New color E Ink reMarkable tablet tries to catch up with—and leapfrog—Kindle Scribe

$579 starting price is up there with Android E Ink tablets and Apple's iPad Air.

See full article...

 

[walter_white]

I have the remarkable2 that I recently picked up as "open box" on ebay for $350 including the fancy pen that erases. It's great. I don't use the subscription features. I don't think I would ever spend the full freight for either the 2 or the 3, but if you can get a deal, they are quite nice. I don't really notice any lag when writing, but do find the swiping gesture to flip pages is a little less than reliable.

One thing not often mentioned in reviews of the pdf mark-up is that you can mark-up on multiple layers and switch the layers on and off as needed. This can be very handy for marking up schematics, etc.

As I understand from some reviews, if you upload docs to google drive using the subscription feature (directly from the tablet) they go as pdf files. If you delete them from the tablet, then later reload them to your tablet, you can't edit previous mark-ups, though you can perform new mark-ups on them. You can upload the native remarkable files to google drive via your PC without remarkable's subscription, and then you should be able to reload them to the tablet and edit your mark-ups.

 

[gazember]

The number of people in these comments whose sole input appears to be “I personally wouldn’t use this so it shouldn’t exist” is astounding. My wife has a ReMarkable2 for note-taking and digital storage/organization of the pdfs, finds it invaluable. Let other people like things, ffs.

 

[SleeperPolyester]

I ended up getting the Kindle Scribe last year because though I always wanted a remarkable, the price was a little too much to justify for a device I wasn't sure I would use.

Having used the scribe quite a bit over the past year, I am open to switching to a remarkable depending on any advantages it has over the scribe. Has anyone used both that could comment on this?

Also, I know for some just being outside the Amazon ecosystem is enough. I still have mixed feelings remaining in it which is one reason why I'm open to switching.

 

[OpenAI_Technica]

..."wouldn't an iPad and an Apple Pencil be better for this?" is a question that every product in this category continues to raise.

I would pick an iPad every time.

As someone who resisted buying an iPad for a long time before finally buying one, having gone through eink and android tablets, I don't know why you wouldn't pick an iPad every time, either.

The idea that reflective displays are somehow intrinsically easier on or healthier for the eyes is, to the best of my investigation, pseudoscience at best, even though it seems to be a cornerstone assumption of the entire market segment. Light is light, whether it's being emitted or reflected. And in my experience, iPads do a pretty good job of tailoring their emitted light so that they don't look out of place in their environment, while being crisp and responsive.

One can argue that a device's software limitations can be an upside, especially when combating distraction or ADHD, and I certainly won't disagree with any of that. And eink displays can definitely have better battery life, especially in bright sunlight. I recently had my iPad Pro burn through about 20% of its battery life in an hour trying to display black text on a white background in a very bright outdoor environment.

But the iPad Pro is absolutely usable in lighting conditions that eink displays once had a lock on, and for my purposes at least, having a backup battery to keep the thing powered is a much more practical solution than having a whole separate eink device. Also, you can just invert the display, and as long as you can tolerate white text/music/whatever on a black background, battery life skyrockets back up.

 

[tk.]

I got a replacement Apple Pencil tip and a textured screen cover from Pen Tips for my iPad and I personally think it's a great experience in terms of feeling "paper-like". (Although I still wish I could use the Pencil to doodle on my phone screen.)

 

[CantorAbelian]

About six years ago, I got an iPad with the intention of using it to compose sheet music. Unfortunately, every app I tried struggled with even the basics, like recognizing two eighth notes. After that frustrating experience, I gave up on using the iPad for music composition. If the Remarkable 2—or any other tablet—has since improved to the point where I can write sheet music and have it played back, I’d definitely consider buying one.

 

[golemB]

Does a paper-textured screen protector work well? I’ve never had the nerve to put one on since I don’t use the iPad as a pen device enough to sacrifice the visual accuracy to a textured protector. I’ve been thinking about just getting an iPad Mini instead of a Kindle and that could be used for written notes with a pen, email, video consumption on-the-go, etc.

Eh, it's okay. Looks matte, feels like very, very fine grit sandpaper. Not as smooth as the reMarkable screen, and honestly a tad annoying on the finger when swiping. I mostly use the iPad, if at all, for non-notetaking purposes. I probably should find a good iPad app for note taking and try that for comparison, TBH.

 

[OSB]

I’d just love a basic e-reader this premium. Forget colour, notes, and all the other features these things add, I just want the best possible reading experience.

Have you looked at the Kobo Elipsa 2e?

I'm early days with mine - received it as a birthday gift a few weeks ago - but I'm quite taken with it. I have very poor vision, even when corrected, and so have been reading almost exclusive on my iPad / iPad Pro for the last ~10y. I need to make the text big enough to read, but I need a big enough screen that each resulting line of large text isn't some weird three word ee cumming poem.

The Elipsa is great for this, and feels like a premium eBook experience, alongside all the other benefits of e-Ink (battery, weight, legibility in bright daylight...). It has a stylus and the note-taking and handwriting recognition functions are fine and useful if you often have a notebook and pen beside you (as I do). But they're not primary features. It feels like the stylus is largely intended to assist with note taking, highlighting, in the margins of a document you're working through - rather than positioning the device as a notebook replacements. That is to say, the device is primarily a high-end eReader.

 

[OpenAI_Technica]

About six years ago, I got an iPad with the intention of using it to compose sheet music. Unfortunately, every app I tried struggled with even the basics, like recognizing two eighth notes. After that frustrating experience, I gave up on using the iPad for music composition. If the Remarkable 2—or any other tablet—has since improved to the point where I can write sheet music and have it played back, I’d definitely consider buying one.

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but that was one of the potential use cases I considered when giving in and buying an iPad, and it seems like the handwriting analysis for music has gotten pretty good. I've been using MuseScore on macOS, and it works fine for me, but I'm definitely going to try some of those apps.

 

[artvandelayIIII]

This device is not for the occasional scribbler. Some people handwrite routinely - they buy physical notebooks and journals routinely, and probably have a stack of them from over the years. This device is aimed at them.

I learned this the hard way. I liked the idea of the Remarkable and the idea of slowing down and handwriting things instead of typing as I've been doing for years.

Spent a couple weeks with the thing and discovered my handwriting looked like ass, and I really didn't have the patience for the speed at which I can write vs typing. Definitely not the Remarkable's fault, but it just wasn't for me.

 

[CrystalCowboy]

Two stars.
"Just like paper" they claimed. But when I tried to use it for an origami project the result was disastrous.
Would not buy again.

 

[guy372]

I’d just love a basic e-reader this premium. Forget colour, notes, and all the other features these things add, I just want the best possible reading experience.

I’m still frustrated that Amazon abandoned the Kindle Oasis, especially without ever releasing a USB-C model. That still seems to be the closest anyone’s come to a premium e-reader yet, and now it’s gone.

I was in the same boat, waiting for an update to the Oasis to replace my Paperwhite. I wanted a high end e-reader with buttons and was waiting for the past year or two.

Just recently however I realized there's a bunch of e-readers out there from Taiwan and China. They're based on Android with USB-C and the latest e-ink tech. You just go into the google play store and download Kindle, Kobo or side load whatever reading app you want. They also have buttons!

As an example, this company only makes e-readers, tablets and even a monitor:
https://www.boox.com/
Bigme is another. There are a lot more though, like Hyread & Mooink if you want them to ship it from Taiwan.

 

[captaintyler888]

Nice to hear that they've solved some of the lag problems, but now the price is far above what I'm interested in paying to replace a notebook and mechanical pencil for my writing...

I've looked at reMarkable tablets for a few years, but besides the screen lag issues with writing I was never 100% sure it would truly do what I wanted it to do...

I do a lot of creative writing and I find it much better to handwrite than sit in front of a computer and type on a keyboard. This ends up with the problem of having to sit down and type everything up when I've completed a chapter or accumulated enough pages to warrant typing it up.

I was always hoping I would be able to use one of these and when I transfer it to the computer it would be able to convert the handwriting to text and save me a decent amount of time, not that the time spent typing up my notebooks isn't the worst thing as it gives me the chance to edit what I've written at the same time, but taking out the middleman of typing it up would be great.

My handwriting is also a bit of an issue, not because it's messy or illegible, but because I write in cursive... I've tried some OCR stuff back in the day with a scanner, but it wasn't particularly reliable for converting cursive, and had the added issue of having to rip all the pages out of a notebook to scan them...

Seems like there might be some better solutions these days with AI (Pen2txt), so perhaps there's a happy medium that's come out of waiting!

 

[Drop table users;]

I have the remarkable 2 and just ordered this.

The goal was to replace the multiple notebooks I have, over time what I realized is that what is really needed by myself is not just a way to consolidate notes but to capture note metadata.

I spend alot of time tagging notes to make them easy to find.

The lack of a backlight was also a huge issue on the remarkable 2.

 

[AxMi-24]

Does a paper-textured screen protector work well? I’ve never had the nerve to put one on since I don’t use the iPad as a pen device enough to sacrifice the visual accuracy to a textured protector. I’ve been thinking about just getting an iPad Mini instead of a Kindle and that could be used for written notes with a pen, email, video consumption on-the-go, etc.

I have one on my samsung tablet (with active pen) and it is significant improvement in the feel. I also like that it is not so reflective as normal screen/protector so actually enjoy it more even when just consuming content.

 

[Deleted member 437511]

Looking only at hardware and not software, this is exactly what I want except for that front light. You put that brightness from the Scribe, which I do own, in there, plus an open-source operating system, and it's the perfect device.

Never mind. BOOX makes the Note Air3 C which describes what I was looking for.

 

[mikeschr]

I feel this big time. My Oasis is slowly dying and it frustrates me I cannot just replace it easily.

I would guess that Amazon sees the Scribe as the replacement for the Oasis. It's bigger, but the Oasis was already too big for a lot of pockets, so one often needs a bag for that just like the Scribe.
I have a Scribe and an Oasis. It's nice to have a bigger screen on the Scribe, and it fits my modest note-taking needs. It's the "stickiest" ereader/tablet I've ever owned, in that I've used it longer and more frequently than any similar device I've owned.
The ReMarkable seems very nice, but I don't need the advanced note-taking ability, and I do need a great e-reader.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

The number of people in these comments whose sole input appears to be “I personally wouldn’t use this so it shouldn’t exist” is astounding. My wife has a ReMarkable2 for note-taking and digital storage/organization of the pdfs, finds it invaluable. Let other people like things, ffs.

The amounts of information (bits) in their post is more or less equivalent to "my wife finds it invaluable for note-taking and pdf".
I guess we are all entitled to express our opinions.

 

[catfoodcannon]

Hmmm... that green color seems unusually far from green, even for washed out color reproduction.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Hmmm... now, of course, room lighting where the picture was taken, and other factors., can influence appearances... Seems unusually far from green though.
View attachment 89835

Other factors include camera white balance. You should apply white balance to the "White" circle before picking the color RGB.

 

[gazember]

The amounts of information (bits) in their post is more or less equivalent to "my wife finds it invaluable for note-taking and pdf".
I guess we are all entitled to express our opinions.

Spoken like a real anti-vaxxer/RWNJ…

 

[Mr. Anderson]

If this had even the most bare bones graph paper app I would probably own one already. My desire to have a graph paper experience with basic functions (zoom, copy, paste, trim, exstend, osnap, and shapes maybe one or two more) in a pen based system like this is very strong.

 

[Boskone]

Is it just me? if I want the pleasure of using ink or pencil on paper, I use paper.

I like handwriting notes, diagramming, and so on. I'm a firm believer that retention is better with handwriting than typing, plus more flexibility.

I don't like having a dozen or so notepads, to keep up with various things. Organization is definitely better on a computer.

My Onyx Boox Tab Ultra lets me have both.

 

[Boskone]

I feel this big time. My Oasis is slowly dying and it frustrates me I cannot just replace it easily.

Have you looked at the Kobo offerings?

I honestly don't remember enough about the Oasis to compare to what Kobo's got, but I've loved my old Libra H2O enough to consider it a solid Kindle competitor.

Though, granted, Amazon really doesn't want you out of their ecosystem. Bastards.

 

[Boskone]

I use my kobo 95% as a reader (and its a great reader) and its nice to have as a note taker (even though its got some quirks there) - usually in in person meetings or conferences.

Which one do you have? I've been eyeing the Sage as an intermediate-sized reader and handy note-taking device.

I like my Palma and Tab Ultra, but Onyx doesn't have a good b&w 6-8" device with EMR right now.

Syncing between the two would be difficult, but a lot of my notes don't really need syncing anyway.

(And the company's a touch sketchy, but they're what was available and had the stuff I wanted at the time, this being pre-Scribe...and that if I was willing to risk Amazon again.)

 

[venir]

I got my wife a reMarkable 2 about 6 months ago knowing that she would take copious notes at work and then come home with multiple notebooks and post-it notepads full of stuff just to re-write it all to organize later on, having a bunch of paper waste leftover. She absolutely loves it and uses it daily. She's not the most tech savvy, although not terrible, and she just needed something for notetaking without any extra features. So far the reMarkable has been perfect for this use case and she's had several co-workers buy one for themselves after trying hers out.

 

[MeYesMe]

My solution: A pen and a pad of paper, and an app that does HW recognition.

I use paper and a pen (black gel pen) to take notes. I use my Evernote app to scan the note, then throw the paper away. Evernote does automatic handwriting recognition, which is far from perfect, but makes the notes reasonably searchable.

To me, there is no better form factor for writing than a pen and a piece of paper.

 

[Fatesrider]

There's no way I'm spending this much for a device where the bulk of its functionality is dependent on a subscription and/or a cloud service that might go away..

I'm still spicy about Kobo requiring a sign-in (despite a sqlite hack being available) but at least my Kobo was a quarter of the price of this.

Apple, to its credit, let's you use an iPad without an AppleID.

yeah, I read this part:

You have to connect these services using reMarkable's site on a computer, phone, or tablet first, which is a little annoying and not at all clear if you're just poking at the tablet by itself. But once you do, it's easy to pull compatible documents down on your device, read them or mark them up, and then (if necessary) export them back to the cloud service so you can share your handwritten markups of PDF documents quickly and easily.

And wondered, "Why the fuck can't you just connect to your own LAN and save or get things from that?"

I'm assuming since that obvious convenience isn't even mentioned, it's not an option.

That's a HUGE deal-breaker for me, who keeps as much as I can OFF the cloud (for a multitude of reasons having to do with security and having had my PII stolen multiple times from allegedly secure sites).

I get that the "middleman" issue is still accessing a "network", but in MY mind at least, there's a shit-ton of security difference between throwing shit out on the Internet via WAN than keeping it in-house via LAN.

I mean, it's a wifi enabled tablet. How fucking hard can that functionality be to implement?

 

[Thunderracker]

Does it not do handwriting recognition? Like the only output is a graphical pdf of your handwritten notes? For almost $600? Sounds like the mechanical feel is dead on, the pen processing as well, and otherwise it’s the functionality of a piece of paper and your scanner (which can do ocr), which is a lot of cash for that. I agree with the notion of limited app add ons to keep feature creep down (I imagine full web browsing would be terrible with a slow e-ink screen) but some basic note taking functionality is helpful. Like annotating PDFs using a pen would rock (as a physician, do it a lot inside the EMR, for things like prior-authorizations, fmla forms, etc) and doing it with the supplied tools makes me want to smash the screen (it does support windows-tablet where your cursor “draws” but that makes your forms look like a serial killer’s ransom demand! It would be cool if you could have templates from say google drive or OneDrive, and then use that as the basis for notes (especially with ocr, that I’d pay a few (FEW) dollars a month for (especially if that cloud app let me fix the OCR before sealing it into the PDF). If they added that I would not expect all the pdf functionality (like menus or animation) but forms and markup, yes.

You miss the point of this device. There are those of us who take handwritten notes all the time who do not want anything at all

I keep a daily log. Every meeting, deliverable and action item I get as well as every deliverable action item and promise said to me is recorded in that log. The problem is that when I burn through a notebook (about every 4 months ) I lose all of that history.

27 years, I have nearly 110 notebooks. I really need an endless notebook.

Live scribe was perfect for me. But they are just not supported like I need them to be. So maybe this is the next best thing.

 

[Thunderracker]

There's no way I'm spending this much for a device where the bulk of its functionality is dependent on a subscription and/or a cloud service that might go away..

I'm still spicy about Kobo requiring a sign-in (despite a sqlite hack being available) but at least my Kobo was a quarter of the price of this.

Apple, to its credit, lets you use an iPad without an AppleID.

That is my problem too. App sign ins mean that support can be taken away.

 

[Thunderracker]

I have used a Supernote for over a year now. I would be curious how the remarkable 2 compares to it. Considering getting one (or handing down mine) for my son in college. Has there been any comparisons between Supernote and remarkable?

If you write a lot then I've always struggled to see the point of these - you end up with digital version of your scribble without a lot of utility to them. They're all so hopelessly compromised as to be not worth the effort. One device can't open Word documents, the other one can scarcely sync to the cloud in any meaningful sense. I write a fair bit and I've never really found anything better than a simple scanner app on my phone for digital copies at an absolutely fraction of the cost.

I want just that. A digital copy of my notes and drawing exactly as I wrote them. No HCR needed at all.

 

[Thunderracker]

Why buy an expensive tool that badly imitates an already existed one (a paper notebook) that is cheaper, easier and pleasent to use?

But Pen and paper has a funded drawback. When the notebook is full I lose all my history, more precisely the history is not with me where I am.

I like looking at my log and seeing my notes of what I was doing years ago on specific dates.

 

[fossesq]

I have the original one, used it for note taking at meetings before covid and on calls. I dont use it much anymore because:

• while I do not need ipad like features, I really would like it to have a todo app that links to my o365 system, or really, any shared system, and to be able to read and reply to emails - it is a one trick pony without those tricks

I feel like a lot of folks have just one more thing they'd like the device to do. I would like a high-quality e-reader built in but am less concerned about the productivity functions, for example. That's not to say your use case is invalid, but that users of these minimalist devices (I have Remarkable 2 though keep reading...) tend to want slightly more functionality but nothing else. I don't know what the solution is: maybe a limited number of "app slots" combined with a curated app store with a wider range of offerings?

I've largely switched to a Boox Air 2: I use it as an ereader and notebook. I could add more things via the Google Play store, but I intentionally don't.

 

[Sea Shanties]

I'd love to see (but probably could never afford) a 20" e-ink screen for drawing, meant to challenge Wacom Cintiqs which are woefully overpriced and while slick, feel 15 years out of date.

It'd be niche but it's not a small niche, I think it could be big in the comics and animation world.

 

[golemB]

I tried the original, and while I love the concept there’s just too much friction, so I just went back to using an iPad. Trying to browse files on e-ink is painful.

Gimme the same hardware, but make it 1. emulate a network printer, so I can just ”print” a file, webpage, etc from any computer and have it open automatically on the tablet, 2. Full onenote integration, 3. a companion desktop/ipad app with realtime screen sharing so that I can rapidly navigate a large file or view a table/graphic that’s not legible on e-Ink.

Dunno about OneNote but you can print to pdf and sync it, and there's companion apps like you said.

 

[marcopolomint]

One of the biggest use cases for these ReMarkable devices is reading and annotating PDFs away from the computer screen.

If you have to peer review journal articles a lot, which I do, this device is a Godsend. A few years ago I noticed a grad student in my class with version 1, and was quite impressed. After version 2 came out, the idea really clicked with me: we spend so much of our time in front of bright (and getting every brighter) LCD screens, and as I get older my eyes feel fatigued after a while. So I bought a refurb RM2, and use it quite often. In addition, most reading assignments for college students are now electronic, university libraries have stopped ordering physical books if electronic versions are available (not a fan of this, by the way). But for reading an assigned text to prep a class, out there on the patio and not staring into a laptop screen, these things are great.

Most of the commenters here are not the target audience. That's fine. But niche devices are niche, and shouldn't threaten you or your way of life. In addition to the 'executives' invoked by some commenters, I know a number of academics who use these, including the Chair of my department.

(Oh, and Apple have far too much of my money already.)

 

[50me12]

I've always wanted one of these but I can't justify it....

Kinda wish Apple would get into the space and bring their ecosystem with it.

 

[A_Very_Tired_Geek]

This isn't an artist's tablet certainly. It's meant for writers, note takers, and proofreaders. But this paragraph from the article can't be emphasized enough:

But what you get in exchange is a digital pen experience that feels more like writing with a pen on paper than anything else I've tried, whether you're talking about older reMarkable tablets, the Scribe, Microsoft's Surface Pro, or Apple's newest iPads. When writing, you get the responsiveness and fluidity of the Apple Pencil Pro, but on a textured E Ink screen with a very paper-like amount of resistance.

I don't do a lot of hand writing these days. Tends to make my hand hurt, unfortunately. But I do a lot of traditional visual art (different muscles and ways of holding instruments - and I'm brush ambidextrous). The unfortunate thing about artists tablets is they have never quite gotten the friction of instrument on media quite right. Even the most expensive tablets and drawing screens are "off". Maybe people that don't use a lot of paper or canvas wouldn't notice it as much, but it's generally what keeps me from adopting tablets. I work with Blender with a mouse and keyboard. I do the same with most illustration programs. There's something unique with the textures of real media that hasn't yet been replicated in digital art creation. It's possible to get close, especially for those who are just consuming art, but for those that create it, there's a big difference between the feedback of a linen canvas and brush or stick or instrument and the bite of paper, and the feel of even textured digital writing surfaces.

The better they get about simulating what everyone is used to using for writing, the more people are going to be comfortable with the experice... um... if not the price. 600 USD buys a lot of paper, canvas, and supplies, or even just printer paper and red ink pens.

 

[randomname19937]

What about mechanical properties? Does it break as easily as Kindle? I don't remember which exact model I had, but its e-paper display was backed by extremely fragile glass encased in a flimsy plastic frame - falling asleep over a book was a recipe for disaster. This device, being larger, would be even more prone to breaking if it isn't somehow reinforced.

 

[SwedBear]

I bought the original Remarkable 1 and then a 2 as soon as it was released. It is one of the best and most used tech purchase for me. I'm one of those who needs to scribble thoughts, ideas, code etc when working. It helps my thought-process and definitely helps my coding (I'm a developer) as I can visualize solutions.

Yes, I used proper notebooks before. And now I have ..... lots of old notebooks and no idea what is in them. In fact, maybe half is really needed to be stored anyway and the rest can be thrown away.

I love how easy it is to set up folders, create separate notebooks, search in notebooks etc and for that alone the device has been worth it for me. I've used my iPad pro with Apple pencil 2 but it just isn't the same. And - I unfortunately do get distracted on my iPad when I work with notifications etc. Yeah, i can turn them off for a while but just the fact I know they are there .....

And of course I love the feel of writing with it. Everyone who has asked me about it and tested it has been very impressed of the feeling when writing and I also have inspired a lot of my dev-collegues to get one.

When the new Pro was announced a few days ago I was interested but I'm not really sure I need color and I feel the price simply is to high for me now ... I would have loved a new greyscale cheaper version with improvements because that is what I would need. So I'll guess I'll stay with the R2 for a while longer. When this breaks (and I am wondering if the battery is starting to slowly degrade in performance) I definitely will get a new remarkable because for me it is simply a great example of a product that does a narrow function very well.

And yeah, if you do not do a lot of notetaking it really is not worth it .