I have a Supernote Nomad and love the size of it, which is A6 sized. I struggle to see how making one more narrow than an A6 pad is useful. This Remarkable kind of looks more like a long post it note or grocery list instead of a notebook.
The trick to something narrower is to get comfortable with doodling in landscape mode, e. g. for classroom notes, and scroll (and orientation-switch) accordingly when neccessary. Ideally you'd have physical complementary buttons present, but a good touchscreen with palm rejection works as well. To-do lists and the like can be done vertical mode. In other words, a digital notepad.
Now you only have to built a corresponding smartphone-sized, pen-focused, modular and connectable open-standards general-purpose computer. :) ... :(
The reMarkable looks too underpowered and maybe too enshittified (subscriptions, lock-ins) to be used for anything else but a digital notepad.
I will say that my supernote really is just a digital notepad. I keep all my work to do lists organized on it. But since it's Android and supports side loading apps, I have the Kobo app and read a ton on it even without a backlight.
I don't see how that can't be improved.
This smells more of a fundamental problem to me where vendors enshittify their devices to try wooing complete non-users, e. g. people who are too incompetent to work their head around using a penabled smartphone-sized machine and its notetaking/sketching applications exactly like they would use an analog pendant (the classic pocket notepad/pencil combo), or people who bore others with tedious litanies about how "the screen is too small". The latter crowd is well-cared for options-wise, so this is virtually a non-problem. I want to carry around and use a digital pocket notepad on steroids, and not a bloody whiteboard.
> I will say that my supernote really is just a digital notepad.
I only tested the Nomad's pen functionality (as well as ergonomics resulting from its size) and was very pleased. It's weaknesses lie elsewhere.