Since this thread is undoubtedly going to devolve into the usual whining about Remarkable that is entirely unrelated to the article at hand, and doesn't understand the intent of the devices, or is based on the entirely unnecessary subscription service, I'll add a positive contribution.
Since receiving the RMPP Move for Christmas, it has become my go-to daily device and other than the obtuse name, I am almost entirely pleased with it.
The writing experience is fantastic. I was skeptical of the pen change from the RM2 but it's been pleasant overall.
Its form-factor seems odd when you read the specs, but it works rather well in practice. It's easy to toss in a bag and go, and does fit in most of my pockets if I need to. It's much more convenient for traveling as an addition to the laptop.
It syncs with my RM2 with minimal issue with scale. Sometimes you have to zoom in but this is easy and natural.
The colors are a nice addition but hardly the main attraction.
The backlight makes it excellent for writing at morning or night in bed without disturbing the S.O..
The minimalism is a feature.
It does okay for PDFs, but that is far from its purpose.
I use it daily for notes, task management, and little printable logic games.
My only minor nits are: changing pens (for logic games mostly) takes more taps than on the RM2. The palm detection is somewhat lacking compared to the RM2 - it tends to change pages or change the zoom level unintentionally when writing on certain parts of the screen. This could be more about my usage of it. I really wish I could add links and/or a table of contents to notes on the device. I wish the zoom level would stick between pages or could be locked in for a document.
Same, I already had a reMarkable tablet and got the reMarkable Paper Pro Move as an impulse purchase (ignoring its ridiculously high price) expecting to return it within the 50-day return window, but the fact that it fits in my pocket (or “most of my pockets”, as you said) has made a huge difference in how much I use it and how I spend my time. The sync is also nice (I think it works up to some limit even without a paid subscription, though it turned out I had one grandfathered in); I can basically send webpages I’m reading to it using the browser extension (at least on desktop). On mobile it’s a bit more annoying, but e.g. I’ve printed long newsletters from the Gmail to PDF (paper size A6) and imported the PDF onto it.
It’s perfectly adequate for writing on, but so far I’ve almost never used the fact that it has (a rudimentary set of) colours, though.
Are there pens that work like Lamy Al-Star EMR pen, with a button to switch tools, etc, on the RMPP? I have been using my RM2 for years. Backlight would be nice, but not sure it's worth the trade off for me.
AFAIK this does not exist yet for the RMPP. It would be a nice addition and I would guess that they release something eventually.
If you are generally happy with the RM2 then the form factor is probably the only reason to upgrade or swap that ends up being worth it. Most Best Buys carry Remarkables and offer an opportunity to feel it before deciding.
I have been wanting a pocket-notebook-size tablet since the day I got my RM2. I've been considering the Move since it came out, but the stylus change was worrying me, and the price is pretty high -- I feel like I would have bought release day if they offered a lower priced monochrome one in the same form factor, especially if it used the RM2 stylus...
It's encouraging to hear you have had a good experience with it. Maybe I'll grab one if they ever go on sale!
Is there anything beyond your minor nits that you would caution someone like me about before buying?
The Paper Pro switched to AES like every other recent tablet out there instead of keeping the Wacom EMR, and it definitely takes a hit in almost every metric you can think of. Like accuracy, as TFA complains.
I frankly _cannot_ recommend the Paper Pro if you already have the 2. It is way too expensive for something that is almost a sidestep instead of an upgrade.
Needs a subscription for sync, the sync system is pretty basic, the web/desktop experience is poor, no support for things like Google Drive or other cloud storage, and generally very limited software experience on the device.
(This is not to say I fully agree with these, but these are the criticisms I see a lot online)
I was actually thinking about buying Remarkable Paper Pro after Christmas. Not necessarily for the colors but just to have a portable e-ink tablet to scribble on and organize myself a bit better. In the end, I went with Supernote Nomad (A6X2). The build quality is not as good, the display does not have colors, and there is no backlight. But, for my use cases, it fits perfectly. I have found myself taking notes left and right, mostly during meetings.
What swayed me in the end was the software and repairability. Supernote actually released their syncing backend as a Docker image, so I can just roll my own and never have to touch any third-party cloud. All of my notes just live as normal files on my home server. The repairability is similarly open - Supernote sells all the replacement parts on their website. I guess this is the reason the build is not as nice as any Remarkable. But, for me, this sacrifice is worth it, given I plan to use the tablet as long as it can take me.
That's a pretty cool project. But with it living in the grey area of not being really supported by Remarkable, I would be skeptical if Remarkable does not block it down the line.
Supernote has full-fledged Linux support in the official pipeline. It has gotten postponed quite recently, so the devices still run on their customized Android distribution only. But even in the current state, I feel more ownership over my HW and SW than I would with Remarkable.
The good thing about the Remarkable is that it’s basically just a Linux machine and you have root access. There’s a great community of folk building extra functionality and tools / apps for it.
I did some minor research, I've only found that I can ssh into it in Dev Mode. Is there a way to run a fullblown nice terminal with keyboard over bluetooth and mosh? I'm dreaming of e-ink portable terminal.
I got a remarkable 2 roughly when it was released and as far as I can tell the company never supported third party devs. They gave you root access but no relevant source code...
Really quite disappointing, the device could have been a lot more useful with even a tiny bit of energy spent releasing source code for things they already developed.
Interesting article. The color is nice on the Pro, but could definitely use some improvement.
That aside, the Remarkable Paper Pro is one of the biggest deltas I have ever seen between hardware and software quality. The hardware feels and looks great. I was pretty excited when I unboxed it by it. That all disappeared rapidly as I started using it. Their entire user experience is terrible, and just shockingly unuseful. I don't understand who it's designed for, because it doesn't seem to do anything well.
>I also have a fairly light touch normally, and the pressure curve on either the Remarkable 2 or Pro requires me to press too much for comfort to get any “width” in any of the tools.
Yeah, this bothers me a lot with mine too (an RM2). I can't believe how heavily I have to press to get full line width on many tools, it's harder than I press when I use an eraser on a stubborn mark in real life.
Responsiveness wise... the latency on common actions has increased incredibly in the past couple of years. Not pen drawing, that's still excellent, but general UI navigation and recognizing taps and long presses and whatnot have really gotten bad. At this point I've got it rolled back to 2.x almost all the time, which is also a whole lot more moddable than 3.x. I like many of the UI changes and additions in 3 (except infinitely vertically scrollable stuff, that keeps screwing up and interpreting taps and swipes as vertical scrolls when there's absolutely no additional content to show, so it just stops responding for a second while it scrolls three pixels down, and I would be thrilled if I could disable it completely), but not at the cost of responsiveness.
I would forgive quite a lot of the software decisions if they just let me export the snap-to-text highlights without the use of a third party tool. Many e-ink devices have had this feature for years now.
SSH in and you have access to basically everything. The stock setup has two partitions for the OS (it toggles between them when you update, or toggles back if it fails to boot a few times) so you can:
Last time I did it, I just did it manually - back up the OS version you want over ssh, then restore it whenever you want (on the non-active partition). And screwed it up the first time, and had to do a recovery: https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-recovery (requires using the contact pads on the spine for USB access - not too hard to solder up a pogo pin thing, but might take some time to get the parts).
So I'd recommend the automated way, though I haven't tried it yet :)
There's a (single) relatively active discord server if you want specific Q&As with other people too, or to double check whatever the current recommendations are (probably do that, as I'm somewhat out of date): https://discord.com/invite/nQ6nHwfDfc
And do definitely back up your data partition before making any major version movements tho, in case something doesn't work right and you need to roll back. I forget if/when that's necessary, but it's a good safety net just in case. And <8GB isn't much to store just in case.
This is fantastically useful if you use these “pro”-fessionally.
Would let you soft proof how any spot color you've used in a PDF will come through for folks using the color device, and fix ability to distinguish before shipping (much as spot colored PDF creators should be checking for color-blindness variants).
Tinkered with RM1, have RM2 then RMPPro since they are out.
If you care about colors, do NOT buy that or any other e-ink devices IMHO. The colors are washed out.
If you NEED colors in some situations (e.g. reading research papers with important graphics, charts) or enjoy some hints of colors (e.g. manga covers) then why not. It's way WAY better than black&white for colored contents.
Finally, and that's THE #1 use case, if you take notes or sketch diagrams, and would like a dash of color here and there, then it's literally another dimension.
I don't have a Remarkable, but I do have a Pocketbook InkPad Color 3. I really like it, but color on that thing is pretty disappointing.
I was hoping that it would be a way to read through the comics I bought on Humble Bundle, but the colors are so washed out that I still just read them on a computer screen.
I have no idea what the engineering challenges are with making color e-ink, but they must be enormous because I (and many others) would pay considerable money for good color on e-ink.
Remarkable is quite different because it uses an E-Ink Gallery display, as opposed to the E-Ink Kaleido displays found on most cheaper colour e-readers such as yours. Gallery has true CYMK e-ink pigments while Kaleido is just mono e-ink with a passive RGB filter array on top.
I'm not a fan of Kaleido, as you say the colours are underwhelming, and the RGB filter attenuates light so the contrast is noticeably worse than classic mono e-ink. Gallery is way more expensive and slower to refresh though, so pick your poison.
I have been using color eInk displays since Triton was still thing, and despite promises everywhere that each new generation of color display was miles better than the previous one, this has never been true, and when I compare my JetBook (eInk Triton and still running Windows CE!) with the Remarkable Paper Color, I sometimes think the colors _are actually more vivid on the JetBook_. (Not a very high bar). In comparisons with the PocketBook/Kaleido, Gallery definitely _loses_. The contrast also _still_ takes a huge hit in the Remarkable Paper compared to the 2, and TFA also points that, albeit it may have to do with the frontlight rather than Gallery (but who knows).
This is the level of improvement in eInk over 20 years.
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Since receiving the RMPP Move for Christmas, it has become my go-to daily device and other than the obtuse name, I am almost entirely pleased with it.
The writing experience is fantastic. I was skeptical of the pen change from the RM2 but it's been pleasant overall.
Its form-factor seems odd when you read the specs, but it works rather well in practice. It's easy to toss in a bag and go, and does fit in most of my pockets if I need to. It's much more convenient for traveling as an addition to the laptop.
It syncs with my RM2 with minimal issue with scale. Sometimes you have to zoom in but this is easy and natural.
The colors are a nice addition but hardly the main attraction.
The backlight makes it excellent for writing at morning or night in bed without disturbing the S.O..
The minimalism is a feature.
It does okay for PDFs, but that is far from its purpose.
I use it daily for notes, task management, and little printable logic games.
My only minor nits are: changing pens (for logic games mostly) takes more taps than on the RM2. The palm detection is somewhat lacking compared to the RM2 - it tends to change pages or change the zoom level unintentionally when writing on certain parts of the screen. This could be more about my usage of it. I really wish I could add links and/or a table of contents to notes on the device. I wish the zoom level would stick between pages or could be locked in for a document.
It’s perfectly adequate for writing on, but so far I’ve almost never used the fact that it has (a rudimentary set of) colours, though.
If you are generally happy with the RM2 then the form factor is probably the only reason to upgrade or swap that ends up being worth it. Most Best Buys carry Remarkables and offer an opportunity to feel it before deciding.
It's encouraging to hear you have had a good experience with it. Maybe I'll grab one if they ever go on sale!
Is there anything beyond your minor nits that you would caution someone like me about before buying?
I frankly _cannot_ recommend the Paper Pro if you already have the 2. It is way too expensive for something that is almost a sidestep instead of an upgrade.
(This is not to say I fully agree with these, but these are the criticisms I see a lot online)
What swayed me in the end was the software and repairability. Supernote actually released their syncing backend as a Docker image, so I can just roll my own and never have to touch any third-party cloud. All of my notes just live as normal files on my home server. The repairability is similarly open - Supernote sells all the replacement parts on their website. I guess this is the reason the build is not as nice as any Remarkable. But, for me, this sacrifice is worth it, given I plan to use the tablet as long as it can take me.
Supernote has full-fledged Linux support in the official pipeline. It has gotten postponed quite recently, so the devices still run on their customized Android distribution only. But even in the current state, I feel more ownership over my HW and SW than I would with Remarkable.
Really quite disappointing, the device could have been a lot more useful with even a tiny bit of energy spent releasing source code for things they already developed.
That aside, the Remarkable Paper Pro is one of the biggest deltas I have ever seen between hardware and software quality. The hardware feels and looks great. I was pretty excited when I unboxed it by it. That all disappeared rapidly as I started using it. Their entire user experience is terrible, and just shockingly unuseful. I don't understand who it's designed for, because it doesn't seem to do anything well.
Yeah, this bothers me a lot with mine too (an RM2). I can't believe how heavily I have to press to get full line width on many tools, it's harder than I press when I use an eraser on a stubborn mark in real life.
Responsiveness wise... the latency on common actions has increased incredibly in the past couple of years. Not pen drawing, that's still excellent, but general UI navigation and recognizing taps and long presses and whatnot have really gotten bad. At this point I've got it rolled back to 2.x almost all the time, which is also a whole lot more moddable than 3.x. I like many of the UI changes and additions in 3 (except infinitely vertically scrollable stuff, that keeps screwing up and interpreting taps and swipes as vertical scrolls when there's absolutely no additional content to show, so it just stops responding for a second while it scrolls three pixels down, and I would be thrilled if I could disable it completely), but not at the cost of responsiveness.
I currently use RCU (Remarkable Connection Utility) to extract my highlights: https://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/
Dual boot (disable updates and install any two you like): https://remarkable.guide/tech/dualboot.html
Some lower level details here: https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable-hacks/issues/304
And installing a specific release is largely automated: https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable-update
Last time I did it, I just did it manually - back up the OS version you want over ssh, then restore it whenever you want (on the non-active partition). And screwed it up the first time, and had to do a recovery: https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-recovery (requires using the contact pads on the spine for USB access - not too hard to solder up a pogo pin thing, but might take some time to get the parts).
So I'd recommend the automated way, though I haven't tried it yet :)
There's a (single) relatively active discord server if you want specific Q&As with other people too, or to double check whatever the current recommendations are (probably do that, as I'm somewhat out of date): https://discord.com/invite/nQ6nHwfDfc
And do definitely back up your data partition before making any major version movements tho, in case something doesn't work right and you need to roll back. I forget if/when that's necessary, but it's a good safety net just in case. And <8GB isn't much to store just in case.
Would let you soft proof how any spot color you've used in a PDF will come through for folks using the color device, and fix ability to distinguish before shipping (much as spot colored PDF creators should be checking for color-blindness variants).
If you care about colors, do NOT buy that or any other e-ink devices IMHO. The colors are washed out.
If you NEED colors in some situations (e.g. reading research papers with important graphics, charts) or enjoy some hints of colors (e.g. manga covers) then why not. It's way WAY better than black&white for colored contents.
Finally, and that's THE #1 use case, if you take notes or sketch diagrams, and would like a dash of color here and there, then it's literally another dimension.
I was hoping that it would be a way to read through the comics I bought on Humble Bundle, but the colors are so washed out that I still just read them on a computer screen.
I have no idea what the engineering challenges are with making color e-ink, but they must be enormous because I (and many others) would pay considerable money for good color on e-ink.
I'm not a fan of Kaleido, as you say the colours are underwhelming, and the RGB filter attenuates light so the contrast is noticeably worse than classic mono e-ink. Gallery is way more expensive and slower to refresh though, so pick your poison.
This is the level of improvement in eInk over 20 years.