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I bought a reMarkable 2 as my 50th B-Day Gift

4 replies [Last post]
Tue, 10/01/2024 - 20:25
questccg
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Can't wait to see how well it performs. I've watched a TON of video and have learnt a lot about the device. I also bought the "Type Folio" which is the native Keyboard for the device. I'll see how it performs and what I need the device (specifically the Keyboard) as people all over the Internet are praising the device.

For my needs it's simple and boils down to this important points:

1. I used to like Journaling and take notes 1-Hour before bed. Usually around 10:00 PM.

2. I would use a pen and a 5 Subject Notebook.

3. But I can't ERASE, EDIT or SORT my thouhts.

4. I don't need color what-so-ever, I would with a Uni-ball Fine Type Ink Pen with the Notebooks.

5. I got the keyboard so I can CONVERT to TEXT my writing. I mostly "print" and don't write and so the writing recognition should be pretty decent and I can SPOT fix some characters here-and-there.

6. I don't want to have to throw out OLD notebooks ... I've got like 5 around the apartment... I don't want more... For the SIMPLE FACT that I cannot SEARCH or TAG my documents: it's pen and paper.

7. So Search & Tagging is important to me.

8. In the event that something happens to the device ... I need a BACKUP. So I'm curious how the Sync-ing works between the Desktop and Cloud services like Google Drive (for example).

9. I want to see how layers work and is it possible to maintain a GRAPHICS or handwritten layer in a TEXT document... To be seen.

10. It was a costly purchase (exactly $949 CAD with all-in including taxes and shipping). It's an investment in exchange for NO MORE NOTEBOOKS! And the possibility of writing and journaling my thoughts on different projects. TBD.

***

I will report back (sort of a quick review) of the device and how I feel about it. From all the videos I've seen, I FIT into the proper category of person for the device ... Namely DAILY journaling and the possibility to TYPE and EDIT in addition to WRITING on the device.

We shall see... I will report back when I get the device... We'll have to wait and see. I will keep you all updated and tell you my own impressions of the device and see if ANY of our readers or designers feel the need to get their own copy of the reMarkable 2 (and a few reasons from me personally) once I start using the device myself and have a couple weeks of experience using the device.

Cheers all!

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Thu, 10/03/2024 - 17:46
#1
questccg
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Furthermore...

I bought a reMarkable 2 eInk device. I wanted to get a device like one of those to SAVE time instead of Physical Notebooks. Notebooks can't be edited, if you write something wrong, you cannot edit ... And you're limited to one page... and then your ideas need to go on another page. And then you have Sections for Subjects which is cool ... But when you run out of pages for one project... Damn it's annoying scattering notes across multiple Notebooks.

The reMarkable 2 will allow me to take notes, sync then to my computer (I'm not paranoid of people reading my notes... They are mostly for me... So not really useful for someone else) and that will allow to have space for Notebooks without the need of anything physical (for each Notebook).

And I can ADD Tags to my pages and search for them. That's another problem with Notebooks... You can never find what you are looking for except for searching in multiple books for some cryptic notes that are important but you forgot WHERE the heck you wrote them...

Anyways... Notebooks are nice to get the ideas out. But eInk is better for the overall experience. Don't get me WRONG. It was an EXPENSIVE GIFT. But I'm very pleased that I bought it.

I'll let you all know how it works and my thoughts on the device. I just got it today and well I will use it tonight for the first time and see how the eInk device feels. TBD. I think for my writing, I will need a thicker line. Right now it's MEDIUM and the line size seems a bit THIN. So THICKER it will be and I will try the CONVERT to Text since I also bought the hidden Keyboard that goes along with the device.

It already has SAVED me once! There was no "$" dollar-sign on the on-screen keyboard when putting in my Network Wifi Password and so I plugged in the Keyboard and it LUCKILY has a "$" dollar-sign. reMarkable's Support site said something like "Change the password to symbols available on the device...!" Image such a stupid fix??? Anyhow the problem was solved (or averted).

Keep you all informed how the progress goes with the device and my note taking.

Sincerely.

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Thu, 10/03/2024 - 21:35
#2
questccg
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Day #1: Lots of FRUSTRATION!

This is the sort of device that YOU need to adjust YOUR way of working for the method prescribed by the device's designers. And yeah, that can be VERY frustrating TBH.

So at first I was stuck needing to transform Writing into TEXT, it kept creating a new page for the text. I quickly learnt that do CONVERT TO TEXT, all you do is select the writing and click "Convert to Text". One frustration that was going to drive me MAD because I want to be able to CONVERT to TEXT and continue editing the page... Which is good because it works once you know how to do it (without the need for me to pull-out my hair!)

Which brings me to the 2nd problem. Pages on the reMarkable 2 are their OWN FORMAT. Not a Letter-size or A4, etc. It's some weird format that the exports to PDF do and it's not too clear on WHY(?) this is... You would think that they would design it to be STANDARD to some default FORMAT. Nope... It's in some funky format and for pages with more that "one page" that page is elongated to be as BIG as necessary. I exported to a PDF and then loaded it up in MS Word and then I had what I needed to put things into a STANDARD Page Format (like Letter or A4).

The sync-ing works well between the device and my computer. That's a good one. But sync-ing with Google Drive ... Is horrible. You can't set a FOLDER to sync with and the device's CACHE keeps documents (or shadow documents) LIVE until the device is RESTARTED. I had two (2) files which I had sync-ed to the G-Drive and then deleted them on G-Drive only to have my reMarkable 2 telling me the two (2) files were still there... Maybe this would work after some timeout or device refresh ... I had to restart the device and those files were erased from the device's memory.

Moving from page to page requires the use of FINGERS and not the Pen/Stylus. Weird.

Moving up/down a page requires the use of FINGERs too ... Again NOT the device's Pen/Stylus. Again weird too!

I guess we're all USE to our SmartPhones and Styluses that seem to work so ELEGANTLY. Well the reMarkable 2 ... Is a bit ... well ... Slow when it comes to that.

So we'll have to wait and see what comes of DAY #2... Where I will do more editing and using the Device to see what is GOOD/GREAT/MEDIOCRE...

Stay tuned!

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Sun, 10/06/2024 - 19:39
#3
questccg
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Day #4: Learning about the device and how it works

If anyone can remember the now "deprecated" WordPad application on Windows??? You could create .RTF (Rich-Text-Format) documents. Well the reMarkable 2 is exactly the same kind of writing pad with the same formatting capabilities.

It's NOT MS Word. It's NOT a PDF Editor. It's WordPad.

Why do I say that and how can I explain???

Very simple:

questccg wrote:
In your formatting options for a paragraph you can have a HEADING which is in Big Letters, a SUB-HEADING which is in Bold Letters, a PARAGRAPH which is in Normal Letters, a BULLET POINT which is prefaced by an indented bullet point and lastly a CHECKBOX which you can check and make TODO Lists.

That's ALL the FORMATTING OPTIONS available to the person writing on the device!

reMarkable, no???

It can't do LISTS (1., 2., 3.) unless you do them yourself BUT there will be no indentation unless you manually type in some spaces...

The MAJOR advantage is that instead of a CUSTOM File Format like .RTF, it allows documents to be exported in .PDF NATIVELY. Which is very good ... Except to EDIT the files you need some kind of Acrobat or similar application on Windows.

So the TEXT FORMAT is BASIC. Nothing Fancy. Is it good for taking notes or converting handwriting to TEXT?! Yeah it does a good job to convert writing into TEXT ... What my only GRIPE is about this conversion, the ON-SCREEN keyboard which appears is crap. Literally crap. The good news is that this is SOFTWARE and not HARDWARE and they should make a keyboard more STANDARD WITH the possibility to move around the text (left, right, up and down).

My conclusion is that the Document Format is VERY SIMPLE... But yet it can produce and display PDF documents created on a computer. Which means in essence that the DEVICE if re-worked a little can be a complete and FULL PDF editing device. Which that would be AMAZING!

Most of this is SOFTWARE and HOW(?) the device handles editing, typing and writing. I don't know if they are going to make an UPDATE to their software, but if they do... The FIRST thing they need to do is:

Fix the on-screen keyboard so that it is more like a normal keyboard.

If an android SmartPhone can be more intuitive ... The reMarkable 2 can be fixed and the on-screen keyboard could be better including keys to be abe to navigate in the text (not writing).

Right now... Those are some of my early thoughts.

And why the missing keys to navigate are NOT on the on-screen keyboard means you MUST BUY the Type Folio which comes with a KEYBOARD. Oddly enough if the on-screen keyboard would be BETTER IMPLEMENTED, you might not necessarily need the Type Folio and since it costs a whooping $249 CAD ... Well I guess you understand why the NEED for the physical keyboard.

Come on reMarkable... You can give us a NORMAL on-screen keyboard and still SELL us physical keyboards too... TBH ... The keyboard is NECESSARY if you want to move around a DOCUMENT because there is NO DELETE key and there are NO navigation keys. All you can do is use your fingers to move around and that is HARD considering that the text can be rather small and you need to be SUPER PRECISE to where you more you finger to.

Like if you have the word: "Hime" and you wanted to type "Home". You must position the cursor between the "i" and "m". And then backspace to finally edit the missing "o". With no directional keys ... You have to TRY and TRY AGAIN to position the cursor at JUST THE RIGHT SPOT. And that can be annoying that I am forced to pull out the keyboard and navigate with the directional keys which are PRESENT on the Keyboard!

Not at all USER-FRIENDLY. And just because they put out a SH!TTY on-screen keyboard... Doesn't mean they can't IMPROVE it and make it MORE STANDARD!

So the device is FAR from PERFECT... You got to realize what it allows you to do and what is a bit broken and why you require the PHYSICAL KEYBOARD when you are editing TEXT.

They're not trying very hard TBH...

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Mon, 10/07/2024 - 02:56
#4
questccg
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Here's my Keyboard Layouts for improving the device

This is the NORMAL Keyboard with small letters and includes numbers too!

This is when the user clicks on "shift" such that the symbols and capital letters appear.

This is when the user clicks on "alt" to display "ALTERNATE" characters which include better symbols and better use the space available.

The "ctrl" key is supposed to be designed for SHORTCUTS which should include:

# Keys Description
#1 ctrl-A : Select ALL
#2 ctrl-B : Bold selection
#3 ctrl-C : Copy selection
#4 ctrl-I : Italic selection
#5 ctrl-V : Paste selection
#6 ctrl-X : Cut selection
#7 ctrl-Y : Redo edit
#8 ctrl-Z : Undo edit
#9 ctrl-right : Move to next word
#10 ctrl-left : Move to previous word
#11 ctrl-up : Move to previous line
#12 ctrl-down : Move to next line
#13 ctrl-shift-right : Add next word to selection
#14 ctrl-shift-left : Remove previous word from selection
#15 ctrl-shift-up : Add previous line to selection
#16 ctrl-shift-down : Add current line to selection

These are just what I found searching but my guess is that you can APP-related or DEVICE-related commands too... I'm just explaining HOW(?) I envision the keyboard and what it could look like.

Don't kill me if this isn't up to anyone's specks... This is just an expression of my thoughts on the matter and the reality the on-screen keyboard needs a bit of TLC too!

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