I like the idea of Remarkable but the thing that bothers me a lot is that it doesn't have a backlight. I'd really like to use it to read at night and no backlight kinda kills that.
Do you not use it at night or do you use some other solution for nighttime lighting (like bright ceiling lights)?
If the use case is just reading at night, a Kindle with a backlight is probably a better bet.
That said - I like the Remarkable a lot more, and tend to carry it with me more. The kindle has essentially just become my "vacation" reading device since I stopped taking the train for work.
It definitely doesn't need bright lights to read (well, depending on your eyesight). If I want to read/write before bed, I'll keep my side table light on at 25%, and it works fine. If my wife is still watching a show, the tv alone is bright enough I can generally read/write fine.
Love my Remarkable 2, it's replaced the endless amount of paper pads I used to have - I even sketch on it, which is taking some adjusting to (it ends up being closer to etching than pencil sketching).
But it hasn't replaced my e-reader. I read myself to sleep every night, and 80% of mornings wake up with the e-reader lying on the pillow next to me. If I tried that with the Remarkable I'd smack myself in the face every night. I have a hand-size e-reader (Tolino, a German brand) with a backlight, which I use in dark mode so less light to keep the gf awake. Works great.
I could see myself reading a technical manual on the Remarkable, but I'd still need the e-reader. Two different use cases.
I would also already own a remarkable-2 if it had a builtin light. I do about 20% of my reading with the lights off, and while I can (and do) use a booklight, there's considerable light-spillage compared to most builtin lights and the lights I've tried all either have arms so short as to be hard to position right, or arms so long that the weight of the light overcomes the elasticity of the arm.
What about a normal book light that you’d use with a traditional book? I find that even the Kindle light can be uncomfortable when in complete darkness, so I try to always keep a little bit of ambient light, which is usually enough to read by.
I use a book light with my Remarkable. It works well, but I'd still prefer an integrated frontlight, as long as it didn't affect the writing experience.
Ah yes... that's probably why we won't see one then. The frontlight adds some space between the surface and the panel. That would probably be distracting for writing.
Do you not use it at night or do you use some other solution for nighttime lighting (like bright ceiling lights)?