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Comment by bm1362 | Hacker News Reader

Frankly no, it doesn’t re-flow them so the text will often be too small. Quite a massive oversight and no one really talks about it.

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I am surprised anyone would want reflow in their PDFs (that is what epub is for). The PDFs I read would be completely ruined even by minor reflow (e.g. I work with two-column text with many inline figures and math). PDF inherently as a format is not meant to have reflow.

With that context, I love reading PDFs on my remarkable 2. Zooming and panning also works pretty well (given the slow refresh rate of e-ink).

Reflow is offered by Adobe: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2020/09/23/adobe-unveils-a...

Unfortunately you have to send the file to their servers, which is probably a no-go for many.

The only reason I can think of, is people being unaware of ePub existence.

I agree with you. If you want something that can be reflowed, get the ePub version. Or, if it's meant to be made from images, get the CBZ version.

That's a legitimate criticism, and one reason I've held off buying one. I wonder how long it would take to get a screen size of 13.5" (about the same as US letter paper size, which is what most pdfs are formatted for).

That is legitimately the one thing I wish was different about the RM2 - the screen is 1/3 or so smaller than a regular sheet of paper. If it were 1:1 with a sheet of paper, I would absolutely love this thing.

There is the Sony Digital Paper DPTS1, but it's very expensive.

I see it's been replaced by the Sony DPT-RP1, though that's still expensive. At least this is proof it's possible and creates hope for competitors to emerge.

I have both the Sony and the remarkable and the note taking experience is not comparable. Since I bought the RM2 I've essentially not touched the Sony, the RM2 is so much better. I'd also add that I use the RM2 for reading and annotating pdfs a lot and I had the same thought about size at the beginning. I am a bit more twisted now, I'd definitely like a larger screen when annotating pdfs (just reading is fine actually), but I also think I would leave the device at home much more if it were bigger. The RM2 is a perfect size for always having it with me.

> I wonder how long it would take to get a screen size of 13.5"

Probably quite long. I remember a discussion here on HN a while ago where it was said e-ink displays are expensive since there's no economy of scale and there are only a few manufacturers. Now for larger displays the demand is even lower, so prices tend to be even steeper.

That is really too bad. Hopefully there's either a larger device or upgrade soon, I've been waiting a long time for something like the reMarkable to mature into a product that fits my needs.

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