from Hacker News

ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery

by sharcerer on 3/17/20, 1:19 PM with 319 comments

  • by ACS_Solver on 3/17/20, 3:06 PM

    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.

  • by carlosdp on 3/17/20, 5:24 PM

    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

  • by floren on 3/17/20, 3:03 PM

    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.

  • by diffeomorphism on 3/17/20, 2:48 PM

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

    https://remarkable.com/

  • by dredmorbius on 3/17/20, 7:54 PM

    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.

  • by tomerbd on 3/17/20, 5:29 PM

    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...

  • by michaelschade on 3/17/20, 7:13 PM

    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...

    Open source at https://github.com/michaelschade/remarklater

  • by e12e on 3/17/20, 8:04 PM

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

    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.

  • by quartz on 3/17/20, 4:49 PM

    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.

  • by scottwernervt on 3/17/20, 2:51 PM

    > 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.

  • by ThrowawayR2 on 3/17/20, 2:49 PM

    > "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?

  • by kybernetikos on 3/17/20, 10:01 PM

    Judging by the technical specifications on 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.

  • by WalterBright on 3/18/20, 12:18 AM

    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.

  • by pushcx on 3/17/20, 2:50 PM

    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.

  • by webkike on 3/17/20, 5:33 PM

    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

  • by zxcvgm on 3/17/20, 6:48 PM

    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...

  • by enricozb on 3/17/20, 4:06 PM

    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).

  • by tesseract2 on 3/17/20, 6:24 PM

    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.

  • by fmela on 3/17/20, 6:11 PM

    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.

  • by chatmasta on 3/17/20, 2:39 PM

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

  • by smilekzs on 3/18/20, 4:21 AM

    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!

  • by java-man on 3/17/20, 2:48 PM

    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?

  • by j0057 on 3/17/20, 6:04 PM

    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.

  • by Awtem on 3/18/20, 9:52 PM

    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.

  • by thrower123 on 3/18/20, 1:00 PM

    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.

  • by m-p-3 on 3/17/20, 9:22 PM

    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.

  • by dnquark on 3/17/20, 5:03 PM

    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.

  • by funkaster on 3/17/20, 4:47 PM

    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.

  • by knolax on 3/18/20, 1:42 AM

    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.

  • by aNoob7000 on 3/17/20, 3:10 PM

    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.

  • by jjuel on 3/17/20, 2:52 PM

    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.

  • by mattkevan on 3/17/20, 7:00 PM

    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.

  • by nocoder on 3/18/20, 4:45 AM

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

  • by sergioisidoro on 3/17/20, 6:18 PM

    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)

  • by SZJX on 3/20/20, 3:12 PM

    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.

  • by nudpiedo on 3/18/20, 11:54 AM

    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?

  • by matsemann on 3/17/20, 2:47 PM

    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.

  • by daswolle on 3/19/20, 12:43 PM

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

  • by gfaure on 3/17/20, 7:49 PM

    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.

  • by learc83 on 3/17/20, 7:15 PM

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

  • by a-saleh on 3/17/20, 7:08 PM

    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

  • by pricci on 3/18/20, 12:16 AM

    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.

  • by eequah9L on 3/18/20, 12:34 PM

    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.

  • by lottin on 3/17/20, 4:55 PM

    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.

  • by angry_octet on 3/18/20, 2:45 AM

    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?

  • by goatherders on 3/19/20, 1:25 AM

    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.

  • by shock on 3/17/20, 9:51 PM

    > 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!

  • by beezle on 3/17/20, 2:52 PM

    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.

  • by mskalski on 3/17/20, 9:29 PM

    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?

  • by g123g on 3/17/20, 4:07 PM

    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?

  • by Shorel on 3/17/20, 7:26 PM

    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.

  • by rb808 on 3/18/20, 12:11 AM

    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.

  • by narenkeshav on 3/17/20, 10:20 PM

    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?

  • by jesuslop on 3/17/20, 5:02 PM

    I'd wish they did a hackable A4 version

  • by jasondclinton on 3/17/20, 10:52 PM

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

  • by mavsman on 3/17/20, 5:50 PM

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

    Unfortunate attitude that perpetuates (browser) lock-in.

  • by qbaqbaqba on 3/18/20, 8:34 AM

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

  • by neonate on 3/17/20, 4:29 PM

  • by treve on 3/17/20, 4:59 PM

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

  • by npalmer76 on 3/18/20, 9:08 PM

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

  • by archon810 on 3/18/20, 3:04 PM

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

  • by Edmond on 3/17/20, 3:29 PM

    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).

  • by elric on 3/19/20, 7:57 PM

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

  • by techslave on 3/18/20, 2:04 AM

    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.

  • by smt1 on 3/17/20, 3:44 PM

    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!

  • by FriendlyNormie on 3/18/20, 4:22 AM

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

  • by crimsonalucard on 3/18/20, 10:23 AM

    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?

  • by throwlaplace on 3/17/20, 4:04 PM

    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.

  • by pettycashstash2 on 3/17/20, 3:52 PM

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

  • by diffeomorphism on 3/17/20, 2:46 PM

    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/

  • by tobethau on 3/17/20, 5:22 PM

    People don't jerk off to magazines anymore.

  • by honkycat on 3/17/20, 2:43 PM

    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.

  • by logfromblammo on 3/17/20, 3:05 PM

    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.