I was, once more, looking for an e-ink device with notetaking capabilities. I want to use it for:
- reading bigger epubs/pdfs that don’t fit on my small tolino ereader
- being able to annotate in these
- read the (very) occasional comic
- take notes (duh)
- an easy user experience
So I don’t think the requirements are that high. But I’m also a sucker for things that look nice and make me want to pick them up. This is where the Remarkable hits all the marks. I had a couple of others and they are just not as sexy. But they do so much more.
And there are many things that annoy me about the RM. It always seems a hassle to get data to and from the device. I have most of my media in my owncloud, so there is always another device involved to get things on the RM. Also, I’m a bit of a nutter when it comes to privacy, so I do not fully trust their cloud thingy. So that would mean no text recognition and always use the browserbased USB-transfer, which seem to be quite unstable. Bigger files seem to get stuck more often than not. But this experience got better with the latest beta.
Also, I’m not sure if the size is right for me, it seems a bit large to take along.
So I looked at the competition and thought I found the perfect thing in the Onyx Tab Mini C. (I know, privacy concerns and a chinese product don’t make sense either…). Just the right size for me needs at 7.8", even has a colour display, which is great for comics and photography books and all the comfort that comes with Android.
BUT: It’s ugly, the writing experience seems to be rather bad and the battery life? Seems like I can just as well get an Ipad, since with the colour e-ink, there is no more weeks of battery life :(
So, should I keep the RM? The price was really OK at 350 EUR (I got just the device and got a cheap cover and a nice Staedtler Pen). What would be an alternative at around 8" with good battery life, a good writing experience and a good look as well? Colour would be nice, but I’m not ready to trade it for terrible battery life. The Onyx Nova Air C seems to have better battery live than the the newer Tab Mini C, but it’s an early generation Colour E-ink and the reviews were rather meh. The Nova Air 2 might have been something for my needs, but it’s more expensive than the RM, if you can find it at all. So yeah, I’m open to ideas.
I’m got the RM2, Scribe and the new Boox Note Air 3 C. I’ve used all three extensively and I keep coming back to my RM2, its just a better overall user experience, fast to navigate between notes and I get at least a week of battery life. The Boox is going back and I will keep the Scribe as an eReader and see how the software develops.
Its a very subjective thing, and if I’m honest I could probably live with any of the 3.
Ive used both the kindle scribe and the RM2. I strongly believe the scribe is overall better but it had some pitfalls that didn’t work for me, so that’s why I ended up going with RM2 and it hit the marks.
-the scribe is faster and more responsive and smoother to write on. -where it fell short was the sharing of document that can only send pdf of notebooks or the txt from ocr conversion of a notebook via email, max 4 emails
-what I really needed: Ability to send single page pdf of notes made on templates other than default notebooks (ie a meeting note template pdf, a planner page etc) This is where the remarkable bridged the gap for me.
-what I misunderstood about RM2 (honestly never was clear in any of the documentation I read or videos I watched) The google drive sync, it’s inward not outward. So you can edit documents from your drive but you can’t share something you’ve worked on straight from the RM2 to your drive. (Not a huge deal but would have been nice)
Graphic novels and books look pretty similar on both devices. But kindle supports more format.
The set up and transfer of books and pdf and organisation of the RM2 is better.
Anyways just wanted to share this as I’ve literally used both in the same week. Can’t help with the other devices !