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Comment by zaphar | Hacker News Reader

My review is complete opposite of yours. I also prefer the notepad style of note taking but the remarkable means that my notes are available on my phone or computer whenever I need it. It is the first note taking tablet I've used that actually feels like I'm writing on paper. It's writing and drawing latency is fantastic and the matte surface with the pen replicates the feel better than anything else I've tried.

As an e-reader for general reading it may not shine but when I'm reading a PDF for research and need to underline/mark it up as a part of my study it's fantastic. I find the battery life to be excellent and I don't mind occasionally starting it back up.

It sounds like the remarkable doesn't really fit your way of working but it absolutely fits mine.

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> My review is complete opposite of yours

Have you tried other devices? The remarkable is about bottom of the barrel, with its only good point being a low latency.

For everything else, you'd be better served by a Sony Digital Paper or a Fujitsu Quaderno, and their latency is low enough to not bother me

> I don't mind occasionally starting it back up

Something that's not stable/trustworthy can't be my notetaking device

>For everything else, you'd be better served by a Sony Digital Paper or a Fujitsu Quaderno

I strongly agree with this, if your application is academic paper review or document review.

No, I do such reviews, but I also take notes, interact with a terminal, read books, hack etc.

The boox and the previous gen of Sony are easy to root: there're even guides available. I may write such a guide for the new gen eventually.

Also, they are cheaper, with better customer support, there's no need for special software or subscription.

So I insist: the remarkable has only one small feature where it's ahead. I got one and promptly returned it, as it would have been a downgrade for just everything else.

I've got a collection of eink devices (Moaan/Xiomi inkpalm and inkpalm plus, Sony, Fujitsu, Boox...), and I have very low standards: anything that I can somehow use makes the cut.

The remarkable didn't, which is telling.

It's just bad, sorry. It's marketed to the linux/free software community so it's good if you want some geek cred, but personally I don't care: I root as needed, and write my own tools if required.

Maybe that's why I didn't like the remarkable: I don't need their inferior offering as I can just take something better and make it dance the way I want lol

We've both got a collection of these types of devices :)

I don't dislike the overall reading experience of the RM2; it's the file workflow and the highlighting workflow of the RM2 that in my experience let it down for document review.

My ideal device would be something with the industrial design of the RM2 and most of the software of the Quaderno Gen 2, except the file/folder interface (which I prefer from the RM2) and the tagging workflow from recent RM2 software versions.

Since you have experience rooting these devices, would you happen to know if there's a hack to turn off font hinting on the DPT-RP1/CP1 and Quadernos?

I haven't looked at font hinting, but if you're root, you should be able to replace the ttf files by files you've edited to behave just the way you want.

Have you tried to do just that? If you can't, if you can at least give me fonts, I can try to take a screenshot for you after I've replaced the default fonts by your fonts.

I share your review 1000x. I pretty much exclusively read PDFs, mostly OCRd but sometimes not. reMarkable is the only ereader I’ve ever found usable. I do agree that the subscription model feels tacked on, but there’s good tooling otherwise (I don’t use the cloud service myself). I highly recommend it as an ereader if you want one predominantly for research, actively taking notes on your documents at home and on-the-go while wanting to sync that with your PC note apparatus.

Subscription? No way I'm buying that. Why can't it just connect to an existing cloud storage (dropbox, Drive, iCloud). It's so ridiculous that every company wants to offer their own, highly targeted sync option.

Shocking to hear because it can’t even do OCR so you can search your own notes.

So, you flip through page by page to find your notes?

I’d rather buy an iPad for GoodNotes which lets you search your hand written notes

Generally speaking, I only use notes for at most a week after I wrote them. Anything beyond that and I type up a document. So while I do wish it had search capabilities, it doesn’t really bother me.

I don't do my all of my notes in a single document. I create new documents that are specific to whatever I'm taking notes on. That plus the new tagging capabilities make it pretty easy to find whatever I'm looking for.

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