
notebook, but tbh I would want iOS like security (hardware enclave, so I can
use a short PIN and still have moderate security).

Also, is it too much to expect colour?

~~~
npalmer76
For doctors to be able to use this they need encrypted at rest. I think this
would be an amazing device for them but without encrypted storage it is a non-
starter.

I reached out to the manufacturer to find out.

------
goatherders
The price point is now low enough that I'm down to preorder. I could use pen
and paper (as I do) forever and probably not spend $400 but the price is low
enough for a gadget that would be fun and novel for now.

------
shock
> Note and file syncing between reMarkable tablet and reMarkable apps for
> MacOS, Windows 7 and newer, iOS, and Android

I would very much like to order it, but it doesn't support linux :( Please,
please add linux support!

~~~
devnonymous
Actually, it has a webapp which you can acess via your browser over the
wireless or USB connection ip, which allows you a rudimentary upload/download
:

[https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/36000266133...](https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360002661337-Transferring-files-using-a-USB-cable)

That said, there are whole lot of sync tools that users have created which
work very well with Linux (for example, I personally use remarkablefs, which
is a Fuse based filesystem to mount your remarkable)

[https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable/blob/master...](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable/blob/master/README.md#device-tools)

------
beezle
The speed improvements are impressive. Wonder though if there is any physical
change in the display? It seems to be identical, was hoping they could bring
something with a whiter background.

~~~
beezle
Also wonder about security of the pen if used with the book folio. Exactly how
strong is that magnetic attachment?

------
mskalski
I guess that using safari online on remarkable is not possible or at least
difficult with exporting chapter by chapter. Any recommendation for 10 inch
e-ink which works with safari online?

------
g123g
Is it worth it to buy just for reading purposes? I have a Kindle but a want
bigger screen to read PDFs and web pages.

Also, any integration with the Android app store?

~~~
jshevek
It is perfectly serviceable for reading, though it may lack some of the
reading oriented features of other eink devices. I love the large size for
some of my documents, which are unpleasant to read on smaller devices.

~~~
ProZsolt
What you re missing?

~~~
jshevek
Based on other comments here, it seems that the Remarkable is missing several
features that some people enjoy in their eReaders. The only one I can cite
definitively is the lack of backlight. I can't speak to other allegedly
missing features because I haven't investigated the issue. I am satisfied with
the features I do use when I want to read certain docs on the large remarkable
screen.

------
Shorel
For me the competition to this is the Rocketbook.

You write or draw with real pens and still can scan and digitize the things
you write.

And in price the Rocketbook wins hands down.

------
rb808
BTW I bought Kobo Forma with a 8in screen and its great for tech books which
don't work in a regular sized kindle. Cheaper than Remarkable.

------
narenkeshav
So can I use other cloud providers to sync? Say OneDrive, GDrive, Dropbox or
Box?

How can I import pdf files & export them to a cloud solution?

------
jesuslop
I'd wish they did a hackable A4 version

------
jasondclinton
I'm very interested but am curious what the ebook consumption experience is
like. Can any gen 1 owner comment?

~~~
jmiserez
It's rather basic (i.e. not great), and only supports DRM-less epub and pdf.

~~~
Brakenshire
Have you tried the non-stock software? There’s a port of Plato in one of the
repos listed above.

~~~
jmiserez
No, sorry. But there's two Youtube videos of Plato in the original Reddit
announcement:

[https://youtu.be/JHdsqD4xxik](https://youtu.be/JHdsqD4xxik)
[https://youtu.be/a2mqXTGGTDE](https://youtu.be/a2mqXTGGTDE)

------
mavsman
> Unfortunately I use Firefox, but I can make an exception for this.

Unfortunate attitude that perpetuates (browser) lock-in.

~~~
smt1
Personally, I just use this to print stuff from whatever app and send it to
the remarkable: [https://github.com/juruen/rmapi/blob/master/docs/tutorial-
pr...](https://github.com/juruen/rmapi/blob/master/docs/tutorial-print-
macosx.md)

Works well, I'm guessing for other platforms, similar things exist using
remarkable's api.

------
qbaqbaqba
I wonder how well the older model will be supported. Interesting device but
uses closed software and formats.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/YjZUI](https://archive.md/YjZUI)

------
treve
Does anyone know if this tablet is programmable? If so I would probably want
one!

~~~
hcs
For the original one at least, yes. The official stuff is at
[https://remarkable.engineering/](https://remarkable.engineering/) and there
are a few Rust projects built around libremarkable
[https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable](https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable)

------
npalmer76
Does anybody know if the devices storage is encrypted at rest?

------
archon810
Is there a way to get Google Play Books on this thing? Kindle?

------
Edmond
Nice and intriguing but unfortunately this is still priced as a premium
product.

Obviously the company making it has its reasons for pricing but a product like
this needs to be priced as an accessible consumer electronics product (ie
$50-$100).

~~~
organsnyder
I've been keeping an eye on largish-format epaper tablets for a while (I'm an
avocational organist and singer, and would love to have my whole music library
with me at all times). ReMarkable is actually on the cheaper end of the
spectrum. I think it comes down to low volume and target users (professionals
who wouldn't balk at paying this much for a business tool). Basically, a
typical vertical market.

~~~
Edmond
Hopefully they'll consider the functionally minded customer soon.

I would be happy with a cheapish form factor option, it doesn't have to be the
slick looking product that is the only option currently available.

------
elric
Is there a way to set up a self hosted sync server yet?

------
techslave
tested it for 1 minute at that “beta” store. must have been the old version of
course.

it’s terrible. the response time makes it very awful.

------
FriendlyNormie
This article falsely claims the device cannot be used by left-handed people.
There is a left-handed mode in the settings.

------
crimsonalucard
How does this compare with the ipad and the apple pencil? Is it worth it to
get even when you already own an ipad and an apple pencil?

------
throwlaplace
the only thing i want is a device i can write on that has a refresh rate (or
whatever) that's near realtime (so that I don't get the cognitive dissonance
from the lag in the line appearing). does such a device exist? i've tried
surface and ipad and etc. all of them still have quite noticeable lag when
writing.

~~~
jshevek
> _does such a device exist?_

That is the goal of this device. The original Remarkable was superior to the
surface and the iPad, and according to their marketing the next one will be
twice as fast.

~~~
throwlaplace
you can see very clearly in the demo video that there is still a very
noticeable lag

------
pettycashstash2
why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like
guerrilla marketing.

~~~
jshevek
> _why so many posts to hacker News about this today? Seems and feels like
> guerrilla marketing._

Are you accusing the people who posted these links of being employees of
Remarkable? If so, you could just look at their comment histories to see if it
seems likely before posting a general accusation.

I am fascinated by this product. It is far more interesting to me than much of
what Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, or Amazon have done in a tablet form
factor in many years. I'm not surprised that others may have a similar level
of interest.

~~~
pettycashstash2
I am not and did not accuse anyone. I simply noticed many links to many
resources about same product in a short period of time. You can make your own
judgement call on that. Are press releases standard - of course. I would ague
that guerrilla marketing is standard ops for many new products/services and it
should not be perceived in a negative way. Its a tool, i was simply curious if
this was the case. In addition i'm fascinated at guerrilla marketing
operations and am curious if they in fact are, how are they are engaged, paid
etc.....

------
diffeomorphism
Literally unviewable and it is not consent if there is no option to say "no".

Ianal but this website is probably violating GDPR:

[https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/](https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/)

------
tobethau
People don't jerk off to magazines anymore.

~~~
mszcz
As much as I appreciate the Silicon Valley reference, I don't think that this
is a place for it...

------
honkycat
Good god, the scroll hijacking on that site is dreadful. Makes it impossible
to scroll comfortably on mobile.

That being said I’ve always admired the Remarkable tablets.

------
logfromblammo
This is essentially an advertisement. There's no need to read, unless you are
looking to buy a $400 convenience replacement for a $1 pad of paper plus a
scanner.

