As I look down the road to writing projects, I have a question for the readership.
During the wonderful conference for priests held by the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, I sat at most of the sessions next to a priest who had a reMarkable digital notebook.
It is sort of “digital paper”. You can write on it, erase, whatever and then send what you’ve scribbled to other devices. Somehow it learns your handwriting (all bets are off with mine).
What I saw of the reMarkable in use by the priest next to me was impressive.
I understand that there are various iteration of these “digital paper” devices.
I’m nearly entirely ignorant about these gizmos. I’ll bet some of you readers have experience with them. It seems that whenever I post a question… BAM!… answers come quickly.
In any event, I was looking at the reMarkable and thinking, “Gosh, I could notate my over the board chess games on this and then not have to transcribe them later for engine analysis.” Also, I am forever having fleeting ideas. I used to carry a small notebook (thanks to readers who sent some small books which I still use for taking notes in museums and for great quotes).
So… do you have one? Do you use it? Is it worth it? Etc.?
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I’ve had a reMarkable 2 for about 18 months I guess. I use it several times every week, though probably not every single day.
It’s a super well made device that excels at its purposefully-limited feature set. Here’s what I typically use mine for:
– recipes (much easier than reading a phone screen or printing on paper, and it’s easy to organize your favorites for next time)
– journaling (I don’t keep on this like I should)
– writing (it’s great to take somewhere without distractions)
– reading my digital subscription to The Remnant
– reading public domain scanned versions of old books
– reconciling bank accounts
One thing I love about reMarkable is the huge community of nerds who have created hacks and add-ons to do even more with the device. My personal favorite is the reMarkable printer (https://github.com/Evidlo/remarkable_printer). It lets you print from your computer directly to the reMarkable. Super quick way to transfer something directly to the e-ink screen for reading there.
One thing I WISH it would do is integrate with Evernote. That’s where I store all my fleeting notes / ideas / etc. But no. :(
My wife has a competitor product from Supernote. She loves hers too. She uses it for recipes, garden plans, reading, etc.
I use Notability on my iPad Pro with the Pencil. You can markup pdf or whatever other images have you. You can take notes. You can draw. You can make audio recordings. The handwriting (printing) can be converted to text. The nice thing about the Apple ecosystem is that the notes will sync to your other Apple devices, so Macs, iPhones, iPads. and the apps usually play well with one another.
Some of the uses: I get images of medieval MS from folks that I am to transcribe and translate. It’s nice to have the image there and make notes on the image (Some are very hard to read). These notes then go into the document I prepare for them.
I use it to lay out gardens and the like, especially my herb garden,
I use it as a planner for home projects and things I build.
I also use it at work for my work-related tasks. Software design, mission design, etc.
Works well.
FYI, I do not recommend getting more devices. When I travel I take only my iPhone and iPad and then I have access to every digital fine I own, including all my e-Books, music, etc.
Father, there is also a new Kindle that does something similar. You might want to check it out. HERE
I do not have a reMarkable, so my comment is on a tangent. Seeking to reduce LED (PC, laptop), I searched E-ink tablets. I did not want “vendor lock in” – Kindle, Kobo, Nook, so looked for something platform agnostic, load a reader app in. Among others, one brand is Onyx. The one I chose is called Boox Ultra Tab(let). I know, who chooses these weird names? Mainly, I like that it runs Android. Which means, one can download any Android app from the Google Store, thus increasing it’s flexibility.
It comes with a ‘pen’ so scribbling notes works. Has camera so capture or OCR pages. Built in reader s/w, but others download Kindle etc to read other formats. Speakers – music or podcasts, although videos generally look terrible on e-ink. Optional keyboard but I did not buy that, as my usage is read on e-ink, and “work” would be PC.
I’ve been really interested in getting one for college. Much prefer pen to paper notes because normal screens seem to distract me. But it would still let me keep all my notes and a planner in one place.
I’ve owned a couple eInk tablets from Boox. I haven’t used them as much as I thought I would. The first one I got wasn’t able to do webpages well, and more graphics intense things were impossible. The latest version I have has a much higher dpi (dots per inch) and can optimize the refresh rate of the screen for the type of thing you are doing (so less often for reading or writing, and more often when on a chess tutoring site. From what I recall, ReMarkable is great for writing & for reading PDFs. Reading websites may be ok as well. It doesn’t allow installation of apps, so you are mostly stuck with what they provide. Supernote gets really high reviews from people who value the writing experience, and has a very good note-linking interface that could probably replace Evernote if you were consistent about using the tablet for everything. The browser doesn’t sound like it is full featured though. Boox users usually value the flexibility of a device that is built on Android & allows installation of pretty much any app (though not all will work well). Evernote or OneNote still won’t work well (even on my Boox Tab Ultra, which is more laptop-like than the others) but chess apps and websites do work well.
If you like watching YouTube reviews, there is a channel called My Deep Guide who does regular reviews not only of the newest devices, but how upgrades to the software affect older devices and has some great ways of comparing metrics (like how responsive the screens are to the pen or the battery life under different conditions, and what types of users might be most interested in a device. His in depth videos can be an hour or more long, but watching them has been the best way I’ve found to compare features & pros & cons short of buying and trying several devices myself.