[pidg]

I own a reMarkable 2.

There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker.

Conversely, I find it hard to justify the cost of an iPad, becuase I already have a phone and several laptops. I can't see a situation where a tablet would be more useful to me, so I've never bought one.

Turns out different people have different needs, and the e-ink note-taking market caters to that. Most people would find an iPad more useful, so they're lower cost.

[Larrikin]

My killer use case when I was a student was having a device I could take handwritten notes on, watch class videos on, and read my textbooks on. I then had one single device with a large screen for most of my needs. Trying to read notes on my phone was uncomfortable on the train but perfect on the iPad.

The real game changer was when I started taking the iPad to the gym and putting it on the elliptical and could do required reading or rewatch classes.

There was a positive reinforcement loop of wanting to run a certain amount but then also wanting to stay on long enough to finish a chapter and then once again figuring I should run just a little longer and get ahead in class.

[dorchadas]

I do this too with my Kindle. I feel odd, but I usually set a goal for 30 minutes then if I'm halfway through a chapter or something, I'll often just keep going. It's actually been kinda helpful at times, though I don't do it on days I run, only when I walk/do legs.

[abeppu]

> Turns out different people have different needs, and the e-ink note-taking market caters to that.

I have the first generation, and I do enjoy it. However, I think a distinction is _how_ one takes notes. For brainstorming, and just writing free-form, it's great. However, I find it really annoying for taking notes about a doc, for two reasons:

- If you need more notes than fit in the margins and whitespace of a PDF, are you going to flip between the doc and a separate file of notes? What if you want to compare two documents, and take notes about the distinct ways two authors discuss the same material? The idea that you can't have more than one thing open feels immediately limiting.

- If you're several pages into a doc and want to flip back to some prior point (and you don't recall the specific page number), it's actually pretty awkward.

I feel like these devices are on the cusp of being much more satisfying. But at present, either I print out all but one thing which I can deal with on the remarkable, or I end up looking at a combination of a laptop and the remarkable, and in either case, I can't help feeling that an obvious use case was not well considered.

[_ph_]

I also own a reMarkable 2

Considering how small the company behind it is compared to Apple, I was positively surprised how well it is designed and made - in some aspects I consider it superior to the iPad. Apple can fund a lot or R&D thanks to the volume of iPad sales, a small company has much more problems to do so. And probably the reMarkable sales numbers are small compared to the iPad. At least they were able to bring down prices quite a bit with the second generation. To be honest, I wouldn't have paid much more than the 400€ for the device.

[d3ckard]

Let me help you - iPad is the ultimate content consumption device. It’s by far my favorite electronic device and by far the most used. I work on my computer, I communicate on my phone, but I relax on my iPad. Internet browsing, shopping, watching shorter videos (or even longer ones when cooking), sometimes playing games, reading books.

Thanks for the recommendation for Remarkable 2, considering buying one for a while now.

[Cthulhu_]

I have heard of some using the ipad pro as a drawing tablet, in which case it competes with e.g. Wacom, whose prices for their display-drawing-tablets are on par with ipads.

[matwood]

I've been slowly learning to draw using paper and an iPad Pro. Obviously they are different, but the iPad Pro gets a lot of right in terms of responsiveness and pencil pressure.

[girzel]

My daughter is in art school. She was considering a Wacom tablet, then did her research and bought an iPad pro instead. She seems thrilled with the choice.

[valzam]

My partner has a ReMarkable 2, I have an Ipad pro 11. I got mine earlier and thought writing on it was pretty good. But it's not even close. ReMarkable feels 90% like paper, it's crazy. Ipad (at least without one of those paperlike screen protectors) isn't even comparable, it very much feels like writing on glass. She loves it (for her PhD), if you take a lot of handwriten notes it's amazing.

[dragonsngoblins]

I really do not get this at all. I find browsing the internet on a touch screen so much worse than with a keyboard and mouse. Being able to just open a new tab and search for stuff is ever so slightly harder on a touchscreen

[visarga]

Got mine a week ago. I always take notes and draw mind maps while working on a project, so this fits perfectly.

I like the pen and paper sensation, the fact that my handwriting is exactly the same as on paper, the ability to erase, rewrite, cut and paste.

I don't like the flaky sync but love seeing my drawings as PDFs. The LiveView function almost doesn't work but a third party app allows me to display the tablet on the desktop for Zoom meetings.

Arxiv PDFs are easy to read only if you crop or zoom, which is a bit unfortunate. I would have loved integration with Pocket, Dropbox, Arxiv and other sources. There's no TTS option, which is also unfortunate, because I find TTS doubles my focus when reading technical text.

[codethief]

> I don't like the flaky sync

Probably relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26145584

> Arxiv PDFs are easy to read only if you crop or zoom

Have you tried another PDF reader, like KOReader[0] or plato[1]? There's also [2] which looks really interesting for cases where you want to save time.

[0]: https://github.com/koreader/koreader

[1]: https://github.com/darvin/plato

[2]: https://github.com/GjjvdBurg/paper2remarkable

[ahnick]

> The LiveView function almost doesn't work but a third party app allows me to display the tablet on the desktop for Zoom meetings.

What's the third party app?

[chrismorgan]

I use https://github.com/bordaigorl/rmview to good effect, though it just occasionally stops working and I need to restart it to get it going again (I think it’s from brief USB connection blips, which can happen on the Surface Book for reasons I won’t go into but which won’t apply to almost any other hardware).

[pietschy]

I'm using https://github.com/bordaigorl/rmview. It does occasionally need to be restarted to work but other than that it's been pretty stable.

[vmladenov]

I installed KOReader so I could rotate papers 90 degrees and read them without squinting. Would highly recommend

[mumblemumble]

Could you expound a bit on why you think it's more useful?

I am thinking about getting one (or one of a couple other similar options), because I think it would be MUCH more comfortable for reading and annotating papers, which is my main practical use case for an iPad. And if it's at all a decent replacement for a paper notebook, that would reduce the number of things in my bag.

But I'm also a bit worried that the organizational features might be lacking. Specifically, it sounds like there's no fulltext search feature, and syncing has to be done through their cloud service, which sounds troublesome because I've already got a system and encompasses file types and tools that ReMarkable doesn't handle.

[yobert]

This is not the normal use case of a remarkable 2, but I have found it to be the absolute best childrens toy ever. My 4 year old spends probably 2 hours a day drawing on it, making mazes out of the graph paper templates, drawing beehives on the hexagonal templates, doodling on cut-away diagrams of space shuttles and pirate ships that I found and imported as PDFs from the web.

It feels wonderful for him to use, as opposed to the iPad which makes me feel like I'm rotting his brain. After a half hour of using the ipad, he's irritable and throws a tantrum when it's time to put it away. With the remarkable it's just like a pad of paper, but I don't have to worry about him getting ink on my bedspread.

[GloriousKoji]

The remarkable is really good at feeling like pencil and paper, which mean it's really good for written notes. The epaper display is also nice for reading text in daylight.

The iPad has the Apple Pencil and it's not bad but for everything else the iPad is far better. You can annotate a pdf and send it somewhere else in different ways. It can take a or download a picture and mark it up. With the appstore it can handle and convert just about any file type. It also does a million other things like web browsing, chatting, videos, music and games. For most people that adds up to a more objective "useful" score.

But there is a huge charm and advantage for gadgets that are highly focused on a single function. For what it's worth I still sketch and take notes using a mechanical pencil and spiral bounded notebook.

[mumblemumble]

FWIW, I use a Paperlike screen protector, and have been very happy with the writing comfort I get out of it.

If there's one thing I'd absolutely miss with the actual writing experience on a ReMarkable, it's colored highlighting. I've been using the same color coding system for years and years now, and I'd hate to lose it. But it might just be worth it to lose the backlight and the glare, and gain the ability to do my reading outdoors.

[codethief]

I'm in the same boat as you, I'm thinking about getting a ReMarkable 2 and am turned off by their cloud service. It seems possible to run Syncthing[0], however, so this is giving me hope.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26145584

[dominotw]

same. I spent ~500$ on boox air. To me its my most used device after my laptop. I use it everyday for hours to save my eyes, totally worth $500. I also have an ipad which i never use.

[zwayhowder]

I have no regrets buying a Boox Note 2. It runs Android so I have the Kindle app installed and the Adobe Digital Editions reader for my uni books and well anything else I want. The only thing I wish it had was MicroSD support.

[tluyben2]

Exactly the same as my situation. And given Boox is Android makes it really flexible for any kind of reading content.

[crooked-v]

The one thing that's kept me from getting one of those is the measly 8 GB storage and not even having an SD card slot.

[mumblemumble]

It doesn't seem that measly to me. By my estimate, it would be enough for my collection of academic papers I'm saving to grow to about 4,000, which, at my current reading rate, gives me about 40 years of runway.

It wouldn't be much for a phone or tablet. But phones and tablets also need to be able to store apps, photos, videos, and audio content.

[zepto]

> There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker.

Would you mind saying what you find most useful?

I have an aging iPad and would very much like to replace it with an a-ink device because I don’t like staring at a light source.

[luch]

I also own a reMarkable 2 since last December and the fact it is not a light source makes it valuable when you spend almost all your waking hours staring at screens.

For me, the most useful trait is that it gathers all my note in a "physical" gadget rather than being scattered on several laptops/smartphones/notebook.

[adamrmcd]

I have one as well. For me the killer feature is the ability to copy/paste your own handwriting.

I'm on the device 6 of 8 hours in a day, constantly taking notes of my meetings and conversations. Frequently I write sentences in the wrong order, and have to rearrange them for logical/linear understanding.

Sure, you can do that on a Slate or iPad, but neither feel or sound like you're writing on real paper.

It is just so satisfying to use.

[pidg]

The fact that it's a single-purpose (ish) device, and that it feels and works so much like real paper.

It's like being able to carry an infinite number of infinitely long paper notebooks with you.

I used to get through about one paper notebook a month, and couldn't find notes I'd taken 3+ months ago. Now everything I've ever noted is available with 5-30 seconds of searching and paging about.

The fact that, if I've written a bunch of notes in the wrong place, I can cut and paste them elsewhere is something I use every day. Everything is so much more organised.

Also, and it's definitely NOT designed as an e-reader, but if you convert your ebooks to fit the screen, it's approximately the size of a hardback book page, which I find miles more comfortable to read from than my Kindle.

[pizza234]

Very interesting. I did the opposite reasoning - I also do lots of note taking, however, I preferred to have a more flexible device with OK note taking (in short, a 10" Android tablet), rather than narrow device with good note taking.

[rtkaratekid]

I’ve had the same thoughts about the iPad. Do you know if you can use reMarkable as a display screen to draw on for video conferencing? If it could I’d probably just buy one now.

[pidg]

There is a beta feature for using the reMarkable as a 'whiteboard' but it's very very buggy right now.

[extreme_orang]

I can recommend the Boox Note Air. Basically an android tablet with an e-ink display.

Excellent for PDF annotation and taking notes. Quirky as it runs Android apps.

Excellent display for reading

[spaetzleesser]

I would take one if i also could use it as replacement for my kindle.

[bloodorange]

If you are willing to strip the DRM and convert the files to epub or PDF, you can read them on the Remarkable 2. I do this as I prefer to read on the Remarkable 2 (compared to reading on the Kindle). It's just convenient to have all the technical material, notes and the leisure reading in one place.

[pidg]

I do this too. As well as ebooks, I have all my household manuals on it (washing machine, gas boiler, etc.) plus manuals for various devices - so much better than either keeping the paper ones, or keeping PDFs on the computer, as you can annotate them too!

[mjcohen]

If it runs android, you can use the kindle app.

[hexedpackets]

You might be thinking of the Boox Note line of devices. The Remarkable runs a custom Linux distro, not Android.