reMarkable: The Paper Tablet

[Tsippaduida]

I actually happen to have reMarkable tablet. Writing and doodling with it is so close to real paper, that I do not keep regular notebook with me anymore. Expensive, yes, but I really like the device. It looks to me that writing on this tablet does not disturb people as much as using a laptop, where you seem to be hiding behind the lid. Naturally if I'm having meeting with programmers the laptop is ok, but meeting with not so tech savvy people seems more natural when using the remarkable.

I also have an e-book reader based on e-ink display, I absolutely love it. Remarkable paper tablet is rather successful as a notebook. As an e-reader it is not that good. Some e-pub's seem to cause trouble. Also, I don't think we are going to get support for something like Adobe DRM. I think most of the slight problems with e-pubs are going to be addressed in coming updates, but for me reading e-pubs with this device is not a high priority. As I already have an e-reader, I wanted to have bigger display for those pesky PDF's which are hard to read on smaller screen (my normal e-reader). For that purpose remarkable seems to work bigger screen really helps my aging eyes. DRM ridden content I can deal with the regular reader.

Now that the device has shipped, you can find reviews about using it for one month and so on. Another reason for buying this was that it runs GNU/Linux and the manufacturer seems to be taking open source rather seriously.  Android based e-readers and other e-ink devices tend to have better specs on the processor and memory. Android seems to require more oomph to achieve same thing as base Linux.

[ez24]

I actually happen to have reMarkable tablet.

You lucky dog.  About an hour ago I thought about this - the first time since Dec16th  ummm

[Decoman]

I looked into maybe buying the re-markable tablet, though I am in no hurry.

• I got the impression that this tablet does not allow a bluetooth connection, which I would prefer.
• The tablet seem a tad expensive.
• A reviewer pointed out that the tips (you get a box with the tablet afaik) wear out, and I guess that is ok, as long as it doesn't seem silly, I wouldn't know for sure myself until I tried it out.
• Their local office didn't take any of my two phone calls, which annoyed me. If they were on vacation or otherwise busy, they could have left a message.
• I am unsure if a pen can have 1-100% darkness, or if limited to just a few gray scale ranges. I don't know if there is a very light (non dark) pen stroke feature.
• The size seem ok I guess, but ideally I would want an A4 size tablet.
• The tablet seems mostly for drawing (totally ok), and less for viewing text files.
• This product is based on a kickstarter campaign afaik.
• The resolution seems good to me, though I don't have any personal experience other than having owned computer monitors.
• Afaik this tablet has no expandable memory, though for drawings, I guess you will never get to run out of free space for saving your drawings. So, not a big issue I would think for drawing at least.

I guess if ever got the opportunity to try this tablet, out I might very well decid to buy one for myself.

I think that any professional artist will probably have to investigate to learn if the drawing tools for this tablet is good enough for them.

[Tsippaduida]

@Decoman

• Bluetooth is not supported. haven't checked if it actually has required hardware, but at least software does not support it.
• My Financial (or what ever it is in english) teacher once said "It's not expensive, it just feels like it if you don't have the money". He did not get friends from us students.
• Tips wear down, same for the sony's device. Even the tip replacement package seems same including the replacement tool.
• Never tried to phone, just used the webshop ("shut-up and take my money" -button)
• There are only few darkness levels, at least for now. It seems to me that the technology limits this, could not confirm it via rapid googling.
• Yes, it isn't quite A4, I would also liked that size more, but maybe the next version?
• Not based on kickstarter, but a crowd funding project in any case. Contrary to many such projects, this one delivered nearly on time and a working product at that.
• Resolution is enough, it is not the highest you you can get on e-ink, but quite good, imho. E-ink has excellent contrast which makes the display look crisp. My e-reader has slightly higher ppi. High resolution e-ink -displays have quite low ppi if you compare them to ordinary displays.
• I also suspected that the internal storage would run out in an instant, but I was wrong. Naturally if you want to keep everything you create in the device, you will eventually run out of space. But transferring files between the device and a laptop (I use Linux) is relatively easy.

If you have a change to try out Sony's devices you could then use one of the reviews "Sony vs. reMarkable" to help decide which one to get.

I do not draw, well given ruler and compass I can do a thing or two, but freehand? Perhaps my stick figures are passable. I get by as reMarkable has plenty of templates you can use. I like e.g. Isometric template for some of the technical doodlings I occasionally need to do.

[Tsippaduida]

E-ink displays typically have only 4 bit gray levels.

E.g.: http://www2.eink.com/sell_sheets/carta_spec_sheet.pdf

reMarkable -tablet does not offer so many, at least not yet. I guess it is because they wanted to have that nearly instant response when you write with the pen. Maybe they are are able to optimize and we get more shades of gray along with the software updates. Not likely a high priority thing, if at all doable.

[amyk]

E-ink displays typically have only 4 bit gray levels.

E.g.: http://www2.eink.com/sell_sheets/carta_spec_sheet.pdf

reMarkable -tablet does not offer so many, at least not yet. I guess it is because they wanted to have that nearly instant response when you write with the pen. Maybe they are are able to optimize and we get more shades of gray along with the software updates. Not likely a high priority thing, if at all doable.

You can certainly get more, but I suspect they're just using an off-the-shelf controller and thickly abstracted (i.e. bloated) software stack that doesn't let them exploit the display to its fullest potential. Otherwise it would be pretty easy to hook up a touchscreen to an e-ink display and some minimal glue logic that basically darkens the pixel(s) at the current touch position a little bit on every refresh, giving a crude approximation to pressure sensitivity (actually more like time sensitivity --- like a fountain pen.)