Thread by @felwert

Last week, I received my @remarkablepaper tablet. Now I finally found the time to experiment with it, and I have mixed feelings. A short review: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Thread ⬇

The main purpose for which I wanted the reMarkable is reading and annotating academic papers. Up to now, I used a Lenovo YogaTab 3 (on which you can write using an actual pencil, also quite cool), @zotero with Zotfile, and Seafile for sync.

Before I ordered the reMarkable, I knew that it might not be the perfect fit for the purpose. I wanted to give it a shot anyway.

The good: It’s indeed a remarkable piece of hardware. It’s super slim, elegant, well designed. (Oh, and the packaging is gorgeous.) It also works well: Writing and drawing on it has a natural feel and is fluent (while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it paper-like).

After using Adobe Reader on the YogaTab, highlighting on the reMarkable has a different feel, because you don’t select text in a PC-like fashion, but actually draw on the page with a highlighter. It’s a change, but I think I like the analogue feel.

The bad: The official app does not work with Linux. I know Linux is not mainstream. But now that even Skype and Spotify have Linux clients, and given they develop a Linux-based OS, I thought supporting Linux would be a nice way to show appreciation and give something back.

Since it does not support other sync services like Dropbox, ownCloud or Seafile, this means even getting files onto the device is trickier. They support wired transfer, but it’s somewhat fiddly.

This, combined with the “unconventional” way of highlighting text, means that my ZotFile workflow does not work with the reMarkable.

Also, it does not support DRMed PDFs or ePubs. And while I’m not a fan of DRM, this makes it unusable for most commercial academic e-books, which publishers usually sell with Adobe DRM.

The ugly: The reMarkable is also reHackable, which is a positive surprise. There are multiple ways to customize the tablet and access to it, including SSH root access. There’s an active community, which also develops unofficial Linux apps. github.com/reHackable/awe…

Up to now, my favourite tool is remt, which can transfer files to and from the reMarkable via Wifi, and is also able to extract highlighted text (which is a great relief). gitlab.com/wrobell/remt

But I’m at a point in life where I appreciate things that just work, and I’m less inclined to spend my evenings hacking together a solution. So there’s a strange tension between the reMarkable’s polished appearance and the hacks needed to integrate it into a suitable workflow. 🔚