reMarkable, a New eink device with pen support

[Akbar]

https://getremarkable.com/
https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/30/...mment-34179917
I stopped myself from buying the Kobo Aura One when it was released and I might actually buy this instead. Because this is the device I have been waiting for. 10.3" screen and a screen with fast refresh rate and pressure sensitive pen support this looks to be a dream device for us eink lovers. This one is more expensive but for the fast screen refresh rate and pen support I might actually end up ordering on.
What do you think about this guys?

Specs:
Size and Weight
177 x 256 x 6.7mm ( 6.9 x 10.1 x .26 inches)
Approximately 350 gram (.77 pounds)
CANVAS display
10.3” monochrome digital paper display (no colours)
1872x1404 resolution (226 DPI)
Partially powered by E-ink Carta technology
Multi-point capacitive touch
No glass parts, virtually unbreakable
Paper-like surface friction
Pen
No battery, setup or pairing required
Special high-friction pen tip
Tilt detection
2048 levels of pressure sensitivity
Storage and RAM
8 GB internal storage (100,000 pages)
512 MB DDR3L RAM
Connectivity
Wi-Fi connected
Battery
Rechargable (Micro USB)
3000 mAh
Processor
1 Ghz ARM A9 CPU
Operating system
Codex, a custom Linux-based OS optimized for low-latency e-paper
Document support
PDF and ePUB, with more formats to be announced
Other
Menu language: English only

[jhowell]

There is another write up at The Digital Reader. Some skepticism there.

[robko]

From the specs above: "Partially powered by E-ink Carta technology" -- how the heck to you get PARTIALLY powered by E-Ink Carta?

ETA: after reading the links it sounds like that is marketing speak. The screen is eink so that seems to be why it's "partially powered" by eink (the rest presumably being powered by the CPU, battery, etc ). Definitely looks interesting even if just for reading PDF (at the pre-order price), but I can understand the skepticism of it.

And wait a minute -- isn't this more Ultimate than Goodereader's new Ultimate E-reader

[ratinox]

Also, I find lack of information about the pen digitizer to be worrisome. If they were using Wacom or N-trig (now Microsoft) then I'd expect the name to be prominently noted. Nope. Which means it probably will rely entirely on the SOC like Tegra Note 7 does.

Which is to say, it'll be crap.

[sandsmark]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Also, I find lack of information about the pen digitizer to be worrisome. If they were using Wacom or N-trig (now Microsoft) then I'd expect the name to be prominently noted.

It's a new EMR digitizer from Wacom, we're working with them on the custom pen design and optimizing the firmware. I'm not sure why we don't mention it on the website, but I'll take it up with the people responsible for it.

As for the description of Canvas; it's a custom flexible Carta display with new waveforms from E Ink. The "partial" is because Canvas is the entire display stack (including our custom cover lens etc.).

[Akbar]

Originally Posted by sandsmark

It's a new EMR digitizer from Wacom, we're working with them on the custom pen design and optimizing the firmware. I'm not sure why we don't mention it on the website, but I'll take it up with the people responsible for it.

As for the description of Canvas; it's a custom flexible Carta display with new waveforms from E Ink. The "partial" is because Canvas is the entire display stack (including our custom cover lens etc.).

Thank you for your information and plz keep us updated

[Sweetpea]

It sounds like a very nice device, only the OS is a huge drawback for me. The price is simply too high for a device that has only one purpose. And no app store most likely to increase useability.

[psv]

I really like this device and the pre-order price looks quite OK, compared e.g. with sony dtp-s1 - this one has a smaller screen but a much better pen and plans to support more than just pdf's, and the price is about half. (I hope their software will allow for cropping the margins of pdf's- in that case 10.3" will be sufficient.)

My only worry is that it will never materialize.

(BTW shouldn't this thread be in the news section?)

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by psv

(BTW shouldn't this thread be in the news section?)

Maybe if there was something more concrete. But this is vaporware in my mind right now.

[hkckoo]

Originally Posted by jhowell

There is another write up at The Digital Reader. Some skepticism there.

Also, how can the stylus detect the degree of tilt without power?

well i dont know how, because i dont know much about patented wacom electromagnetic resonance technology, but all stylus pens included with wacom intuos pro line have tilt support and dont need charging, so he needs to do more research before writing for blogs.

shame that the display isnt backlit though, didnt know that.
also shame that they decided to go with 8GB internal memory and no sd card slot, i almost wanted to buy this, but wont support this low storage bullshit any longer. how hard is it to put there at least 32GB? scientific pdfs can easily top 100MB, so I can put 80 files on the device? that is great (or more like 70 if we exclude space used by OS). i realize there are cloud storage options, but some of us dont want to share our files with the rest of the world (inb4 icloud)

[Jason90]

The Pen functionality and apparent ease along with the design and size of this e-ink based device does look promising and is hitting alot of the right marks however the locked down nature of the device as others have said make it a tough sell purely as a note-taker.

I recently tried an ipad pro 9.7 with apple pencil and the charging and pairing become quite annoying with heavy use,also i hated the feel of the slippery plastic of the pencil so it was an all-round negative experience.

I could see myself buying this but if they do insist on keeping the OS locked it MUST also be a decent ereader that offers similar functionality to the kindle/kobo.

With Onyx already showing off the same 10.3" display from Eink with Android reMarkable are going to have a tough sell on their hands even if there Pen input is slightly better.

EDIT: The 55ms seems pretty impressive and i wonder if this is apart of the new e ink regal waveforms that have been hinted at for ages,current carta screens refresh at 120ms i believe so this is quite a substantial improvement,unfortunately it's still not enough to smoothly playback standard 24fps video though,perhaps i.mx 7 will push the latency down even further

[RZetlin]

Since this is a new company launching an untested product into the market, I have some doubts on the success.

The product lacks any retail distribution.

There are no eBook publisher backing this product as Kindle or Kobo.

There is no way to tell on the reliability of the product, since there are no third-party reviewer who have used this eReader.

I am taking a wait and see approach.

[Jason90]

Well their marketing video seems impressive for vaporware,better than anything onyx or the like have come up with lol

The onyx 10.3 is bound to be more successful which is also due out around the same time,weather or not this patent pending canvas screen is noticeably better remains to be seen.

[SnowRipple]

Pen build and writing aside, if the refresh rate will be really 55ms, this will be a very interesting device. I would love to use it as a second monitor for writing/coding..

People are mentioning Onyx, but their latest N96ML 9.7 inch ereader has much smaller resolution, hence dpi suffers. In fact all big ereaders I can think of (even Max) has smaller resolution than this one, so I will applaud reMarkable for it!

In general, the spec and video look very promising. On top of good hardware, they seemed to developed interesting software with live syncing across multiple devices,a very interesting feature.

Looking forward to more news and hopefully some review videos

[frahse]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

Maybe if there was something more concrete. But this is vaporware in my mind right now.

Probably...