PineNote - Open hardware/FOSS eink tablet

General
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PineNote is an Open-Hardware, Free Open Source Software (FOSS), e-ink tablet that runs a full Linux distro that is purely community developed. I shared my enthusiasm for this device on the Fediverse and based on the interest and the questions, I wrote a one-day-in blog post and made a one-week-in video. I think it’s a great device and I’m impressed/shocked how good it is while still being open hardware and a completely community driven distro (Debian Trixie base).

If anyone here is interested, AMA.

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I remember being interested in the device, and I was wondering what kept me from buying one.

610.00 € inc. VAT

Yeah, I remember now. It’s a cool project, but I’m not willing to spend so much.

Back to topic: good hands-on post and video, much appreciated. I wonder how the PineNote fares against a customized remarkable 2, though.

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Thanks @ashraz! Yeah, it’s quite steep in €, it’s $399 USD which is actually a decent price for the hardware. All of this started because I kept looking at the Remarkable 2 (and that Paper Pro color, ooof) but I was unwilling to get into a proprietary system. I’m not sure about the customized Remarkable 2, but the main offering kept being locked down and forcing people to their cloud sync. It’s a great device and I’m sure the services are well integrated but I just couldn’t do it. I decided to throw in for the open hardware and FOSS company instead. We’ll see but so far so good.

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Damn, now I really want one of these. The video you made is really good, too! I’ll link to it in the next stream (and the newsletter too if I can get that out this week ;))

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Thanks @daviwil, coming from you, that means a lot! Hopefully I can make the stream this week and answer any questions people may have and collect more to answer in later posts.

It is a really impressive device for being an open hardware device released 3 years ago. With 4x1.8GHz ARM cores, 4GB RAM, and 128GB of storage; it’s definitely no slouch still. It is a bit pricey in € compared to USD.

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I made another PineNote video to address the “rough edges” I mentioned in my previous video.
TL;DW: minor inconveniences, overcome by config and awareness.

Using PineNote as a “laptop” with a Bluetooth keyboard is probably the next thing I cover. Let me know what kinds of questions you might have around that use case.

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Oh nice, PineNote always looked cool and really needs more reviews :slight_smile: I noticed a slight delay with your handwritten notes, maybe besides Xournal++ you could also try to use Rnote

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Thanks for the recommendation @sls. I have seen rnote and it looks interesting. Just haven’t gotten around to trying a lot of stuff since I’m trying to document as I go. It’s definitely on the list. Cheers!

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How about a video covering using it with a Bluetooth keyboard and how Emacs would run in GUI and TUI mode?

Is there a note taking option that does convert handwriting to text? EDIT: just found GitHub - hmpthcs/inkput-fork: Handwritten text input for your PineNote - hmpthcs fork

Now I definitely want one!!!