Jeremy Heckt's Blog

E-ink Or Bust?

Recently I have been trying to use the screen less, but this has the unfortunate side effect of excluding large swaths of information as it exists in a digital format. Well, we have e-ink screens.

I now own two e-ink devices that I have started to use regularly. First, I own an entry level Kindle, with a backlight and USB-C port. I really like this device for reading fiction or anything that feels like it should be a paperback book. I normally keep the backlight at around 3-4 out of a max of 15. I do not want it too bright during the day and when reading in the dark it is more comfortable if it is as dim as I can tolerate without squinting.

My other device is a ReMarkable 2, which I really enjoy (mostly). I have found this device to be similar to Apple products -- the hardware is excellent and feels great but the software leaves you scratching your head at times. I have started using this device for when I want to read pretty much any PDF or a book where I need to retain the information (like a text book) because its easy to just write directly on it. I do wish that ReMarkable made it easier to extract your highlights out of PDFs. It is unfortunate that they seem to have broken that with a file-format change in their 3.0+ firmware.

Regardless of any issues with software I still feel as if I prefer the e-ink screens when I am doing any reading that is going to take a longer period of time. It also helps me calm my mind a little bit because there are only so many distractions available on these devices.

I do not think I am going to participate very much in the "mass media" during these next four years. I am going to focus on good media instead.