Steve Troughton-SmithMy finger has been hovering over the buy button on the reMarkable Paper Pro page all day š«
Nothing quite matches the kind of digital paper device I yearn for, but it gets pretty darn close. I wish I could build my ownā¦
I knew the reMarkable had a developer mode with SSH, but I wasn't aware it had an actual official Qt Quick SDK and cross-compiler toolchain
A cute little official guide to sketchnoting on the reMarkable. Sketchnoting is one of those things I really wish I'd learned to do, because every time somebody posts their sketchnotes ā usually after conference talks or WWDC sessions ā I'm in awe
Visualize your thoughts with sketchnoting
I appreciate the YouTuber economy, but writing 'This is a test' and drawing some colored highlights on a page doesn't really constitute a valuable review of a drawing tablet, eink or otherwise š
Give it to people like this Redditor a month ahead of embargo, perhaps, or mind-mapping/sketchnoting pros
/via https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/1fidzm9/my_2_cents_about_the_paper_pro/
There's no reMarkable OS emulator, so I abused ChatGPT to help me format, patch, and boot the rootfs from the software recovery image in qemu-system-aarch64. Whether I'll be able to get the GUI running is another matterā¦
I've spent a lot of time experimenting, and I think it's failing in xochitl, the primary UI binary, which has a bunch of device checks I might just need to patch out. Getting the right size framebuffer has been a challengeā¦
I think I'm giving up here; xochitl has a long try/catch block on init for setting up the hardware, like the epaper controller, and there's only so much I can nop by hand before I'm deep in the weeds and causing higher-level crashes.
It would be nice if reMarkable provided a qemu environment for their OS, because it wasn't hard at all for me, an idiot, to get the basics booting on a generic target with a random kernel I found lying around
I don't think there's value in trying to document what I did to get this booting, it was a mess.
I grabbed and ungziped the reMarkable ferrari firmware from https://archive.org/download/rm110/RM110/
I stole a kernel Image and device tree (imx8mp-evk.dtb) from https://yocto.dave.eu/desk-mx8m-l-6.0.0-rc0/image/imx8mp-lpddr4-evk/
I masked out a bunch of system services including remarkable's emergency recovery through the boot args in my mess of a qemu script, with a lot of guidance from ChatGPT: https://gist.github.com/steventroughtonsmith/a6c8c6b2c776dc10cc0fa31169ea0db5
And after that byte-patched xochitl
Somebody with a lot more time on their hands could recompile the reMarkable kernel instead of the one I used, and use the actual ferrari-rev-c.dtb device tree from the rootfs. And even better, with patches to qemu to stub in any of the hardware reMarkable OS is looking for.
I ain't that guy š
And here's boot console output, just for kicks
https://gist.github.com/steventroughtonsmith/ffb3cffae607fe8d2576800bd523645e
You know you've made it when your products are being used in space
Astronaut Jannicke Mikkelsen | reMarkable
It's a bit ridiculous that reMarkable has a screen mirroring feature but no way to take screenshots
There is a lot of low-hanging fruit missing from reMarkable OS, that much is clear from the moment you start using it. Documents have infinite vertical scrolling, but finite horizontal scrolling, so a traditional mind-map layout doesn't really work here without jumping through hoops (like using pinch-zoom to write tiny text). There are so many things they should be putting engineering effort into before nonsense like 'AI', but alas these are the times we live in
I'm not sure what reMarkable is basing their '2 weeks' battery life claims on; absent-mindedly doodling on two pages for an hour, with the backlight off, was enough to burn through 10% of the battery on the Paper Pro. I wouldn't call that heavy usage at all
My thoughts on the reMarkable Paper Pro so far are complicated, and still evolving. ePub support is non-existent ā it has zero support for the graphically-rich kinds of ePub 3 FXL you might want to display on an 11" color screen ā and PDF text rendering is really low resolution unless you turn on high contrast mode, which blows out anything like colored backgrounds. Magazines, thus, are a no-go. I think beyond handwriting/doodling or plain-white-background PDFs, this is not the device for you
They sell a ā¬250 keyboard accessory for this reMarkable tablet, which I'm totally fine with ā I didn't buy one, but it seems like a nice addon for writers.
Except the OS doesn't support text files, never mind something like markdown. You can only type into documents you can draw on. It's a bizarre corner to back yourself into, especially /when you sell a keyboard/
Do note: I will have lots of observations like this as I explore reMarkable OS. Do not over-index on negativity; I really like the writing and drawing features on this thing, which is the point of it. But I consumed nearly every YouTube video out there on the RMPP and the Move, and there are still plenty of surprises and head-scratchers here
Exploring the different brushes (I wish there were more) and colors (I wish there were more) and templates (holy hell they have hundreds on their free reMarkable Methods marketplace, how do I make some?). There is a lot to like. Shape recognition is really nice, too. Some of the color reproduction is dramatically different on the desktop, so using color on the Paper Pro is a bit like being temporarily colorblind
While the reMarkable Paper Pro is thin, at 5.1mm, I would still halve the thickness if I could, and dramatically decrease the weight. There is a line between technology and magic that it doesn't quite cross, today
The screen light, too, is not for me. Personally, I want my ePaper without a light shining in my face. And while the reMarkable's feels a lot less like a cheap, nasty LED light than my Kindle, it still looks awful
Joachim Bondo@stroughtonsmith Super curious to follow along in your observations, because you go that extra level deep. Have eagerly used reMarkable 2 for two years (sketching, mostly UI, and reading, PDF only).
Dagaloni@stroughtonsmith Okay, I'm completely cured of wanting a Remarkable. š
Mutesplash@stroughtonsmith This is where I went "no." Too much money for not enough features.
Torb@Mutesplash @stroughtonsmith Focus and less features is literally the point though. I love my reMarkable 2 for itās simplicity. More features would probably make it worse for itās intended purpose.
@torb How does bad ePub and PDF support make it worse for focusing on... books and documents?
@Mutesplash Well, I think they focus on note taking and writing (i.e. better response time for pens than other pen eink tablets etc).
Youāre not wrong, it *does* make it worse for books and documents, I just donāt think thatās their focus either. Remarkable isnāt good for those things.
Theyāre almost maniaically focused on eink pen writing at the expense ofā¦ well.. everything else. But also: has a better pen experience than everybody. Itās IMO *really* good if thatās what you care about (as I do).
Paul-Vincent Roll (he/him)@stroughtonsmith two weeks of a note here and there :D
Kyle Hughes@stroughtonsmith A great hardware company and a mediocre software company; their iOS and macOS are in Qt and bizarre. But unparalleled hardware.
Adam Bell 
@stroughtonsmith I'm in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace
@b3ll kids who were born after that game came out are nearly 15 now
stop it
Steve@stroughtonsmith to echo @b3llās sentiment m, fuck right off š
Jon Carlestam
ran mak@stroughtonsmith impressive!!
Marco Arment@stroughtonsmith I'm so happy you're on this train now.
shaps@stroughtonsmith 100% agree. Love the look of this device and having colour is nice but I a little large for my taste.
The actual pen-to-tablet experience is a key aspect, so I ended up ordering the Supernote Manta.
Hasn't arrived yet but I managed to find a real artists/writers impression and it really convinced me.
Till now I've used my iPad mini for note taking, sketching out ideas and drawing. But I really miss the feeling of paper. Hopefully the manta lives up to expectations.
Brendan Thompson@stroughtonsmith I hold that same sentiment. Then I remember I canāt draw. My stick figures barely look like stick figures haha
Collin Allen@stroughtonsmith Lights Off reMarkable š¤
@command_tab ā¦if only there were a port of Lights Off to QtQuickā¦
Ben Fry@stroughtonsmith oooooh!
(ā¦loses 20 minutes digging into docs and then starts checking pricesā¦)
I keep buying the larger iPad Pro every few iterations, hoping that this might finally be the one (in particular, to build things for), but maybe it's time to get on a different track.
enMTW@stroughtonsmith There is a KOReader port for reMarkable, not that it is really....usable on that form factor...
@stroughtonsmith You wonāt regret it.
The reMarkable UI and sync (to iOS and Mac!) is miles ahead of everything else in the e-note space.
Itās the idealized āApple-likeā experience. And nobody else is remotely close.
They also have, by a mile, the best cases and pen-attachment mechanics, which makes a huge difference in everyday convenience and niceness.
Jason Madden@marcoarment @stroughtonsmith 100% agreed. I love mine.
@marcoarment what I've always wanted: 'Adobe Ideas', but as digital paper. We're not fully there yet, but it's very clear reMarkable is made by the kinds of people who care about what I care about, where most others absolutely are not.
I wish Apple did one, with iBooks and Freeform supportā¦
@stroughtonsmith The only downside about falling into the rM cult is that, like Apple, they move very slowly on certain things and leave huge features and markets completely unaddressed.
So every rM user has a few requests that we feel like weāre waiting an ETERNITY for, and they may never come.
But itās so much better than the competitors in general that we accept that tradeoff.
@stroughtonsmith My list:
- interlinking, Supernote-style
- a proper successor to the reMarkable 2: 10-inch class, monochrome, 300 ppi, front-light, with the modern pen attachment and folio flap.
Nirawit@marcoarment
For me, the no-brainer feature that I donāt understand why itās missing:
rM has a screen lock feature, so itās all or nothing.
What about an in-between? Donāt use screen lock (itās inconvenient) but be able to lock certain notebooks.
@steakscience Yeah, that's a good one.
@marcoarment what kinds of things do you do on epaper, and is there an Under the Radar episode about it? š Is it to do with app dev, or is it more for restaurant / real life?
@stroughtonsmith I did an ATP segment on it a few months back when I made this https://youtu.be/sAFaMwulbIw
My usage has expanded since then, and it's a moving target. I've since gotten both the Pro and the Pro Move (the setup is kinda in flux).
I like to take notes during in-person meetings, therapy, and phone calls. And I like it for certain kinds of personal notes, like goals/accomplishments.
I still use it whiteboard-style like that video, but shorter timescale, like āthese five things todayā.
reMarkable 2 vs. Supernote Manta: my desktop whiteboard
Ricardo Tavares@marcoarment @stroughtonsmith If you just want to read and already have some apps you want to use (like Readwise), just get Boox and the hardware is fine.
Writing is a different workflow to optimise for. Even so, the competition offered by Viwoods or Supernote is looking good.
@t_var_s @stroughtonsmith I tried both Supernote and Viwoods.
Both have their strengths.
Neither is anywhere close to reMarkableās UI responsiveness, pen/case practicality and niceness, or sync speed/reliability.
Like, NOWHERE close.
(And that's a shame, because they both have strong advantages.)
@marcoarment @stroughtonsmith Reviews seem to have different opinions, but I haven't checked out their smaller model yet. Viwoods seems to have the better black on white contrast. Supernote seems to have the better pens.
David Schuetz ** looking for work **@stroughtonsmith I just wish I could figure out what exactly I want from the UI. Iāve tried most of the popular pencil notes apps on iPad and none of them work anything like how I want them to.
@darthnull thatās why I wrote my own app for it!
@stroughtonsmith heh. I played with that a little and Iām not sure it resonated with me either. (Or maybe I only tried the earliest versions).
Like I said, I feel like I canāt even define what Iām looking for, which is frustrating.
Emory Dunn 
@stroughtonsmith I bought one maybe six months ago and itās hands down my favorite gadget of the year. Basically what Iād been looking for from iPad drawing/note apps
Gabriel N@stroughtonsmith the promise of e-ink, the future that never was. Iām with you there.
Ben Goertz@stroughtonsmith I love my non-Pro reMarkable. Iāve definitely been tempted by the Pro.
@stroughtonsmith I have the boox color go because I didnāt want to spend remarkable money and I love it. I do sometimes wish I spent remarkable money but ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ