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Comment by chaosprint | Hacker News Reader

I owned lots of E-ink devices. I got a Boox Mira 13 inch screen and it works well on both Mac/Windows. On Windows I can even have some touchscreen interaction. But I have to warn you!!!! that your mouse is not going to work as it feels very different. So I use it only to read news, reply emails and messages. Coding, video, and gaming would be impossible!

The same thing would 100% go to this new display.

I have also got a Boox X 13 inch tablet. I was choosing between this and Boox Ultra C which is a coloured one. But then I decide the screen size is more important than the color, the the Boox X 13 inch is much lighter! It's fantastic to read HN news and PDF every day with it.

I once ordered ReMarkable 2 but the experience was a disaster. The PDF is rendered as picture. I couldn't believe it! Basically unusable even if it's free to get one.

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RM2 ex-pat club member here too! Beautiful design, bizarrely crippled user experience. They put a wifi+bt chip on the board, but didn't connect the bluetooth signals, so you couldn't use a bluetooth keyboard with it like any other tablet. And a zillion other frustrations.

I sold it to a friend after making super sure he was okay with the limitations and wouldn't blame me for selling him a lemon.

I've written about this on HN before, but the RM2 people don't make the device show up as a standard USB device, which makes file manipulations hard. I think this is an effort to sell their "cloud" server stuff for a few dollars a month. That's not been the effect on me; instead, I barely use mine, and complain about it on the Internet.

True but what you can do is SSH to the device and install a custom launcher for apps that can read standard epubs, play chess, or expose the linux terminal on device.

Not great for basic users but I've had significantly more use out of it with some advanced setup.

I always check for cloud server bullshit before a purchase. I lost all interest when proprietary cloud appeared to be the only thing set up for syncing.

To make this simpler I made Regittable[0] for personal use. As only an occasional RM2 user (a weekend a month), I activate the python script on my desktop, pack my RM2 and go to a cafe, and when I'm back my files are all in Dropbox or in the project git repo, depending on if they're new or old respectively. I had plans to add more features to Regittable (like have it submit PRs instead of committing as you) but never needed them myself so didn't bother.

I will add as a user who dealt with it I will add that there is a ( paid ) solution that works well for my RM2[1]. It can be done on your own, but the amount of work made it worth the money Davis is asking.

After that.. all of a sudden I started using it a lot more.

http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/

Attention all device manufacturers: I don’t want your f-ing cloud. When I buy a physical thing, having to keep paying you every month is a dealbreaker. I don’t care that you want a constant subscription revenue stream, buying a piece of hardware is about me, not you.

They also don't support USB OTG on the main port, so you can't even use a wired keyboard. They only just recently released a keyboard case that uses the Pogo pins on the side, but it's $200!!

There was an abandoned(?) attempt to enable OTG. The hardware supported acting as USB host, but couldn't supply 5v so you needed a powered hub as well as a wired keyboard.

But, the software support for text input is absolutely horrendous. It inserts a text block into the center of the current page and you can't move it. Hell, until the 3.0 update, you couldn't even delete notebooks on the device.

The RM2 is beautiful hardware that's about 90% developed with some truly awful software. Fortunately, you get root out of the box and the homebrew scene is active enough to give you most of the features that RM2 left out

all these designs prove that rm2 is the worst product I have ever seen

It's a pretty good product with some mediocre software.

At the end of the day, it's extremely useful and usable for a lot of people doing a wide variety of tasks.

The hardware has some issues, but I'd say it's like 90% there. The software features that work well are rather limited, but that's an intentional design decision.

It has some limitations, but I consider it a rather good product.

I have a remarkable 2 and use it to read PDF and e-books. e-pub was slow, so I use PDF.

It doesn't have to phone home or use the cloud, which is sort of refreshing. I have never hooked it into any network or even bothered updating the software.

I use USB which becomes a network interface, then connect to http://10.11.99.1/ and drag/drop files. This is all local.

No built-in lighting, but it works great with a reading lamp or in sunlight.

It replaces a book in my lap and is just for reading books. Sometimes I use it while exercising on treadmill, and with the big screen and large type it works great.

only nit, is sometimes swipe when turning pages is ignored and I have to do it a couple of times. (Maybe it is sleeping and needs to be woken?)

I would suggest either updating the software or installing KoReader.

The most recent official firmware has a much nicer UI, but is incompatible with homebrew at the moment.

KoReader is much, much nicer to use, as it's designed specifically for e-readers. It has no annotation or pen support, but the reading features are so much better than the stock software. I typically have it set to dual-column in landscape mode, I find it more comfortable to read with the gigantic screen.

Plus KoReader works with Calibre to manage your library over the network. It's really quite pleasant once you get it working

> remarkable 2

Fun fact, you can hook this up to your computer and use it as a drawing tablet, maybe I should open-source my plugin for this :)

> only nit, is sometimes swipe when turning pages is ignored and I have to do it a couple of times. (Maybe it is sleeping and needs to be woken?)

It's an issue with how you do the gesture, I have the most luck doing it around 60% down the screen, from one edge to the other, and waiting for the screen to finish refreshing before doing anything else.

Your comment about the gesture made me laugh. It reminded me of when Jobs said that people were holding the iPhone incorrectly for antenna gate

I mean it's sort of true! I'm not sure exactly which heuristics reMarkable is using but they seem not to work super well. I have the same issue on the rM2 unless I do like a Perfect High-Quality Swipe, so it's apparently important. Though, IMHO, waiting for the screen to finish refreshing is the most important part.

Epub is basically just html, so it being slow on remarkable is pretty damning for the device.

It really depends on how large the book is. I believe that when you first open the book the remarkable has to render all the pages, that way the page content doesn't drift as you navigate between pages like on a normal e reader, but you can't do that with something that you annotate based on pages and location on the page.

I believe it converts ePubs to PDF and so doing things like adjusting the font size requires rerendering the whole document.

> your mouse ... feels very different

Latency.

It will work anyway, practically, through the right system, if you want to get used to it.

> ... I can even have some touchscreen interaction

An all systems, if you use remote desktop technologies (e.g. VNC).

windows seems to have some optimisation for touchscreen

Have been thinking about one of these for writing. Is it something you recommend for that express purpose?

Note: I can't just use an e-ink screen w/keyboard and a simple text editor, I used a handful of specialized writing programs like Scrivener and FinalDraft and often collaborate in Gdocs, so I need something that mirrors the screen of a personal computer unfortunately. My goal is to be able to spend more time outdoors writing in the sun, which I can't do without a clunky laptop hood or other hacky solution...

You can, but satisfactory text editors on Android can be hard to find.

No issue with a large enough EPD tablet, a BT keyboard, a good text editor, good configuration and your ability to adapt to the system (latency etc.)

Thanks – I probably should have been clearer: I work in a variety of programs (FinalDraft, Highland 2, Gdocs, Scrivener, Notion) so I need to emulate what I see on my regular screen (OSX). My goal with the e-ink display is to be able to do more writing outside.

Then you could use Remote Desktop connection from your original laptop to a good EPD tablet, presumably Android based (to install the needed software on it). Or, of course, a monitor like that of the submission.

But the biggest colour EPD tablet I see after a brief search is only 10.3'' big, see nearby https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mdp2021

You will also have to be prepared to the different technology: latency, for example, will be implied; ghosting; good lighting dependence...

Thanks a ton for the advice!

Sorry, wrong link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36944258

If you install termux you can use micro or vim.

If you install Termux there is a chance that you can install a full Desktop Manager and windowed applications (accessible through local VNC).

I can only say that Boox Tab X 13.3 works for me. With Android you can do a lot of things. Also the Mira works fine to be a Windows screen but it might not be the best if you wanna a minimal outdoor setup.

I have the original reMarkable device and I love it. My father has the rM2 and also enjoys it, but I haven't felt the need to upgrade. I'd happy take a free one though :)

I have the boox nova 3 color that I bought on impulse and immediately thought I should return but ended up liking it and a big part of that was how good the PDF reader was and the fact its stylus is not powered yet works perfectly. The color feels more or less like a gimmick, I think I'd have liked the same device with no color e-ink just fine.

The grayscale displays also have higher contrast (still low overall) compared to the color displays.

If you're willing to hack around with a reMarkable, koreader or plato have far better reading support if you don't need annotation.

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