Live With It - The Remarkable 2

Starring Sarah Lane and Jenn Cutter

Sarah Lane gives her thoughts about the Remarkable 2, an e-ink tablet for writing and reading.

$299 (was $399 at time of purchase)

Marker Plus (pencil) - $129

*If you buy with Connect, you get a $150 discount on the hardware and 2 months free service, worth checking out.

Several subscription options

Marker Plus highlights:

• An actual highlighter pen option!
• Several different types of pens: ballpoint, calligraphy, pencil, mechanical pencil… all have slightly different feels on the tablet
• Easy tap to navigate - you can use a finger tablet-style, but the Marker feels more efficient
• Erase tool is just cool. The Remarkable is smart enough to know when you haven’t totally erased something and will clean up the rest.

Initial thoughts:

• I don’t use a physical pen anymore, in fact I always struggle to find a pen in my house on the rare occasion I need one. But physically writing things down has always helped my memory retention, and the Remarkable 2 taps into that as an extremely polished writing tablet
• I’m not much of a drawer/doodler/etc. There are plenty of really good use cases for Remarkable 2 that I won’t take advantage of.
• Holy crap, signing documents is so easy!
• The amount of document templates is impressive, I don’t know how you’d ever need something not in this library
• Navigation takes a little getting used to, but it’s simple once you know what your options are
• Syncing with my Google Drive is a game changer. (on supported files, of course)

E-Reader capability:

• At first glance the Remarkable 2 isn’t a great e-reader. Despite the nice book size, it doesn’t have any sort of backlight… you really do have to be under a lamp as if it were an actual book. You’re not going to take this tablet camping.
• It also doesn’t support DRM-ePUB. You can find non-DRM ebooks online, but not a Kindle type library
• You can use Calibre (free ebook organizer software) + a plugin to strip DRM from an ePUB book, then it shows up on the Remarkable 2 just fine. I tried this with a couple library e-books. This process is not very intuitive, but it’s possible. However, it’s also illegal, so there’s that.

Nitpicks:

• Last year I was gifted a Kindle Oasis, which has an adjustable backlit screen. It makes the Remarkable 2’s screen seem pretty dim. I wish there were a way to punch up brightness a bit.
• The pencil does snap onto the magnetized sides of the Remarkable 2 but not always in the place I think it should be. For such a pricey add-on, I’m always worried it’ll go missing.
• There are times I wish I had better internet integration. You can print anything online to PDF and sync from there, but that takes a few steps. I tried to use the Remarkable 2 for DTNS prep and it just didn’t make any sense.

OVERALL:

The Remarkable 2 is powerhouse for anyone annotating documents, sketching, freeform stuff. Although you can sync over WIFI and email documents easily from the tablet, it’s not really “online”

• Love the form factor, I don’t think it would work at a smaller size
• If you reach for your notepad regularly, you will love this tablet.
• Pricing feels high, especially for the subscription options.