Like a lot of pine64 products, it's reusing the case for an existing product. Producing case molds is one of the most expensive parts of production. Every product announcements there's people finding very similar looking devices, but then ignore that the boards in the products are fully pine64 custom.
I've also had the pinenote and the remarkable beside eachother and it's not the same case, the remarkable has the large edge at the bottom and is slightly thinner. The pen surface feels very similar though.