[Buttons840]

You know. I've never been interested in these e-ink notebooks where you can write on a digital screen that acts like paper. I've always felt that actual pen and paper were superior.

However, if you add some good spaced repetition software to one of these e-notebooks then I think you will have finally surpassed pen and paper for note taking.

I'm thinking of something like, you take a note on a page and then save it. A week later the page of notes you wrote is presented to you again and you can draw boxes around parts of the page and blur / hide bits of text, etc; these then become your spaced repetition items. I've heard of studies showing that hand written notes are superior for memory, this is the best of both worlds, hand written and then automatic spaced repetition.

And how much easier is it to surrender your life to a spaced repetition algorithm when it is it's own dedicated device? The idea of being able to memorize math, and other visual information, in addition to the usual written content (which is, again, better remembered if hand written) is so promising I'd happily pay hundreds of dollars for such a device.

I know there are some fairly hackable e-ink tables out there, has anyone done this?

[david_allison]

AnkiDroid will support in-app drawing shortly[0]. There's already an e-ink mode which removes most animations, and supports image occlusions via third-party apps which use the AnkiDroid API [1].

Happy to discuss improvements for your workflow if it's an Android-based e-ink tablet via Discord[2]/GitHub issues.

[0] https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/issues/9363

[1] https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Third-Party-A...

[2] https://discord.gg/qjzcRTx

[ramblerman]

It's a good idea. I think the problem with being presented the whole page is that we fool ourselves into thinking we know something. I.e recognition feels like remembering.

So it might be better to draw the boxes up front, but I like the concept.

https://www.remnote.io/ tries to do something like this but with textual notes.

[Buttons840]

I just want taking notes and then chopping those notes into spaced repetition items to be separate.

I didn't mean present the entire page, although a link back to the entire page for context would be nice.

Also, being able to remember things by their spacial layout on the page is an advantage, not a flaw. It allows you to employ your spacial and visual memory to help in memorizing concepts and facts.

[epa]

A key for when tablets will replace paper is when refresh rates get so fast drawing mimics ink on paper. Until the lag is eliminated it won't be replaced.

[dredmorbius]

We're already there.

The reMarkable (by reports) and Onyx BOOX (by direct experience) both satisfy this requirement.

I picked up the BOOX as an e-book reader, not a note-taking device. It turns out that the note-taking functionality is really, really good.

I still have the objection that notes are stuck in an application-specific interface. Though on balance that's not all bad.

There's also the inherent privacy risk of having an electronic rather than physical record.

[adrianN]

I haven't used them myself, but I've heard that the Remarkable tablets have pretty good lag.

[lvncelot]

I'm using a remarkable 2 and the lag when writing is almost non-existent. The thing traditional paper has over the e-ink tablet is the ease of shuffling through notes. Sure, I can tag, and organize, and search through notebooks on my tablet, but shuffling through a stack of paper is much faster, without the friction of using a (sometimes clunky) e-ink ui.

[Buttons840]

Well said and I agree. Everything most e-ink tablets do you can already do with paper and pencil, more or less. You can search your notes on the tablet, you can search your notes in a paper notebook, and with the paper notebook you can remember things like "it's towards the back, after X". You can manually tag your e-notes, reality automatically tags your physical notes with things like page wrinkles and spilled coffee stains. So, slightly different but ultimately quite similar for most people.

Again, I think spaced repetition is a killer feature that could finally distinguish an e-ink tablet from paper. I think this idea has more potential for improving learning than almost all the multi-million dollar learning websites out there. It can systematically take you to savant levels of recollection in any topic. And right now this tool is locked behind some clunky text focused UI. (Yes, latex and pictures exist, but they suck when compared to drawing on a page.)

[Buttons840]

It's 21 milliseconds one reviewer said. And remember, it's a refresh happening under the stylus and under your fingers, so it's not comparable to regular screen refresh times.