E-Ink iPad Rival 'reMarkable' Sells More Than 1 Million Devices

I’ll have to check their sales in the EU. Recent history has shown that it’s important that your platform is not “dominant” (which doesn’t mean dominant… for some reason) in the EU.
 
progx said:
Cool. Glad to see there’s room for other devices. Niches can be great places to do business, especially with how information travels.

However… a subscription service attached to it…?
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Until the EU gets ahold of them and fines them for not providing dating apps. /s but only slightly
 
Another ridiculous MacRumors article as of late. I actually own one of these, and reMarkable makes it their business to market this as not an iPad rival. They specifically designed the device to do as little as possible outside of writing and reviewing documents, in which it does very well.
 
Max_G said:
Imho, a cheap, yet very usable alternative for taking (digitizable) notes etc. is the Rocketbook.
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I'm using something similar, Bambook. No subscription fees. I'm not using the Bambook much and I rarely use the scanning. So I guess I'm not part of the intended target group even though I love my e-ink Pocketbook e-reader. I can read books for hours on this e-reader without any hassle. I can't do that with my iPad. Still waiting for Apple to include an E-ink screen layer with the iPad. Guess that won't ever happen.
 
prisoner54 said:
Yikes, so much hatred in the comments. I bought version 1 of the device which had the cloud services grandfathered in, so no subscription needed. Version 1 came with a sleeve and a pen in a package. New, not great value for money, but used, it was OK. I loved using it to make notes, to read through PDFs, to review articles for journals, and to read through drafts of articles of my own for editing purposes. The transfer to/from the device happens wirelessly through an app (Windows/Mac), so if you have a PDF library it's a matter of drag and drop. The handwriting recognition was helpful.

But I did sell it, 6 months later. Why? The usable portion of the screen was smaller than it needed to be (huge plastic bezel, remember, version 1). Screen updates were slow. And when I found out that version 2 had a mandatory subscription AND the pen and folio were expensive accessories, it left a nasty taste in the mouth.

What did I replace it with? A Microsoft Surface Pro X. I love annotating documents on that thing, and it is so much more versatile. But I do kind of miss the ReMarkable and do consider version 2 from time to time, purely because it's great at what it does.
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Did it require a subscription even if you’re grandfathered in?
 
I don’t get it. I fully respect other peoples view that a one-trick pony can still be a good device and I do accept the arguments about e-ink displays. But my iPad is a fantastic note taking device using either my finger tip or Apple Pencil. I use it constantly. But I also use all my other iPad functions constantly too. And it’s just a few quid more. To my mind the iPad is a no-brainier over the remarkable.
 
Will Co said:
I don’t get it. I fully respect other peoples view that a one-trick pony can still be a good device and I do accept the arguments about e-ink displays. But my iPad is a fantastic note taking device using either my finger tip or Apple Pencil. I use it constantly. But I also use all my other iPad functions constantly too. And it’s just a few quid more. To my mind the iPad is a no-brainier over the remarkable.
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So, if you’re a person that REALLY wants the surface of the device to be as paper-like as possible, an iPad won’t get you there. Or, if you have a problem staying focused when the device you’re using is capable of so much more than reviewing the 80 page document you’re supposed to go over, annotate and provide revisions to in the next 2 hours. iPadOS even added a Focus mode specifically for people like the latter, so it’s enough of a situation for enough people that Apple made a feature for it.
 
Interesting but has 2 major flaws.
1. It’s not particularly useful without cloud services but those are proprietary and about $100 /yr.
2. No ability to read books in any format other than pdf. (Which quite a few reviews note as not a particularly smooth experience)
It seems to be a great note taking machine but it does not seem to play very well in any other ecosystem.
The idea of a high quality eInk reader that also has a good “paper” feel is appealing. As others have noted lack of features is not a feature. It’s just a lack of features.
 
Unregistered 4U said:
So, if you’re a person that REALLY wants the surface of the device to be as paper-like as possible, an iPad won’t get you there. Or, if you have a problem staying focused when the device you’re using is capable of so much more than reviewing the 80 page document you’re supposed to go over, annotate and provide revisions to in the next 2 hours. iPadOS even added a Focus mode specifically for people like the latter, so it’s enough of a situation for enough people that Apple made a feature for it.
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It's a good point. Maybe reviewing those 80 pages gets kind of boring. You're on an iPad, the web, twitter, facebook is just one click away. You're on reMarkable, there is a lot more friction for that distraction.
 
I tried this for a bit but ended up returning it. I liked the device overall, but the screen wasn’t quite good enough for annotating PDFs, and Kindle integration would’ve been a ‘nice to have’. The writing experience is actually very good…surpasses the iPad for that function. However, the quality of the PDF export of notes looked “low res”.

ended up sticking with the iPad and Apple Pencil for now.
 
Will Co said:
I don’t get it. I fully respect other peoples view that a one-trick pony can still be a good device and I do accept the arguments about e-ink displays. But my iPad is a fantastic note taking device using either my finger tip or Apple Pencil. I use it constantly. But I also use all my other iPad functions constantly too. And it’s just a few quid more. To my mind the iPad is a no-brainier over the remarkable.
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Everyone's needs are different, and just because you can't see the value in something doesn't meant that it isn't there. As a researcher and music composer, I'm constantly staring at research papers and notation for hours at a time. I've tried using iPads for these tasks multiple times, which always leads me to having severe eye fatigue and headaches; my eyes get beat up by photons enough. Printing things out on paper is inconvenient and wasteful. The reMarkable solved all of my issues, and I can appreciate that there are companies out there that are offering solutions to not so common problems.
 
I've always been curious about a device like this. However that $299 with all the limitations it has, and that sub $7.99/mo ($96/yr) really kills it for me. At this price point I dont see why i need to pay extra for a sub. Not that I would use it as much as I use my ipad... if i were rich and had tons of disable cash, sure.

If someone here uses it and they like it and further more are productive with it, then that is great. I am not that much of a note taker, but as an engineer it looks interesting. if they made something different I would give it a try.
 
Shifts said:
You are not the only one writing about the subscription fees, but choose to reply to this one. It is not to single you out. Anyway, I don't quite get the big negativity about it. Ok, sure, annoying that it is not fully functional without the subscription, but I am sure most of us here has some sort of subscription towards Apple surely? iCloud, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness. You obviously don't need any of those to make your Apple devices functional, but yeah...

For me expanded iCloud storage is mandatory and a subscription which is needed for the devices to function as intended for my use. And the price of that is fairly close to $7.99/month.
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No worries about singling me out. I'm happy to state my opinion on this. It's just my opinion and everyone is allowed to disagree or not.

I dislike subscriptions in general but understand why they're needed in some cases. You can't offer something like iCloud where it's using someone else's server for free. You can't offer something like Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness, Netflix or Spotify that's distributing content for free or even a one time fee. I have Spotify and iCloud, Amazon Prime, Apple Music, gym membership and I'm sure a few others if I thought about it. I subscribe to things even though I try to avoid getting too many. That's not my complaint with this though.

My issue with this is it seems they are disabling features such a handwriting recognition (It's one of the primary uses of notepad meant to accept handwriting...) and the ability to access cloud storage like dropbox that isn't even related to them. This is locking basic hardware features behind a subscription rather than providing a service for the subscription.

Again as I said in an earlier post if Apple did this the EU and every other government agency would be on top of them for being anti consumer. I couldn't even imagine the outrage if Apple sold the iPad but then you had to buy the basic hardware features with a subscription. Car companies are starting this and I don't like it either.

Don't let me rain on your parade if you like it though. If it works for you and it helps with your work then keep using it. You have to decide what's best for you not other people on the internet. Just because I dislike it doesn't mean it's bad or anything.
 
Vulkan said:
I've always been curious about a device like this. However that $299 with all the limitations it has, and that sub $7.99/mo ($96/yr) really kills it for me. At this price point I dont see why i need to pay extra for a sub. Not that I would use it as much as I use my ipad... if i were rich and had tons of disable cash, sure.

If someone here uses it and they like it and further more are productive with it, then that is great. I am not that much of a note taker, but as an engineer it looks interesting. if they made something different I would give it a try.
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Honestly I would pay more for an "unlocked" version. Maybe if they offered a fully unlocked version for $200 more that would be cool. I would never even consider it with the way it is now though.
 
Vulkan said:
I've always been curious about a device like this. However that $299 with all the limitations it has, and that sub $7.99/mo ($96/yr) really kills it for me. At this price point I dont see why i need to pay extra for a sub. Not that I would use it as much as I use my ipad... if i were rich and had tons of disable cash, sure.

If someone here uses it and they like it and further more are productive with it, then that is great. I am not that much of a note taker, but as an engineer it looks interesting. if they made something different I would give it a try.
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May I suggest: tons of disposable cash, sure.
 
Razorpit said:
You trust a Chinese based company with all of your notes? ?
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I would. I wouldn't put passwords and I don't have access to anything secret so why not? With Apple that means the US government can get access. I think Apple would be a bit more trustworthy in the reliability sense. A small company could go under so you would need a local backup

Looking at my notes now

I have my budget, list of card balances, etc. Oh no they'll see my bills and bank balance... Maybe they'll feel sorry for me? ?

I have my Pi-hole details. Maybe they will ssh into my Raspberry Pi?

I have some links to bicycles I'm considering buying. They could send me an early birthday gift!

I have a list of things I need from Walmart. More gifts?

I have the combo to my locker at work. If they come all the way here to see what's in my locker I'll invite them over for dinner! ?

Other various and more boring notes
 
I have one. I waited for version 2 and that was a worthwhile decision. It could, however do with many improvements.

The subscription was a worry to me, so I contacted them. They stated that it’s required only if you want their “cloud” sync option. If you’re content to hard connect to a computer to transfer data, you can do so without the subscription. If the subscription ever becomes a requirement, this device is dead to me…

Still! Looking forward to how they improve for version 3…
 
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