
Noteslate - trishume
http://www.noteslate.com/
======
scrumper
Thingy itself is interesting but that website! It goes on, and on, and on, and
on, in an almost endless stream of pseudo-intellectual, grandiose gibberish.
Needs a brutal edit, and then what's left needs rewriting by an English-
speaking copywriter.

~~~
steckerbrett
I was quite stunned by how long it was, I don't think I've ever seen a longer
product page before. Once you get down to it though the resolution of that
thing is quite impressive, I didn't know that you could get 1080x1440 px 6.8”
e-ink panels. That's impressive. Not sure you could ever use it like they are
picturing though, some of the examples have lines close to the edge where it
is surely impossible to actually get the stylus.

~~~
daphreak
The SHIRO pre-order seems to be priced at $199

~~~
steckerbrett
Cheaper than I expected, but not cheap enough I'm willing to buy one just for
the screen.

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TeMPOraL
Unfortunately, this device doesn't solve a thing, and it's good that they're
at least honest and didn't edit it out of the video. The deal-breaker here?
Lag.

There's a reason people don't use tablets as paper even though they're almost
ubiquitous, and perfectly able to act like it. It's because the few hundreds
milliseconds it takes to react to user input is enough to make handwriting
insanely irritating.

Interestingly, one of the recent Windows tablets (I don't remember the model;
I had the opportunity to play with it few months ago) seem to have input lag
so low, that you can actually write comfortably on it. So it's most definitely
possible.

~~~
notgood
It doesn't even need to have 0 lag, just the _illusion_ of having 0 lag would
be enough, like faking the stroke until the actual stroke is digitally
rendered/saved, maybe with the help of a film that responds to pressure such
as this one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oikY3mKkAs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oikY3mKkAs)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed. The point is, you need _instant_ feedback.

Very interesting video, I've never seen such sorcery before. Thanks!

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chasing
I love the idea, and the device looks neat. But, man:

Lag.

With the half- or full-second lag between a drawing action and seeing the line
on the screen, this feels like it'd be maddening to use.

~~~
zyxley
Yeah, if they didn't have awful lag even in their own marketing video I might
have been interested.

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batbomb
See previous discussion (1700 days ago!):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2180623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2180623)

~~~
melling
In that case, it's probably gonna be the iPad Pro with the Pencil. I really
like pen and paper. It looks like Apple got it right:

[http://9to5mac.com/2015/09/29/pixar-ipad-pro-
pencil/](http://9to5mac.com/2015/09/29/pixar-ipad-pro-pencil/)

Apple tricked everyone into thinking a stylus was dumb, right up until they
shipped a great one.

~~~
officemonkey
Remember when Apple tricked everyone into thinking Netbooks were underpowered
and lame, right up until they shipped the iPad?

When Apple does the "I'm sure those grapes are sour" routine, you can bet
they've got the fix in their pipeline.

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mangeletti
If you search Google for "noteslate wiki"[1], the first result is the
Wikipedia entry for Vaporware[2].

1\.
[http://google.com/search?q=noteslate+wiki](http://google.com/search?q=noteslate+wiki)

2\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware)

~~~
steckerbrett
That's because the product was first announced half a decade ago.

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trishume
Seems like a neat product, a mashup of an ereader and a
[http://www.myboogieboard.com/](http://www.myboogieboard.com/) with some added
web.

The initial hero image has terrible contrast and readability though, and the
site does too much unnecessary fanciness with scroll-ability.

~~~
Vendan
So so agree. Did the designers not look at the page after they put it up? The
white text on red and white plaid tablecloth one was even worse!

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tomashertus
I think that these products are like 5 years behind the market. There will be
need for pencils only in niche markets and definitely not for writing. It
looks beautiful, but I don't see go this mainstream....

------
kevindeasis
Cool product. I always wanted something like this when I was more interested
in architecture than coding.

I opened this in another tab and went back to coding. I was wondering why
everything started to slow down. Then I looked at how much memory chrome was
easting again.

Anyways, site looks nice, but the UX is another story. You might want a
copywriter, and speed up your site by alot. Also, might want to change the
header fonts and color. I find some stuff hard to read.

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MichaelGG
Why do they keep saying 1-bit but then 16-level grayscale? That's 4 bits.

Looks neat but a bit small at 6.8". I'm nervous that the stylus might be small
and cramping for my hand. I'm not big, just that a lot of stuff is small for
design purposes first, usability second. (See: every MS mouse after the
Intellimouse Explorer.)

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smoreilly
I'm confused how this is so high right now. This really is not that innovative
or interesting.

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d--b
I would totally buy this if it came with a magnet on the back so that it can
stick to my fridge door, and if I could nicely plug it so as to not have to
reload the battery...

Think about it, the fridge door is the only place where you're going to
remember to use this thing: Open the door, no more figs, write a reminder on
your slate, and later when grocery shopping, access the slate from your
device. Any other use case is gadgety and you're going to use it 5 minutes and
give it up. That said, it's quite expensive for a fridge door post it
replacement.

In fact, I think the guys who created this should partner with fridge
companies to embed their product in fridge doors. That would be freaking
awesome.

Just saying...

------
evolve2k
Quick heads up, you've got a syntax error in your landing page copy.

"Discover the potential and simplicity of a monocrhome handwriting interface."

Moncrhome should read Monochrome :)

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volaski
Was watching the video, and near the end it said "Buy now at noteslate.com",
and I was like "wow I give these guys 1000 points for actually SHIPPING IT
instead of being just another lame kickstarter scam". And then I read some
more, and it says "Pre-order" at the bottom of the page. Why of course, just
another vaporware :(

------
Chipchipperson
Much better versions of this already exist, e.g. The Sharp WG-S20
([http://www.amazon.com/SHARP-Electronic-Memo-
WG-S20-White/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/SHARP-Electronic-Memo-
WG-S20-White/dp/B00GGCB3AC))

I believe Sony makes one as well nut significantly more expensive.

------
personjerry
For a product seemingly targetted at designers, the site design is pretty
awful. Too much text, a billion fonts, hard-to-read text+background
combination (the "picnic cloth" is nigh unreadable).

And why does it claim to be "sustainable"?

I'd say the execution/presentation needs serious work.

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ryaneager
I remember hearing about this 5 years ago when it was first announced, with
the $99 price point. I thought it was the perfect device for me as I was
starting college and would work well for taking CS and math notes. Glad it
finally shipped but boy does it feel like a dated.

------
volaski
Reading another thread for the same website from a half decade ago, I can't
help but doubt that they will actually ship
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2180623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2180623)

------
joshguthrie
How exactly is this better than [http://www.amazon.com/Tomy-Megasketcher-
Magnetic-Drawing-Boa...](http://www.amazon.com/Tomy-Megasketcher-Magnetic-
Drawing-Board/dp/B00005LWJ6) ?

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an4rchy
Such a confusing website, I had no idea what this thing does even after
watching the video, it looks like an etch a sketch or a boogie board. I'm sure
those buttons do something.

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ljsocal
the form factor looks terrible...imagine writing/drawing for any length of
time with your wrist sitting on the corner of the device...can you say carpal
tunnel?

~~~
AsakiIssa
It's a damn shame that they was unable to keep to their original A4 / Thin
concepts. Looks as chunky as my current Toshiba M700 convertible laptop.

Still looking for a tablet like device with Wacom Digitizer and very high PPI.
Hopefully the upcoming SP4 and Dell XPS 12 will tick all the boxes!

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cardamomo
Criticisms aside, I really appreciate how the non-anti-aliased and pixelated
quality of the display is incorporated into the product's overall visual
language.

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kactus
Would like to see this with Evernote integration.

Also that website is a good example of bad transitions. I shouldn't have to
wait so long for the text to appear when I scroll.

~~~
adevine
Have you used scannable? Works great, and you still can use plain old pencil
and paper.

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0x0
That lazy-loading isn't really working well, scrolling down through the page
quickly leaves me with a white webpage all the way down...

~~~
azinman2
Worked for me. Too bad they kept repeating themselves to the point where I
wondered if the page was just infinite loop.

------
aaron695
The old classic, now we have invented noun X, somehow the real problems of
verbs Y will also be solved.

The old Minority Report gesturing fallacy.

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latenightcoding
The website will be the doom of that product

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flycaliguy
If you are interested in spending some cash on a writing experience, you may
be much better off just buying some high quality pencils and paper. Get some
Palomino Blackwing pencils and the branded sharpener. (This is not an ad, but)
Just go to jetpens.com and spend the price of this device on some nice stuff.
You'll love it. They have mechanical pencils that automatically rotate the
lead as you write!

------
te_platt
I know this is kind of weak but I have a hard time reading it other than "No
To Slate".

------
fiatjaf
I wish I could get one of these in Brazil without having to sell my entire
blood.

------
MrBra
Amazing product, amazing presentation music, amazing pictures.

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hlfcoding
I'm glad I stopped loading the page.

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steele
hmm bic camera has all sorts of similar devices available today in various
sizes, but white on black via LCD

~~~
DaveSapien
Yeah, I've seen them too. But they don't save (maybe the do) the images. And
most importantly for me, no undo button. I'll keep with my note pro 12.2 for
now.

~~~
DaveSapien
replying to my own comment...ok. I found the american site for them, There is
a saving version:
[http://www.myboogieboard.com/](http://www.myboogieboard.com/)

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dikaiosune
I pulled this up first in a mobile app that strips out CSS and JS. I started
reading the copy and thought that someone had a grandiose satire page trying
to sell a pad of paper as a device. I kept waiting for them to talk about a
real time communication network involving stamps and grandparents.

EDIT: I know that complaining about downvotes is stupid, but I'm curious what
might have invited them in this comment? A bit cavalier perhaps, but they had
me genuinely fooled without the javascript to load the images. Any insight?

