I bought a reMarkable 2.
I saw it advertised somewhere, I needed a better way to write shopping lists, this seemed ideal.
It is mainly meant for note keeping but can also be used for drawing and as an ebook reader.
It is a nice enough product. I use it for shopping lists.
It comes with an associated cloud over which files, created and otherwise, are meant to be synced. At the other end of the cloud are applications for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android which allow copying the created notes and drawings as well as supplying the reMarkable with ebooks.
And this is where the first problem arises. The ebooks sent to the reMarkable are synced to all associated computers and it is unlikely that they are needed anywhere except on the reMarkable itself. Furthermore, syncing is not very fast and, what is worse, it is not obvious what triggers a sync. I often find myself wondering if I even saved a note because it simply won’t show up on my phone when I need it.
The associated application looks nice enough.
It is less intuitive than it seems at first but at least it does not have many annoying features. It is very simple and serves its purpose (aside from the unnecessary syncing of ebooks to every associated computer and phone).
The translation of hand-written text into computer-readable text works reasonably well (but is not really a necessary feature for shopping lists, perhaps for note-taking).
One unfortunate non-feature is the alleged ability to change the screen perspective from portrait to landscape. It doesn’t work. It changes the position of the toolbar from left to bottom but it does not shift the document.
This means that the theoretical landscape mode is somewhat useless. Documents created in it will always be displayed in landscape mode and documents created without it will always be displayed in portrait mode regardless of current setting.
This is rather problematic since the device cannot zoom properly and I found reading a PDF impossible on the display because of that. Since it is not obvious whether and how documents can be shifted from portrait to landscape mode and in combination with the badly-to-not working zoom the device is somewhat useless as an ebook reader.
The reMarkable 2 can send notes and pictures via email. However, it cannot receive emails and nor, apparently, can it use a custom email account, instead it uses the reMarkable cloud for sending emails. I would have preferred being able to send emails to it and to use a dedicated email account for the tablet.
The tablet’s functionality with the pen is, as I should say, indeed remarkable. Writing and drawing is easily done, works better than I had expected and using the device is simply fun.
I did not draw any of the pictures here shown. I barely managed to write readable notes. But I am told the reMarkable is very well suited for drawing.
One very nice feature is the ssh server.
It is possible to connect to the reMarkable 2 and log in using a password found in the settings.
Some investigation showed that the reMarkable 2 is running Linux on some kind or ARMv7 CPU. There was no obvious barrier to creating user accounts and installing further software.
However, the reMarkable 2’s storage space is quite limited with 8 GB. While it is possible to read ebooks and PDFs on the reMarkable (with the aforementioned caveats), it is really a temporary host for those files. Forget about replacing your ebook reader, tablet or, as the maker suggests, laptop with this device.
This is a pure home device for the area between the dinner table and the sofa.