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by greatgib16 hours ago |

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by turtlebits15 hours ago|

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It barely has enough power to render PDFs, I'm not sure what general purpose use you could get out of it.

The limitation is the whole point, it does pen input very well.

by tomduncalf8 hours ago|

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I posted in a comment above that I (well Codex) was able to get full Chromium running on it. It’s not fast by any means but is usable if you just want to read a web page on e-ink… so it’s not crazy underpowered

by greatgib10 hours ago|

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I do 't mean playing video games but lots of things could be done within the power range of the device.

For example be able to use the ssh access or synchronization web app from wifi, be able to use basic web page, synchronize with your own server like ftp server, ... All that kind of things not very complicated or requiring power. And I'm not even asking for the work/app to be done by remarkable but that the interface to do that is available.

A few things could be done by connecting in ssh and replacing the xserver but it is extremely clunky and could easy make your expensive tablet a brick. But it shows the kind of things that would be nice to be done with it.

I guess that a simple code editor/visualiser could easily be done.

by carlosjobim16 hours ago|

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What exactly is a "general purpose device"? An eInk tablet is pretty far away from being "general purpose" as far as I can tell. Should I buy a Ford Ranger and demand that the company makes it easy to convert it to a lawn mover?

by kstrauser16 hours ago|

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Examples: it sucks as an ereader, even though the hardware is super capable of it. It doesn’t have a built-in dictionary to look up words or check spelling. You can’t make links between documents or to different pages in the current document.

Their hardware is top notch, but I found the software to be so hamstrung that I returned mine after a few weeks. Basically, if you want to have exactly a physical paper notebook experience but with a computer, it’s great. If you’d like to transcend the limitations of a paper notebook and take advantage of the nice hardware to organize your work, or do literally anything but write or draw, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

by reticulated15 hours ago|

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Please point to the marketing page where it's primary purpose is declared as an ereader.

My car has four wheels, that doesn't make it a good ice-cream van

by kstrauser15 hours ago|

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I’ve heard this excuse for it plenty of times, and it rings hollow and/or Stockholm syndrome. People (rightfully) made fun of Apple for not including a calculator on iPadOS for the longest time. Imagine Apple claiming “we never advertised it as a calculator!”, which is technically true, but clearly silly because it’s an obvious use case that everyday users would want.

Well, same here: a Remarkable tablet is nearly identical to a Kobo or Kindle in form factor and basic capabilities. It even includes an ereader app. But the app, frankly, sucks. They could swapped in KOreader and called it a day. But instead of that, they — or rather, their supporters — give the laughable excuse that “it’s not an ereader”. Well, an iPad’s also not a calculator, and yet…

If your car has four wheels, room to walk around inside, and built in refrigerators that are mounted upside down for some reason, maybe the factory would say that they didn’t sell you an ice cream truck, but everyone else looking at it is going to wonder why they didn’t make it possible to stock popsicles while they were at it.

by reticulated14 hours ago|

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Similar in form factor and basic capabilities, sure. But. And it's a big one. The reMarkable tablets are aimed for content creation rather than consumption. Nobody realistically buys a reMarkable device when Kindles, Kobos, etc. all perform that task much better with all the connected ebook stores, whatever DRM keeps the publishers and authors happy, etc. etc. That's just not reMarkable's core business and likely never will be.

I'm not sure what the "ereader app" is that you refer to. reMarkables come with exactly one app "xochitl" that handles all user interaction. Sure, they let you access PDFs to annotate - but again the primary use case isn't to read them. ePub files are consciously converted into PDFs to support that premise.

KOreader, whilst an excellent reading app, doesn't support annotations. So it's not obvious why reMarkable would consider that an enhancement given the primary device purpose.

My car doesn't have space to walk around, nor refrigerators. That's why I bought it. Same with reMarkable devices. I buy and use them for the content creation functionality. I have a Kindle for the times when I want to swap to "consumer mode"

by kstrauser14 hours ago|

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Well, nonetheless, those missing features and a thousand other papercuts led me to send it back and upgrade to a Supernote. It’s not perfect, but hasn’t deliberately kneecapped itself with some purity vision that just makes it frustrating to use. And honestly, I’d rather carry a Kobo and a paper notebook than a Kobo and a digital notebook that could’ve been an ereader, too, except “LOL we don’t make ereaders”.

by carlosjobim14 hours ago|

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Good point. I would expect most eink tablets to be good ereaders.

by kstrauser12 hours ago|

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Or at least competent, if not great. I mentioned in another comment that I switched to a Supernote. Its own reader isn’t fantastic. My Kobo is better for that. But it’s fine as a reader if it’s the only tablet-sized device I have with me that day.

That’s the baseline I’d expect from an e-ink tablet. It might not blow me away, but should at least be reasonably useful as a reader. Any tablet that can’t adequately let me comfortably read an epub is unserious, in my opinion.