[jgrahamc]

I have one of these and I'm just about ready to give it away. The problem is it doesn't fit a use case that I don't have better solutions for. I've found that writing on the screen makes me prefer paper; reading on the screen makes me prefer books. I wanted to like the DC-1 but every time I use it something feels off. Maybe that's partly because I don't enjoy the Android experience.

[tiffanyh]

I've written about this before, but I too gave up on my Daylight - even though I truly love what they are trying to accomplish.

I found it:

- oddly heavy, the Daylight is made of all plastic (body & screen) - yet it’s heavier than an iPad Air made from metal & glass.

- handwriting lag, the input lags when I use the pen is so much that it distracts me while writing a sentence. I have to concentrate to ensure it’s keeping up with each letter I write. No such lag exists with my iPad Air.

- no setup instructions or tutorial on its unique gestures. You boot it up and have to figure out how it works and getting it on WiFi

- display resolution is much worse than I was expecting.

- when using chrome, webpages render incredibly small. I’m having to constantly zoom in. There’s a setting in chrome about “desktop mode” but it made no difference.

And I also wasn’t expecting to have to sign up for a Google account to even get Daylight OS/software updates. (Maybe I don’t but that’s what the Google App Store made it seem like).

Wish I had read this review before I had bought it. https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/20/24201356/daylight-compute...

* Note: I truly love the idea of Daylight, and I hope they succeed. But in my mind, a considerable device improvement needs to be made to realize that vision.

Until then, I’ll revert back to using my iPad Air (and now with nano-texture coming more broadly across Apple lines, Daylight is going to have that much more to overcome - because Apple is also cheaper product).

[throw10920]

> handwriting lag, the input lags when I use the pen is so much that it distracts me while writing a sentence

Oh, that's a deal-breaker for me.

I currently have a Remarkable 2, and the handwriting latency is imperceptible - it feels like I'm writing with a physical pen. However, the latency of doing anything except writing is very high - it takes almost a second to undo/redo or open the pen palette, for instance.

The advertised 60Hz display of the Daylight and the underlying Android platform (that makes it possible for me to write my own applications, something that is technically possible but difficult and unreliable on the RM2) made it sound like an upgrade, but if handwriting latency is bad enough that it doesn't feel like paper anymore, I think I'll stick with a combination of my RM2 and desktop.

Theoretically this is something fixable in software (in which case I'm sold), but from what I've heard about Android, it's very much not latency-optimized in either the video or audio space.

[reissbaker]

FWIW, I have both an RM2 and a DC1 and the handwriting lag feels similar to me on both (and quite perceptible on the RM2). YMMV.

[throw10920]

Either your RM2 has something wrong with it, or you're (enviously) sensitive to latency. Both the marketing team[1] and independent testing[2] show that latency is under 25 ms.

That also doesn't seem consistent with GP post that "the input lags when I use the pen is so much that it distracts me while writing a sentence" which shouldn't be in the same category as 25ms.

[1] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/What-s-the-differen...

[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=g34SVxTjGIA&t=3348s

[novok]

I have an iPad Pro, daylight and remarkable 2. iPad Pro is definitely the fastest. The daylight and rm2 are slightly slower and I do notice it, but they are definitely fast enough. The RM2 is the slowest and that is just e-ink physics at that point. I was pleasantly surprised by the speed of the daylight when I used it.

It's all lost on me although, since I don't really like pen input. I find the RM2 frustratingly slow for an epub e-ink reader. Compared to a kindle or others it's weirdly slow, even when pen input is fast. The daylight solves the outdoor computing problem for me.

[bierlingm]

There's a pretty strong variation in input lag between apps. Sketching in the Concepts app rather than the Notebook/Noteshelf app for example is essentially instant. So this is mostly an issue of third party apps having varying levels of good/bad implementation.

[dingnuts]

How well can you see the iPad Air when you're sitting outside? That's why I like my Daylight, for doing Duolingo (with handwriting to enhance memory formation) and reading Reddit/HN (in Firefox Mobile which doesn't have the problem you describe with Chrome) on my patio

I've also found that my eyes are physically repulsed by the brightness of OLED displays after using my Daylight for a few hours indoors with the brightness down. It is much easier on my eyes and much less addictive / attractive than my phone.

An iPad Air's screen is still going to hijack my dopamine system like my phone does. The Daylight doesn't. I bought a Daylight because I wanted a healthier device, and it delivered on THAT promise.

But you're right, if you only have OLED Tablet use-cases, it's not an OLED Tablet, so an OLED Tablet is better for those things.

[adolph]

From theverge review:

the fact that I can slide my fingernail between the display and the case and literally pry the thing apart

As long as it doesn't RUD, opening with no tools seems like a feature but the review reads like its a bug.

[tiffanyh]

If the manufacture intends for you to separate the display from case, then it's a feature.

If it's not intended, it's a fit & finish issue.

I imagine it's not intended.

[JadeNB]

> As long as it doesn't RUD, opening with no tools seems like a feature but the review reads like its a bug.

What is RUD?

[theodric]

Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, a rocketry euphemism for an explosion

[JadeNB]

That makes more sense. My brain immediately suggested R&D + FUD = Research, Uncertainty, and Doubt, which is a fair description of life in academia but didn't seem relevant here.

[jebarker]

> I've found that writing on the screen makes me prefer paper; reading on the screen makes me prefer books.

I had the same experience with Remarkable. I've found I'm much happier now that I bought a color laser printer and just print things I want to read! Similarly, I take all my notes on paper and have a sheet feed scanner for digitization

[jmspring]

The android experience is off putting, that said I haven’t put much time into customizing or playing with my dc1 yet.

I found the design poor - reminds me of a first gen iPad. Too much wasted real estate.

I need to spend more time with it, but I still prefer my iPad Pro.

[tombert]

Interesting; the reason I wanted one was specifically because I wanted to have an Android e-ink reader so that I could use the O'Reilly Learning app with an e-ink screen. The Kindle Fire screen is "fine", but the e-paper stuff always was nicer for me to read off of.

I can't read my own handwriting anymore, so "real" paper is out of the question for me.

[dmicah]

Also keep in mind that the Daylight doesn't have an e-ink screen like a Kindle. It is instead a grayscale transflective LCD. That is why it is able to have a high refresh rate like other LCD panels.

[tombert]

I did not realize that. I don't think I want that then.

Maybe I should try out the remarkable.

[zwayhowder]

I use a Boox Note 2 almost daily for reading and regularly with a bluetooth keyboard for writing. It has a stylus, and the OCR is good enough for even my terrible handwriting (I should have been a doctor apparently) and I use that to scribble in the margin of PDFs etc.

My setup uses Autosync [1] to synchronise a folder from my desktop to the device. On my desktop I have Zotero (a Citation library) and Calibre both configured to export to that folder (in subfolders). With two way sync my notes are back on my PC almost instantly which is fantastic.

I also run Readwise and Obsidian on the Boox.

1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.au...

[tombert]

> OCR is good enough for even my terrible handwriting

Challenge accepted! I can't even read my own handwriting anymore, I would be incredibly impressed if an OCR can.

It's sort of a feedback loop; my handwriting is bad, so I type everything, so I never use a pen, so I don't practice my handwriting, so my handwriting gets worse. As it stands, I don't think I've written anything with pen and paper (other than a signature) since ~2021?

I've thought about picking up something in the Boox series but they've always been just a bit too pricey for me to justify; I'm afraid it would be yet another tablet thing that I use for a week and then just ends up collecting dust under my bed (of which I have a bunch).

[mkl]

> I can't even read my own handwriting anymore, I would be incredibly impressed if an OCR can.

An online OCR system like this has more information than you do as it knows stroke order, direction, and possibly timing. I wouldn't be surprised if there are devices that can read writing the writer can't.

[ChuckMcM]

I'm not sure I'm there yet (giving it away) but similarly annoyed by some of its teething pains. For me it seems to do all the things, and it runs longer than my iPad pro does on a charge (and like the OP author I suspect that is entirely because I run the display as near 0 brightness)

I really appreciate using it as a writing device in portrait mode, something that I really wish the iPad pro could do with its "magic" keyboard. I continue to look for more intuitive drawing solutions.

I also agree with the author that Android has that 'dos' feel of poorly bodged together hardware specific drivers/stuff and OS stuff.

As a result it hasn't replaced my ReMarkable 2 like I thought it might, I'd really love the RM2 to have a higher refresh rate than it does alas.

[ge96]

Semi-related: I had a Remarkable 2 and the best part of it for me was the texture writing. I decided to use a Surface Book 3 but the writing isn't the same... probably will try one of those textured surface cover things.

E-ink is interesting as it's nice wrt long battery life but the slowness sucks too and this is not about the Android devices with an e-ink screen. RM2 you could program so that was cool.

[deinonychus]

>I decided to use a Surface Book 3 but the writing isn't the same... probably will try one of those textured surface cover things.

i totally recommend getting a textured screen cover if you can find one.

i had one for my SP7 and it made sketching and annotating dramatically more tolerable - even pleasant. i was concerned it'd degrade stylus nibs more quickly but it wasn't a problem. colors were naturally a hair less vivid but it was acceptable and a good tradeoff for less glare in general and honestly i liked how it looked - it felt less like i was looking at a screen, if you know what i mean. in hindsight i think it's crazy that they sell these tablets with untextured screens/nibs.

edit: this is off-topic but i enjoyed reading your bio. i hope you have a nice day.

[hedora]

Yeah; I was really excited about this, but then saw it ran android.

Hard pass. I have an android tablet laying around, and never use it.

A Linux version / polished installable rom would make it compelling for me, especially if it included stuff from the kindle jailbreak community. Other than that, the ability to ssh, a shell with apt or apk, running vs code, and a web browser would cover a big chunk of my daily driver requirements. Bonus points for docker.

[plipt]

I have yet to use one, but have you heard of the Pinenote?

Its a Debian Linux based e-ink tablet. It doesn’t look particularly premium, but it’s not android. There is a pressure sensitive stylus that comes with it as well.

https://pine64.org/devices/pinenote/

Not many reviews out there but here is a video of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3trcI7MK4U

[hatsix]

What do you assume that a non-apple tablet runs, if not Android. Why would running Android be a surprise to you?

[4k93n2]

have you found much use for termux? i use it for quite a bit, running python scripts, yt-dlp and ffmpeg stuff. neovim.

you cant run things like vscode but there is an app called andronix that lets you run a full linux os and then you remote into it from a browser. its probably clunky though

[rcarmo]

Well, I'm quite happy with the Supernote Nomad, but will gladly take the DC-1 off your hands if you want to because I would love a screen with faster refresh to run Obsidian locally :)

[MPSFounder]

If you decide to give it away, I will happily pay for shipping. I could use it as a PhD student!