I have a Remarkable 2 that I used to use religiously, now use sporadically, but cannot recommend because of the user-hostile changes to the subscription and the very restrictive underlying software.
One of the promises that lead me to buy one was the hackability - "It's Linux!" "You can SSH into it!", which, on paper (heh) is still true, but in practice very much isn't.
I think something like a Boox, which runs Android, might be more open to customization, but for now I am back to pencil and paper. That doesn't run Linux, but it also won't change its terms of service anytime soon.
Remarkable itself does not promote the devices as hackable. That's the community that has evolved around it taking advantage of the company leaving the device open in this way. Furthermore, there is quite a thriving ecosystem[1] of custom software for the devices, so your assessment of it not working in practice is empirically untrue.
> the very restrictive underlying software
This is by design, based on publicly espoused principles, and everything about the product branding makes it very explicit and obvious. No one should buy a Remarkable device and be surprised about how restrictive it is.
> the user-hostile changes to the subscription
The "user-hostile" changes to the subscription is that they are charging for it.
It is worth emphasizing that nothing is restricted with device usage if you do not have a subscription. They expect you to pay if you want to use anything which runs through their cloud services, which is undeniably reasonable.
You can sync to other cloud providers without an active subscription.[2]
I almost bought one before I realized I’d be subscribing to it. No, that’s absolutely not reasonable given the price of the unit.
These things aren’t syncing videos. They’re moving some text and PDFs around. Even Apple gives you permanently free iCloud services when you own any Apple device, with the complaint being that they should give you more storage, not that you can’t use it at all.
FWIW I didn’t like the Boox experience: For writing you’re limited to the stock notes app, which I didn’t find usable: You can’t even zoom in it (something I thought would obviously be possible when choosing the smaller Nova 2). It also has a full Android system, which comes with advantages for sure but invites distractions and leads to very disappointing battery life.
I've been using a boox note air for many years and you definitely can zoom on that.
Android is great for this use case because it lets me syncthing notes and use sheet music apps and use both kindle and kobo and calibre library and offline wikipedia and my own tools. As far as I'm concerned if you try to use it as a generic android tablet you're doing it wrong, but android is a massive step above what everyone else is offering (i.e. none of that)
> It also has a full Android system, which comes with advantages for sure but invites distractions and leads to very disappointing battery life.
While some models have a disappointing battery life, it's most definitely because of BSR[0] not because of them running Android. I had a Note Air 3 and that thing got easily 2 weeks of battery life with heavy use while the BSR version (Note Air 3C) barely survived 2 days.
Yes, same. I have one that was grandfathered into the "no subscription" system, which means I can't buy another one (not sure if I will keep the ability not to have a subscription), and can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone else.
I do have a Boox Note Air4, which I bought with the intention of replacing the ReMarkable. On the plus side, it runs Android apps, but on the minus side, the UI is much less polished than the ReMarkable. Having said that, if I had the choice between the two, and weren't grandfathered into the no-subscription option, I would pick the Boox.
I believe the lifetime free subscription is an account setting, not a per device setting. If you go to my.remarkable.com and check the connect subscription page, it should say it's free as a reward for being an early customer.
You can also connect more than one device to the account nowadays.
Yes. Your grandfather status will automatically carry over to your new device.
I have purchased all the Remarkable units since day 1. My grandfather status has been in interrupted.
These days I do quite a bit of field work outdoors (taking measurements, ssh'ing into mobile equipment) and a laptop is a chore to use in broad daylight. With the boox I can connect a bluetooth keyboard and install termux. It's not a perfect setup, but sure beats squinting at a dim screen.
Ha, I actually thought about getting a Boox when I started spending some time in my garden to work this summer cause of that exact same reason. Good to hear that it's actually feasible.
You got the cloud functions for free initially. Now you have to have a subscription. Mine is still free - the pre-order buyers were left with a free subscription after that change.
> One of the promises that lead me to buy one was the hackability - "It's Linux!" "You can SSH into it!", which, on paper (heh) is still true, but in practice very much isn't.
Can you expand on this a bit? Can't you still run third party software on the newer iterations?
Yes. The Paper Pro (and presumably the Move) require you to explicitly enable developer mode in order to enable ssh access where older devices had it enabled by default. USB still works. It is, however, not easy to toggle dev mode on and off - so once you activate it you will probably keep it active.
It mostly depends on your needs, the Note Air series is good if you are on the go while the bigger models like the Note Air Max are fit for a more stationary use.
RM2 was a game changer for me: I could take notes both physically and on a computer and have them seamlessly in one place. Until after a firmware update the device became slow to respond and writing quality declined as the pen did not write continuously or wrote without the tip touching. I’m still, reluctantly, using it, but the thing is only valuable, if it’s as immediate and reliable as paper. Yet another company, that can’t leave their product the hell alone. I did not need that firmware update. My device was perfect, thank you very much
I have two of these devices (RM2 and the Paper Pro) and haven’t experienced anything of what you’re describing despite using them extensively for a few years. I would recommend getting in touch with support about that, or trying a factory reset to see if that improves anything.
Not sure if you already did, but I would reach out to support. I’ve had many firmware updates on my rM2 and never experienced the issues you’re describing.
I bought a pinenote after the charing port on the rm2 stopped working. With the rm2 it would refuse to wake sometimes if it's not charged to 100% slowly, the pen ghosting issue continued to get worse the longer it was in use even with a replaced tip, the web interface wasn't the most practical to add new books with (via SSH it's also a bit annoying as forced to reverse engineer their JSON format), deleting files via the interface at one point didn't delete them on disk so had to remove them via SSH, and so on.
I never had a subscription and locking features which could be run locally on the device behind a service is rather annoying.
And yes, those issues were worse after the a firmware update.
I am happy to be proven wrong but I’m shocked they believe there is a market for this size at all, let alone at $450! The sample text on the stock images looks useless.
I wanted to love my RM2 so much. The write path is great. Writing notes on it during a meeting is a genuinely good experience. The read path: not so much. EInk UXs are so clunky especially when you’re used to how fluid phones are. Forget scrolling through your notes - It’s maddening.
I only began to love my RM2 when I stopped trying to use it as a PDF reader and writer and instead only a scratch paper replacement. But it’s not as economical if limited to this.
I do wish they’d improve the PDF usability or embrace open sourcing the UI. There’s a lot of features that should be easy to implement, like split screen or floating sticky notes, but they seem almost wholly focused on the hardware. I thought it’d be the ultimate tool for studying math and saving money on books, thus paying for itself, but it’s just not there yet and I’m not sure they plan to get it there.
Is there an alternative to Remarkable that offers good drawing/writing, but at a lower price? That's the only thing I'd want. I have stacks of dot-rule notebooks full of various notes and sketches. It'd be nice to have a replacement for all that.
I found the lack of backlight and built-in dictionary to mostly cripple the e-reading experience on rM2.
Format support wasn't great either, only PDF and EPUB. Which does cover most bases, to be fair. AZW3 and MOBI aren't dealbreakers, but... really, no TXT?
I'm actually in the market for something this size, but it's too expensive for me given what I know about reMarkable's inconvenience. I'd pick it over a kindle scribe, but not sure I'd pick it over a boox or supernote. I haven't decided if I actually care about color yet. MyDeepGuide's review of reMarkables color tech has me pretty interestes in it... but I don't know I actually need color personally. I have a colleague who has a reMarkable and it seems pretty annoying software wise. Especially at this size I want ebooks easily loaded.
I mostly have a very aged Kindle that needs replaced and I would like a small digital notepad. Boox fits the bill generally. I have a larger boox, it's a little quirky and a bit too heavy to hold comfortably but works fine after some configuration.
Supernote has a similarly sized product if you want the format but with more software functionality.
There's also a company called Viwoods making "AI" enabled e-ink tablets. I have heard significantly less about them so far, but they have a mini version which is roughly e-reader sized.
tbh the write path on just paper is so good, and at least for me it's very rare that I need to actually digitize anything.
I just invested in a printer that works and print out a lot of stuff I want to deeply annotate. Otherwise I have the ipad for some other stuff.
I really enjoy eink for reading but it's really a super specific market. Competing against the ipad is tough! The generalist devices tend to get so good that the specialized devices stop being worth it.
Agreed, but paper fails at organizing. My brain loves folder structures and hyper specific note files. Remarkable seemed like the perfect device for me.
I’ve settled on markdown in vscode and a todo list app.
Agreed. This is a product I want to own. I've checked in a couple of times over the last year or so, but I genuinely have no use for it. I don't write by hand. When I do, my handwriting is terrible. Even I have trouble making sense of it.
It doesn't surprise me at all that they think there's a market for the device at this size (though the price is debatable), assuming it worked quite well. Sounds like that's a bit much to hope for, given OP's experience.
Don't, it's just an expensive replacement for pen and paper, and the best overall pro is that you have your notes in one place. That's it. No text search, etc. make it so much less useful than it could be.
If you think $450 is a lot, they seriously think they're getting $729 CAD in Canada. On straight conversion is should be $621, not to mention they're almost certainly getting a tariff hit in the US that they don't get in Canada.
I was interested until I saw the price. For a lower price I’d probably risk it and see if/how it might integrate into my life. However, I think it has a high chance of failing to integrate, so $450 is too much to risk.
I say this as someone who bought a Daylight tablet for $700 and is now looking to sell it, since I didn’t fit anywhere and it just sits.
It’s just that $449 can buy me so many paper tablets and I really like paper. There’s no subscription for paper, it is tangible, it lasts thousands of years as long as it isn’t burned. I can flip through and see my ideas all in one place that digital files never seem to replicate.
Same. These tablets have so many features that they are inherently distracting. Just use a pad of paper and a pen or pencil. You’ll save hundreds and be less frustrated.
I think the sweet spot is 10 inches. I have a Boox Tab Mini C and a Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. Both feel unweildy for different reasons. For my next tablet I'll get something in 10 inches. I wish Samsung made better options for that size.
I have a Mobiscribe, which is about this same size. I would like something closer to Letter size, but the smaller size is really handy for handheld use. I can easily hold the Mobiscribe in the palm of my hand and do work (typing on a keyboard, working a screwdriver, pounding my head against a wall) and not have to worry about fumbling my Mobiscribe. Do I think the price point on this Remarkable device is correct? Nope. I wouldn't buy it at this price.
The idea is kind of cool, but just doesn't seem useful enough to justify a very expensive dedicated device. For the same price you could buy both an ipad, a matte screen protector, and a real notepad and pen. The ipad does all of the tech significantly better, and the physical notepad is a more enjoyable physical writing experience.
The product seemed to be mostly aimed at tech bros with more money than they know what to do with.
This is quite reductive and sophomorically so - "tech bros" as signifier of moneyed & tasteless? on HN? :) - reMarkable has been around for years, well-reviewed, and rightfully so - it's a quite distinctive experience from "an ipad [with] a matte screen protector."
I am not sure I will invest this much, but it's pleasantly surprising to see meaningful advancements in form factor and technology enabled over the longhaul in the products remarkable has made.
My wife got the RM1 then the RM2, as she is very organized and takes lots of notes. She absolutely loved it except for one thing -- the swipe motion to flip forward and backwards was terrible for her. She would try 10 times to get it to finally recognize what she was asking for. So if she wanted to flip forward a few pages to find something, it could take 30-50 swipes. It is sitting in a drawer now.
If anyone else had this experienced and figured out how to make it work, let me know.
So sad when something that could be fixed with a few lines of code/a pref toggle if the software were open entirely kills an otherwise great product experience for someone.
Mine goes somewhat unused because of this (although definitely less than 10 swipes per try). If I was to buy another ereader I'd want at a minimum physical buttons for forward/back.
I don’t experience the same level of recognition issues, but I do find flipping through pages quite tiresome. After reading other comments here, it seems clear that the navigation of the e-reader needs significant improvement. I submitted some feedback about this in one of their previous feedback surveys.
Perhaps this Hacker News discussion will lead to some user experience improvements.
I'm not sure if you've used their scroll feature, but if you swipe up from the bottom with a single finger you bring up a scroll bar over all pages with a small preview for the current selected page. It works pretty well for <50 pages
Its unfortunate that the supply chain for eink/epaper displays all seem to be centering on typical mobile device aspect ratios (like 16:9 for this device) particularly because remarkables are marketed as productivity oriented replacements for notebooks.
I would much rather have a A6 or A5 sized display or any other standard size for paper notebooks.
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.
> I struggle to see how making one more narrow than an A6 pad is useful.
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.
Is it the case that these devices are converging on 16:9? I don't know about the supply chain, but there seems to be no lack of e-ink tablets at A5/A6 sizes and/or with better ratios than 16:9.
Remarkable has the roughly A6-sized Paper Pro, Kobo has three e-ink devices with styli and good screen ratios, and Supernote has models named A5 (and A5 x2) and A6 after the paper sizes. I think the options are quite good.
eInk devices are very much not converging to 16:9 or wider aspect ratios. This device is intentionally the size and shape of a reporter's notebook, but there are virtually no other eInk tablets which diverge significantly from more common paper aspect ratios – they all (ReMarkable, Supernote, Boox, Kindle, etc.) are and continue to be exactly what you say you want.
I am using the original RM1 nearly daily for the last 8 years or so as my primary note taking device. I bought it used because it was ridiculously expensive new. I was grandfathered in when they introduced the subscription. I really love the device, but I would never buy it with connectivity locked behind a subscription.
Do you know if you are on a grandfathered plan (I am too) and you get an additional device, does the new device need another subscription? Or is the plan tied to the account/login?
I was deeply enthusiastic about epaper devices for awhile and I tried all kinds of things. Eventually, I decided paper is better. I used to like the idea of my notes being capture automatically but you can just take pictures of them if you use a notebook.
I also got enthusiastic about them, but I ended up embracing the Kindle Scribe. I just completed my 12th monthly notebook, so I’ve been at it for over a year now.
I was using regular notebooks but I was collecting too many and I was worried about storage and loss.
I wrote about the experience a few months into it.
I embraced an iPad w/ paper-like surface during my grad degree, simply because I needed the organisation (annotating papers, multiple subjects, project notes, etc.). It worked really well for that.
Funnily though, professional life is a lot simpler. I just need a single paper notebook with my running todo list. Everything else is stored in google docs or obsidian. Having an eink or tablet for taking notes would feel like friction without much benefit.
I've come to the same conclusion. It's just easier, especially for things that involve diagrams. $10 worth of notebooks and pens is a much better value than something that is more fragile, has to be charged, etc and orders of magnitude more expensive.
Also, I tend to only write things down as a note-taking and memorization exercise, or to think out a certain idea. I usually don't have to read the notes again. So the archiving functionality of having digital paper-like notes is not nessisarially more useful, and it is often more difficult to search through than physical notebooks. Anything I really need to read later, I can write succinctly in a text file or something.
I also don't like getting locked into a certain ecosystem. Xournal++ is the only open-source cross-platform app I can find, and it's not that good.
Even for reading physical books, you can find a lot of used paperbacks for less than $10, which is very little when you consider the value of the time you spend reading them, the ease of flipping through pages and being able to dog-ear them, and the collectible aspect of the book covers covers. An eink tablet be nice for reading textbooks and papers that are more expensive and require pirating, however. But for now I just use a regular screen in portrait.
For several kinds of notes, the value from writing is in doing the writing to assist thinking. Once I write it down, it doesn't need to hang around in my head.
I’m in the same boat. My Boox Go 10.3 is collecting dust. I used it for a while, but I just find it easier to flip back through paper notes as opposed to tapping or swiping through files. I don’t want to connect to work WiFi either on it. So now I’ve found pens I enjoy writing with and decent notebooks with paper I like and it’s great. I actually spend time journaling on paper. But I do have both a Boox Palma for reading and also a Kobo Clara.
huh that loads for me. appears to require some javascript tho.
please note that no subscription != no cloud. of the features listed in the help page all but "tags" require an remarkable cloud account and may stop working if remarkable cloud ever shuts down.
Readit News
One of the promises that lead me to buy one was the hackability - "It's Linux!" "You can SSH into it!", which, on paper (heh) is still true, but in practice very much isn't.
I think something like a Boox, which runs Android, might be more open to customization, but for now I am back to pencil and paper. That doesn't run Linux, but it also won't change its terms of service anytime soon.
> the very restrictive underlying software
This is by design, based on publicly espoused principles, and everything about the product branding makes it very explicit and obvious. No one should buy a Remarkable device and be surprised about how restrictive it is.
> the user-hostile changes to the subscription
The "user-hostile" changes to the subscription is that they are charging for it.
It is worth emphasizing that nothing is restricted with device usage if you do not have a subscription. They expect you to pay if you want to use anything which runs through their cloud services, which is undeniably reasonable.
You can sync to other cloud providers without an active subscription.[2]
[1] https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [2] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Using-reMarkable-wi...
These things aren’t syncing videos. They’re moving some text and PDFs around. Even Apple gives you permanently free iCloud services when you own any Apple device, with the complaint being that they should give you more storage, not that you can’t use it at all.
Remarkable has not "stolen" anything back which they sold.
On the contrary, they grandfathered in users which bought a device prior to their charging for a subscription so that they all have free access.
That's an interesting way of describing that. Don't mind if I steal this quote for when I might need it. Messaging matters!
Android is great for this use case because it lets me syncthing notes and use sheet music apps and use both kindle and kobo and calibre library and offline wikipedia and my own tools. As far as I'm concerned if you try to use it as a generic android tablet you're doing it wrong, but android is a massive step above what everyone else is offering (i.e. none of that)
While some models have a disappointing battery life, it's most definitely because of BSR[0] not because of them running Android. I had a Note Air 3 and that thing got easily 2 weeks of battery life with heavy use while the BSR version (Note Air 3C) barely survived 2 days.
0: https://shop.boox.com/blogs/news/boox-super-refresh-bsr-tech...
I do have a Boox Note Air4, which I bought with the intention of replacing the ReMarkable. On the plus side, it runs Android apps, but on the minus side, the UI is much less polished than the ReMarkable. Having said that, if I had the choice between the two, and weren't grandfathered into the no-subscription option, I would pick the Boox.
You can also connect more than one device to the account nowadays.
These days I do quite a bit of field work outdoors (taking measurements, ssh'ing into mobile equipment) and a laptop is a chore to use in broad daylight. With the boox I can connect a bluetooth keyboard and install termux. It's not a perfect setup, but sure beats squinting at a dim screen.
Dead Comment
Can you expand on this a bit? Can't you still run third party software on the newer iterations?
I never had a subscription and locking features which could be run locally on the device behind a service is rather annoying.
And yes, those issues were worse after the a firmware update.
I wanted to love my RM2 so much. The write path is great. Writing notes on it during a meeting is a genuinely good experience. The read path: not so much. EInk UXs are so clunky especially when you’re used to how fluid phones are. Forget scrolling through your notes - It’s maddening.
Pretty good ereader though.
I do wish they’d improve the PDF usability or embrace open sourcing the UI. There’s a lot of features that should be easy to implement, like split screen or floating sticky notes, but they seem almost wholly focused on the hardware. I thought it’d be the ultimate tool for studying math and saving money on books, thus paying for itself, but it’s just not there yet and I’m not sure they plan to get it there.
That's exactly the use case though. It's a replacement for pen and paper, and the lack of functionality is seen as a feature.
Format support wasn't great either, only PDF and EPUB. Which does cover most bases, to be fair. AZW3 and MOBI aren't dealbreakers, but... really, no TXT?
I mostly have a very aged Kindle that needs replaced and I would like a small digital notepad. Boox fits the bill generally. I have a larger boox, it's a little quirky and a bit too heavy to hold comfortably but works fine after some configuration.
There's also a company called Viwoods making "AI" enabled e-ink tablets. I have heard significantly less about them so far, but they have a mini version which is roughly e-reader sized.
I just invested in a printer that works and print out a lot of stuff I want to deeply annotate. Otherwise I have the ipad for some other stuff.
I really enjoy eink for reading but it's really a super specific market. Competing against the ipad is tough! The generalist devices tend to get so good that the specialized devices stop being worth it.
I’ve settled on markdown in vscode and a todo list app.
I was literally about to order one until I read the comments
It doesn't surprise me at all that they think there's a market for the device at this size (though the price is debatable), assuming it worked quite well. Sounds like that's a bit much to hope for, given OP's experience.
Edit: your => OP's
It was my last ditch effort to make me use my RM2 but I found it didn’t fit how I wanted to take notes and was still pretty clunky.
and I loved that until amazon killed "download" for kindle books.
I say this as someone who bought a Daylight tablet for $700 and is now looking to sell it, since I didn’t fit anywhere and it just sits.
The product seemed to be mostly aimed at tech bros with more money than they know what to do with.
I am not sure I will invest this much, but it's pleasantly surprising to see meaningful advancements in form factor and technology enabled over the longhaul in the products remarkable has made.
If anyone else had this experienced and figured out how to make it work, let me know.
Perhaps this Hacker News discussion will lead to some user experience improvements.
I would much rather have a A6 or A5 sized display or any other standard size for paper notebooks.
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.
Remarkable has the roughly A6-sized Paper Pro, Kobo has three e-ink devices with styli and good screen ratios, and Supernote has models named A5 (and A5 x2) and A6 after the paper sizes. I think the options are quite good.
I was using regular notebooks but I was collecting too many and I was worried about storage and loss.
I wrote about the experience a few months into it.
https://notes.joeldare.com/handwritten-notes-on-the-kindle-s...
I do not read on mine, it’s exclusively for writing. Possibly because switching is too slow.
Funnily though, professional life is a lot simpler. I just need a single paper notebook with my running todo list. Everything else is stored in google docs or obsidian. Having an eink or tablet for taking notes would feel like friction without much benefit.
Also, I tend to only write things down as a note-taking and memorization exercise, or to think out a certain idea. I usually don't have to read the notes again. So the archiving functionality of having digital paper-like notes is not nessisarially more useful, and it is often more difficult to search through than physical notebooks. Anything I really need to read later, I can write succinctly in a text file or something.
I also don't like getting locked into a certain ecosystem. Xournal++ is the only open-source cross-platform app I can find, and it's not that good.
Even for reading physical books, you can find a lot of used paperbacks for less than $10, which is very little when you consider the value of the time you spend reading them, the ease of flipping through pages and being able to dog-ear them, and the collectible aspect of the book covers covers. An eink tablet be nice for reading textbooks and papers that are more expensive and require pirating, however. But for now I just use a regular screen in portrait.
Yeah.
For several kinds of notes, the value from writing is in doing the writing to assist thinking. Once I write it down, it doesn't need to hang around in my head.
[1]https://github.com/ddvk/rmfakecloud
I locked the fw on my remarkable 2 to 2.x and used ddvk hacks and it's just worked for years. I don't need any new features.
[1] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Using-reMarkable-wi...
please note that no subscription != no cloud. of the features listed in the help page all but "tags" require an remarkable cloud account and may stop working if remarkable cloud ever shuts down.