This is the biggest minus point for me. I want devices that I own, that I can use like I want to. I don't want to be caught in another cloud and pay monthly for something I don't want to use.
Currently I'm looking into getting a device from Onyx, because those support the Android App Stores, so I could set it up with Notion or my Nextcloud probably.
Remarkable seems to have better hardware (as in screen and writing), though.
edit: lots of people mentioning that you have SSH on the Remarkable. Good thing, but fiddling with shell scripts (yeah, no big deal for others, new for me) to sync with a cloud service of your choice... not sure I want that.
Yeah, it is annoying that there is so little competition. I was made aware of this after being a very happy Boox (A4 size; I use it literally for everything I used paper for before when reading, writing, sketching, flow charts, mockups etc) user for 6 months. I am not going to toss it away and so far, after trying the reMarkable from a friend, I would buy the Boox again instead... ...if not this gpl issue.
Edit: also, I believe one of the people in that reddit thread might have the correct answer; the eInk drivers (and probably more notably the waveform) will be proprietary and they do probably worry about losing their license if they publish anything they are not allowed to. Which would end their business immediately.
The GPL issue doesnt matter for your buying decision. In fact, becoming a client expand your voice: you can now say you're even paying support already to listen to you whine about why they didnt publish the 5 patches they made to some broadcom drivers.
In good faith, I’ll assume this entire thing isn’t sarcastic.
Buying stuff from entities violating whatever will only solidify what they are doing. Support isn’t spending time any way with gpl stuff. They aren’t going to read a paying customers complaints any more than any one else.
I have another similar device, the Boyue Likebook Mars, and it's so close to being great.
In addition to the license compliance issues, I assume these cheap Chinese devices are siphoning off all my data to parts unknown. The last I checked, you couldn't even root the thing.
I trust reMarkable more, so I might eventually buy one to replace the Mars. But a device like the Onyx/Boyue e-ink tablets that was more open (ideally: running LineageOS) would be close to ideal.
Edit: I forgot about the PineNote, which is probably the best option on the horizon for those who don't trust these Chinese Android distros: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ - I should probably go pre-order one :)
You need to show that you are serious about developing for eInk note-taking devices to get in the first developer-only PineNote batch: at least serious enough to fill in a form describing your note-taking development credentials :). Or maybe they'd really let anyone have it who writes convincing enough prose about what they plan to develop on it. :)
I'd love to develop apps for PineNote (or reMarkable even), but I am being realistic when I say that I won't get around to it.
I have a remarkable v2, and I don't use their online services. I just wanted to replace a pen-and-paper notebook, and read occasional PDFs on it. It works fine as an ereader and brilliantly as an e-notebook. If better hardware is the key criterion for you, I'd go for the remarkable and just ignore the services.
The cool thing about it is you can SSH into it/do whatever you want from what I've read. There are some cool repos out there (check the sub). Eventually... I would like to mess around with it. It is a cool device though, the drawing feeling because the screen is textured and it "feels good" writing on it. It's thin and lasts a long time. Has it changed my life or anything, no not really it mostly sits with my SG2 that I will use at some point.
As an aside, I also use this drawing (Krita) graphics tablet Kamvas Pro 12 GT-116 as an external monitor, just for anyone looking for a "drawing workflow extension" of some sort. I have used Sketch on the SG2 that's pretty nice too.
Both comments are super helpful. It's hard to have a third device that acts as a zoom white board that actually works. Used to use the giant surface hub studio that's on a swivel but it's way overkill
Well, from the review it does state that their hardware is Linux based, and you have root access. The device is not locked down in the way a Kindle is.
So it sounds like you do, in fact, own this particular device when you buy it. You could write applications for syncing files to your OwnCloud instance or whatever you’d like.
The hardware isn't better on the Remarkable. It's a slower weaker chipset than what's used on any of the Oynx devices and the screen in the RM2 is literally the same part as what is in the Oynx Note Air. Both use Wacom EMR for writing so you can use the same pens and nibs on both.
Remarkable has a plastic layer to improve writing feel and optimized software to get pen latency down. The Oynx Note Air 2 supposedly also has improved writing feel but I'm not sure how it compares.
So I have the note air 2, and the reMarkable because reasons.
The reMarkable feels like writing on paper. The Note Air 2 feels like writing on a piece of plastic. The reMarkable wins there.
The latency on both is about the same, in my opinion. The reMarkable might hesitate when you erase something big, but then it's completely gone. Switching pages takes just enough time to be annoying. On the Note Air 2, erasing is just as laggy. But, page switches are almost instantaneous. BUT, you will see a shadow of the previous page literally every time you switch pages.
For my money, the RM2 is worth it compared to the note air series.
I only have the Note Air 1 and I don't see any ghosting on page switches in the notes app. But they are running different firmware so who knows. Other apps it's settings dependent but you can set it to refresh every page turn if you want.
I'm sure RM feel is better but I bring up it's a plastic layer/nib feel and not something specifically built into the device. It's possible to get a better writing feel with a screen protector and a different nib on the Note Air. For me, writing is secondary to reading and the RM is just too limited in that regard.
The subscription mode is for syncing your content on their cloud storage.
One of the nice features of the remarkable device is that they allow you to ssh on the device and run your software on it. There is a community who builds various tools that run on the device. I didn't check recently but I'm pretty sure you have one or more open options to sync your content to your remote storage of choice.
This is about the features they enable through their easy to use UI.
You're free to not like it, but that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the fact that this is one of the few platforms where I can ssh onto the underlying Linux host and run my damn software and extend it in various ways, which includes syncing docs with whatever storage system I want. Surely, this is for "hackers" use only. This is what I like about this and I'm happy to accept the tradeoff.
That's not entirely true, you DO get syncing with no plan, just not unlimited syncing. But yes, I agree it is expensive for just connecting to somebody else's service.
"Just connecting to someone elses service" is a pretty thankless job in my opinion.
I write software that can connect to 3rd party services. It takes a lot of effort to make sure it all works. There's always stuff that breaks randomly, and it's really hard to debug because you typically get only vague error messages when something fails, and you can't debug from the server side.
So you end up spending way too much time making sure your product is compatible with some service, just so your customers can spend money on 3rd party services that you don't earn money from.
The subscription mode is likely primarily there for syncing their bank account with bank accounts of VCs who price everything in multiples of monthly recurring revenue. Probably not gonna end well.
Without a subscription they have no incentive to update the software of already sold or older model ( which they already do). Considering the price and the niche market, they probably can't rely on future sales only to improve the software.
As a relatively fragile portable device with a limited-life sealed battery, which is essential to people who adopt it, there is a nice replacement market. Being nice to your users by providing relative low-cost maintenance software updates should more than pay for itself.
No need to include new features, they can be sold for a one-off optional fee to old device users. Subscription is worse here: it provides weaker feedback from users to the developers, who have a harder time knowing if the new features are useless or damaging to the user experience. Products don't always benefit from constant gratuitous updates.
A subscription doesn't give someone an incentive to update software.
If anything, it does the opposite: if I'll get paid whether I add a feature or not, why spend the money to add the feature when I could just pocket the money?
That's why companies love the subscription model so much: Instead of having to find compelling new features and updates to sell new versions or attract new customers, they can just sit back, put their feet up and the money keeps flowing in.
You’re making a lot of faulty assumptions about how customers engage with subscription models. When I pay for software every month, I’m evaluating the value of it every month. That includes things like the update frequency, how often I use it, etc.
I know subscription pricing isn’t popular around here, but these wild speculations about how things work are getting a little silly. Especially coming from people who, I’m guessing, don’t use that many subscription apps.
Maybe it's just me, but evaluating my subscriptions every month sounds like discussing OS upgrades with friends - normal people just don't do that. I sign up, and then leave it on autopay until they do something I find abhorrent enough to cancel my subscription (I'm looking at you, NYtimes). Which is why subscriptions are so lucrative - people don't regularly check their subscriptions on a monthly basis.
(Not saying this is the most fiscally responsible position to take, just a far more 'normal' one.)
No, companies love the subscription model because it makes for a predictable cashflow they can plan around, and which they can use to support software long-term.
I think your parents meant subscription gives recurring revenue to sustain a ongoing cost which is software development.
It is not an incentive, but a criteria. I often wished Remarkable would be brought up by big companies with more resources to work on it. But most companies these days aren't interested in making better products. Not to mention the possibilities of ruining it.
> The subscription mode is likely primarily there for syncing their bank account with bank accounts of VCs who price everything in multiples of monthly recurring revenue. Probably not gonna end well.
Since subscription has been Wall Street's fetish for a few years now, it's safe to say they have aspirations of going public sometime in US exchanges.
You can go into settings and enable ssh, and put pretty much whatever you want on it. Configure your own synchting or nextcloud sync, and not pay a penny.
Worth noting that if you bought the device before October this year, then you get a free subscription - which is what I am using currently, but good to know that I can just swap it out if I want to
I think sshd has been on the device since the initial launch in 2017, the company is publishing all source code they modify on their GitHub, the team seems very much pro open source and there is a relatively big hacking community around the devices already. It would take a lot for them to suddenly do a 180 on this when they are so deep into it already.
But it wouldn't be unheard of, but as a owner of one, I'm not really scared of it happening. Although if it would, the device would lose one of it's main buying point (for me at least) and I certainly wouldn't buy any more devices from them.
I would be genuinely curious to know how many people do ssh based tricks instead of paying for a subscription. Is it really worth pushing away your initial tech-savvy crowd for those couple of people that are not annoyed enough to leave?
Often these decisions are much less evil. Some update in the future is likely to require work on the SSH functionality to keep it working and if not enough people use it, they might decide to kill that feature. Happened often enough that a "simplification" of the tech stack or refactoring ended up killing features that were valued by many, but didn't rank high enough in usage stats.
Yeah, that's for sure. I was once very happy with a Fintech app (a bank), very techy, an API, modern and cool features, tight community. Then they pivoted and started targetting another more mainstream crowd. They incorporated their insta-feed into the app, and all kinds of social and greenwashing features. Reviews are still poor. I keep wondering if they could not somehow have kept the techy, early adopters happy and started targeting a more mainstream crowd. Is that very difficult? Two versions of the app would have done it. But maybe the tech group is so small it's worth pissing off this small group- that jumps on new stuff eagerly and helps you debug and grow in an early stage. Quite depressing.
Considering how much trouble it is to lock down devices that were intended from the start to be locked down in the firmware (Nintendo Switch, etc.), I think it's pretty unlikely that this device could be effectively locked down with a software update.
Or you could do like me, who never felt the urge to "sync to the cloud" any notebook, be it paper or e-ink based.
RM2 works great offline and does not need any network connection to do its main job. I think you will find you won't really need updates if you use it the same way as me.
And yes, as they mentioned it is enough FOSS friendly that there is quite a community of tinkerers around it
Let's work out a deal. You pay me $7.98/month, and I'll "fiddle with shell scripts" for you! Of course if you don't trust me, you can always pay Remarkable $7.99/month, no fiddling necessary. And they'll even bundle it in their desktop app UI!
If you can accept that you don't want to fiddle with shell scripts, then why is paying someone else for the privilege so far beyond the pale?
I'll pay you quite a bit to make my ReMarkable do what I want and then go away forever. But once it's working, I'm pathologically opposed to paying for the continued privilege.
It's because they are doing it their way, and I want it my way. I don't want the data in their cloud, with Google or with Dropbox, but in my "Cloud".
And why is there a recurring fee for this? Do they need to do this integration every month again? Ok, there might be some ongoing effort to keep the API working, but is that 8 Euro/month from thousands/millions of users?
The problem is that hardware companies don't want to be hardware companies anymore, but they want to be _everything_ else, too.
> edit: lots of people mentioning that you have SSH on the Remarkable. Good thing, but fiddling with shell scripts (yeah, no big deal for others, new for me) to sync with a cloud service of your choice... not sure I want that.
I mean, yeah, as much as it sounds fun, I pay for things like this to have more time/ease doing other stuff (drawing, taking notes, etc), so this seems to defeat the point.
iPad Pro + paperwhite + concepts and procreate does the job for me for that specific reason. I know that otherwise I’d get derailed and just start hacking things together instead of doodling
Onyx make great devices. Running android means it has access to all kindle features via the Kindle app, plus anything else the android store or internet have to offer (I play sudoku on mine often).
And Android gives a lot of other compatibilities in that app store content. I didn't need to wonder if my HN reader, manga reader, Papers, etc work on it because any Android app does.
If you want to roll your own you can get an arduino attached to a recycled kindle display with wifi - i love this idea (but touch support is just emerging) https://inkplate.io/
If it's clear and consensual, and not a means of endlessly extracting money for no value. SaaS is almost always rent seeking and brings no value to a consumer. Almost.
Usually you don't need a support contract for continued use of the software you bought.
I have old versions of a few applications and am happy with their current functionality. I can choose to not have a support contract and still use them. If I encounter problems later, I can choose to pay more for the latest.
I've bought Microsoft Office CDs and DVDs for a fixed, one-time price. No support contract needed. I mean what's changed in Excel or Word that affects the home user?
Same for Adobe Suite. Used to be available for a one-time fee.
That they have both shifted to subscription models suggests it's a move designed to please equity analysts rather than any kind of added value for the customer.
The larger point is that this is kind of like how a gym wants paying customers that don't show up too often or a flight operator over sells seats betting some flyers don't make it.
It's a business that is subsidised by the ever increasing busyness of life and rising rates of executive dysfunction (there's a population that struggles to keep up with admin tasks on a neurological level and it's biologically determined)
They have an incentive to get as many paying customers as possible but not necessarily turn them into engaged users. It can come too close to a racket depending on how discerning of a consumer you are
Don't install updates then! I don't understand this line of logic - you don't want ongoing service but you're using the ongoing service to get updates?
Do you suggest to also avoid security updates? Does not sound like a good advice.
For this reason, I prefer devices running exclusively free software. I can be sure that I will always own them and that security updates will never end, if the device is still used by the community.
Debian clearly separates security and non-security-related updates. I wish more projects did that.
> You want them to keep working on updates for your device but you don't want to keep paying them?
No, I want to able to have updates independently on the vendor who may want to stop updating the device. This is exactly why free software was created. Experience shows that just this ability is enough to have lifetime updates from the community for any device. Or, alternatively, one can pay to anyone for the updates, if necessary. My 12+-year-old laptop runs latest version of Debian and I do not expect to stop receiving security updates any time soon.
> Don't install updates then! I don't understand this line of logic - you don't want ongoing service but you're using the ongoing service to get updates?
For example, one might want to get security updates.
Yes, but even with their subscription you are kind of limited to Dropbox/GoogleDrive (for 8 €/month) or have to tinker around with SSH and shell scripts. Still reading how smooth you can get it going.
This is the biggest minus point for me. I want devices that I own, that I can use like I want to. I don't want to be caught in another cloud and pay monthly for something I don't want to use.
Currently I'm looking into getting a device from Onyx, because those support the Android App Stores, so I could set it up with Notion or my Nextcloud probably.
Remarkable seems to have better hardware (as in screen and writing), though.
edit: lots of people mentioning that you have SSH on the Remarkable. Good thing, but fiddling with shell scripts (yeah, no big deal for others, new for me) to sync with a cloud service of your choice... not sure I want that.