RM PAPER PURE'S LATENCY
My years of testing e-ink devices confirm one thing: the perfect device doesn't exist, and manufacturers somehow seem to avoid creating it on purpose.
Despite the highly subjective debate surrounding the launch of the RM Paper Pure, in my opinion, the device's high latency has gone unnoticed. While likely driven by commercial choices, I believe it is a missed opportunity to give us(ers) a better device.
As a former owner of the RMPP and RM2, I find the Pure offers better clarity, contrast, speed, portability, weight, durability, and a smaller pen-to-ink gap with no annoying flashing/refresh. No backlight? Who cares! This is a benefit to mimic real paper. If you can't see, turn on a light or go to sleep. The complaint about the missing 300 dpi screen? I think this is unnoticeable thanks to excellent anti-aliasing. Having used 300 dpi devices like the Supernote Manta, I found the high resolution actually caused eye strain. Furthermore, textured screens (like the glass on the RM or the Feel Write 2 on Supernote) distort text anyway, making the demand for 300 dpi irrelevant.
What I cannot understand is the 21 ms latency. It matches the 6-year-old RM2, which used completely different EMR technology. When the RMPP launched, its capacitive pen was justified by offering lower latency at the expense of precision. While I must admit I dislike the writing feel, the speed made up for it. Yet, the Paper Pure has nearly double the latency of the Paper Pro (21 ms vs. 12 ms), despite using the exact same pen technology and capacitive screen responsiveness. This makes the shift to proprietary technology baffling.
Now, I am wondering: is this simply an artificial software limit imposed by remarkable to differentiate the Pro and Pure models? If so, it makes no sense, as they belong to two completely different categories (color vs b/w)? Or is it a hardware limitation caused by the e-Ink Carta 1300 screen compared to the Gallery 3?