It's a tablet with re-markable electronic ink display that almost feels like paper

The reMarkable tablet is an e-ink device (and pressure sensitive stylus) that is meant to be a replacement for pen and paper. While it's not quite there, it actually does a pretty remarkable job. The stylus is pressure sensitive (with 2048 levels) and tilt is also detected, allowing the pencil tool to emulate a real pencil (and other tools thinner or thicker lines dependant on pressure).

The unit is well made with a aluminium back and the e-ink display (monochrome) has a special coating so the stylus does feel somewhat like pen on paper. The black and white contrast is very clear with a 1872x1404 resolution (226 DPI) on a 10.3 inch screen. The whole unit is 6.9 x 10.1 x .26 inches and weighs 350g. It also comes with a wallet that holds both the device and stylus and spare nibs for the stylus (and a tool to extract the old nib).

Battery life is pretty good and it will last a few days, though if not using it turn it off rather than putting in standby) having a capacity of 3000 mAh. It has a standard micro-USB for charging (which can also be used to connect to a computer and then access through a web browser to access the files). Internal storage is 8GB (claimed 100,000 pages) and 512MB of RAM coupled with a 1GHz ARM A9 CPU which makes the system pretty responsive. It runs a mobile version of Linux (Codex) which has been optimised to drive the e-eink display.

Though the tablet can be run by itself, it can also be used with the reMarkable web service, so documents will be automatically sync'ed and then can be made available to the desktop (macOS/Windows) or mobile (iOS/Android) clients. It's also possible to import documents into the clients, then they'll be upload to the tablet when it next goes on-line.

Currently the software understands ePub and PDF documents. A nice feature is that PDF documents can be imported, then a new layer created and then use the new layer to annotate etc. Then the document can be exported again with the annotations.

There are several ways to list documents, but in the start-up mode the tablet will have a rM (access to settings etc), then below that and My Files, then Notebooks, Documents, Ebooks and Bookmarks.

Notebooks are where you create documents., which can also be organised into folders. Each page can support multiple layers and there are several templates available (plain pages, isometric, ruled, dots, etc).

It's possible to delete Notebooks/EBooks etc from the device.

A slight oddity is with Quick sheets which is a single notebook that's always there. Multiple pages can be created and functionality is identical to a Notebook, though there doesn't seem to be anyway of deleting them, so once a page is created, though it's possible to erase the data of it, there's no way to delete the actual pages themselves.

The 3 keys at the bottom of the tablet are for navigation, left button goes back a page, middle is home and right goes forward a page.

At some point in the future there will be a system to convert hand written text to text, but that's not there yet and there's no timescales for when it will be implemented (there's been no software updates for the device since it arrived).

Should you get one? It's a really good idea and it's transportable i.e. you'd use this instead of a pad of paper. However there are quirks and the software could do with improving. It's nice to be able to annotate existing documents or use it to draw (if your writing is illegible with a pen, it will be just as illegible on the reMarkable). It is nice to be able to export straight to a PDF of JPG.

Pre-orders were heavily discounted but it's now shipping for £579

HP's saucy acquisition of Palm

HP acquired Palm for $1.2bn and maybe there's method behind the madness, why would they want Palm?

The price seems quite high for a mobile company that isn't quite meeting market expectations and though Palm have some nice devices (the Pixie and Pre) and a new operating system (WebOS) they're not selling brilliantly.

HP make PDAs, they're trying to sell them into the enterprise which is where HP do well. Palm used to sell into the enterprise and do well, but they've lost their way and the introduction of WebOS was too late too little and they've been overtaken by Apple with the iPhone, RIM with their Blackberries and Google with Android based systems. HP license Windows Mobile which hasn't been the huge success that both Microsoft and HP would have liked.

So HP's acquisition of Palm suddenly means they have their own operating system WebOS which they can develop, make shiny and integrate on to their own devices and get their mobile devices back into the enterprise.

There's a second reason too, HP want to make tablets (of the computing variety) and they need an operating system, especially since Microsoft have just dropped their tablet plans. WebOS could fit that bill and again would fit well in HP's core enterprise market. It will need some polishing, but HP have got the clout to push it in the right direction. They can develop a creditable competitor to Apple's OS and Google's Android/Chrome systems and Intel/Nokia's MeeGo.

Maybe the acquisition was too cheap?

Amazon Kindle becomes a tablet

Amazon have released an SDK for the Kindle range of eBooks allowing and an app store (with the same 70:30 split that Apple offer to developers through its app store).

Apps that use less than 100KB of data will be offered as a 'one off' purchase, if the app uses more than 100KB then there's a monthly rental. If an app is less than 1MB in size it can be offered for free.

This is a recent Kindle development and is seen as a way to protect themselves against Apple's forthcoming tablet as Apple are rumoured to be negotiating content deals that will mean Apple's device will be an eBook as well as offering iPhone features.

Though specifications of Apple's tablet have not been made public, it's suspected it will use an ARM core (like the iPhone) and be based on iPhone OS v4. At least a version will have 3G connectivity. This will mean iPhone apps written for the iPhone itself will run natively on the tablet. The tablet will therefore appeal to computer users who want to run basic apps on the device and the eBook community who gain an eBook with processing capabilities.

It's likely they'll be another slew of announcements from the new eBook entrants such as Plastic Logic, Barnes and Noble etc about their new app stores and SDKs.

27th Jan for Apple's worst kept secret, or is it?

Apple are holding a 'special event' for journalists on the 27th Jan in San Francisco.

Everyone is expecting the launch of Apple's tablet computer (the iSlate or whatever it's going to be called) which will have a 10.1" touch sensitive screen.

There's now speculation that Apple will also release v4.0 of the iPhone OS at the event and also iLife 2010.

There's speculation wether to the tablet will run a souped up version of the iPhone OS or a modified version of Snow Leopard. Rumours are that standard iPhone apps will run on the tablet in emulation mode while native apps use a special version of the iPhone developers kit which knows about the extended screen size. It's also expected the tablet OS will support backgrounding of applications. There's also rumours that the tablet will be based on an Intel Atom CPU or like the iPhone an ARM variant.

Apple has allegedly already been telling select developers to ensure their apps are resolution independent and some developers have had early access to the iPhone v4.0 SDK.

Apple are notorious for not pre-releasing an information relating to launches, but more recently they seem to be dribbling bits of information to select journalists in a manner so they can plausibly deny anything officially - while keeping the market on tenterhooks and pushing the hype machine into overdrive.

Apple gets more of an Imagination

Apple has followed on Intel's heals and taken a 9.5% stake in UK graphics chip designer Imagination (Intel have a 14% stake).

Intel are keen on leading the Mobile Internet Device (MID) market and have recently made public announcements with Nokia. Apple meanwhile are utilising Imagination's PowerVR chips on the new i{Phone 3GS (they used their older chips in the iPhone 3G and iTouch models). This with their purchase of PA Semi means they could well be developing low power ARM chips and PowerVR cores for new ranges of iPhones/iTouch's coming out next year. They could also utilise the chips in their rumoured tablet which is also expected next year.

If Apple do release a tablet, it looks like they'll ignore the notebook market.

Wacom Cintiq 12WX

Wacom has launched a £700 tablet the Cintiq 12WX.

It has a 12.1" display and comes with a pressure sensitive pen, it's equivalent to a Intuous3 with an in-built display.

Aimed at professional users who want a realistic drawing surface, the display resolution is 1280 x 800, then pen has 1024 levels of sensitivity and there are several colour profiles.

It has a VGA and DVI interface so can act as a second or even third display for most systems (though it can be used as a primary display).

It can be used for "touching-up" graphics accurately, though white-boarding also seems a logical use.

£700 is considerably cheaper than previous models.