[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