Remarkable Tablet: Review?
November 25, 2020 10:46 AM Subscribe
I still prefer to take notes on paper, but it would be nice to go digital. I've been considering a Remarkable 2 over an iPad because I already have a good phone for gaming and browsing. However, the various accessories (marker, folio, etc) put the price point for the R2 kind of high, so I'd love input on whether it's a worthwhile investment. Any thoughts or suggestions for alternatives?
Mr. Cimton has a Remarkable 2 and loves it! He's an academic, so in addition to using it in place of a notepad he also sends PDFs of journal articles to the tablet and highlights / adds marginal notes as he reads. I tried it out when he got it and it really does feel like writing on paper!
You could try a Remarkable 1, which I assume is less expensive now that the Remarkable 2 has been released, and might be just fine for your use case. There are some feature differences that inspired him to upgrade--the "eraser" on the back of the stylus is what immediately comes to mind, but I know there were other new features he liked. Also, the 2 just feels more solid / higher quality to me. That said, he used a Remarkable 1 for at least a year and also really liked it. He gave it to one of his colleagues when he upgraded and it works well for them.
posted by cimton at 11:20 AM on November 25, 2020
You could try a Remarkable 1, which I assume is less expensive now that the Remarkable 2 has been released, and might be just fine for your use case. There are some feature differences that inspired him to upgrade--the "eraser" on the back of the stylus is what immediately comes to mind, but I know there were other new features he liked. Also, the 2 just feels more solid / higher quality to me. That said, he used a Remarkable 1 for at least a year and also really liked it. He gave it to one of his colleagues when he upgraded and it works well for them.
posted by cimton at 11:20 AM on November 25, 2020
I got a Remarkable 2. Looks like their ceaseless advertising is working.
I like it but is it a very, very limited use device. It does handwritten notes. It's ok-to-good for PDF annotation. It's OK for reading ebooks. The hardware is very good. The handwriting recognition is meh.
I also have a 2018 iPad Pro 11" and honestly I'm still using that the bulk of the time. I think the Remarkable would have been great for notetaking at work with fewer distractions and it's much smaller & lighter, but I haven't gone in to work for 10 months, so yeah.
That said, I don't think other e-ink devices are good. People talk about the e-ink android tablet (boox note air) and although I have not used one, the thought of running android at 1 fps seems unappealing. Plus it doesn't seem any cheaper if that's your main concern.
Are you going through a legal pad every month? Is having digital copies of your notes important? Do you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket? If the answer to any of these is yes then I think it's a good purchase.
posted by GuyZero at 11:57 AM on November 25, 2020
I like it but is it a very, very limited use device. It does handwritten notes. It's ok-to-good for PDF annotation. It's OK for reading ebooks. The hardware is very good. The handwriting recognition is meh.
I also have a 2018 iPad Pro 11" and honestly I'm still using that the bulk of the time. I think the Remarkable would have been great for notetaking at work with fewer distractions and it's much smaller & lighter, but I haven't gone in to work for 10 months, so yeah.
That said, I don't think other e-ink devices are good. People talk about the e-ink android tablet (boox note air) and although I have not used one, the thought of running android at 1 fps seems unappealing. Plus it doesn't seem any cheaper if that's your main concern.
Are you going through a legal pad every month? Is having digital copies of your notes important? Do you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket? If the answer to any of these is yes then I think it's a good purchase.
posted by GuyZero at 11:57 AM on November 25, 2020
An alternative is something like Rocketbook, which is a reusable notebook with digitization software.
posted by that girl at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by that girl at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
I pre-ordered a Remarkable 2 and ended up cancelling for a few reasons... namely, a couple of the quality and customer support reasons you'll find scattered across the subreddits and the web. I also really struggled with the price-point vs features argument but the main reason I cancelled my pre-order was because I think what I really want is a "pen on paper" experience, and my understanding is that the Remarkable 2 stylus is going to feel much more like a pencil.
I go through a lot of paper and am still considering an e-ink device as I find writing and doing any pdf annotation markup on an iPad beyond highlighting to be an unpleasant experience. I strongly considered the Supernote A5 or A6x as a better "feel" and fit for me... but the price/feature thing is still an issue (I've read rather mixed reviews of how it handles highlighting pdfs which the company says they are working on. Also, I imagine that if you get the stylus that has everlasting nibs, the lifetime cost might be lower than the Remarkable 2). The most bothersome thing to me is that the company only accepts returns on new and unopened items.
In the end I just ordered another paper notebook and a fountain pen...
posted by sm1tten at 2:24 PM on November 25, 2020
I go through a lot of paper and am still considering an e-ink device as I find writing and doing any pdf annotation markup on an iPad beyond highlighting to be an unpleasant experience. I strongly considered the Supernote A5 or A6x as a better "feel" and fit for me... but the price/feature thing is still an issue (I've read rather mixed reviews of how it handles highlighting pdfs which the company says they are working on. Also, I imagine that if you get the stylus that has everlasting nibs, the lifetime cost might be lower than the Remarkable 2). The most bothersome thing to me is that the company only accepts returns on new and unopened items.
In the end I just ordered another paper notebook and a fountain pen...
posted by sm1tten at 2:24 PM on November 25, 2020
If you're at all particular about how you take notes on paper, you'll probably find the substitutes to be frustrating. (Like, I ordered a Rocketbook and ended up finding it absolutely too annoying to bother with because I'm hyper-persnickety about the pens I use, the nib size, the tooth of the paper, etc. If you're not, you can disregard my crankishness entirely.) For a while Moleskine had a paper-to-digital conversion system that synced with Evernote and seemed like a promising Rocketbook alternative, but I haven't heard about it in a few years; maybe it's depreciated by now?
You might also be interested in this thread, Tablet, phonebook or kindle for academic pdfs? by dorothyisunderwood from a year ago, in which spitbull basically convinced me to buy an iPad and Pencil 2. (That said, I haven't yet.)
posted by knucklebones at 3:23 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
You might also be interested in this thread, Tablet, phonebook or kindle for academic pdfs? by dorothyisunderwood from a year ago, in which spitbull basically convinced me to buy an iPad and Pencil 2. (That said, I haven't yet.)
posted by knucklebones at 3:23 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
I have a Remarkable 1 and like it very much. Didn’t find it worthwhile to upgrade. While the eraser on the new marker might be nice, I don’t find it necessary, especially as I write with my paper in landscape mode (so the eraser is always at the top of my screen—ie a quick press away). Also, I love my Lamy digital pen and and wouldn’t replace that for an eraser. I didn’t buy an rM folio since I’ve worked from home for years. Though I do have a folio from another brand, I almost never use it as I usually use the rM at home.
rM vs iPad: I have both, and I almost always write on my rM and read PDFs on my iPad. The reading experience isn’t great on the rM (not as easy to skim documents, not synced to my Google Drive, screen size not optimal for letter-sized PDFs, etc). The only time I choose my iPad as the writing device is when I’m filling out forms or need different colored pens.
The only other option I’ve tried is the Rocketbook. I liked it for a few months but gave up because it requires too much upkeep. I am curious about the large, letter-sized Onyx Boox (I think it’s called the Lumi?), but I’m not convinced it’ll have a great writing experience like the rM so am hoping that rM will come out with a larger version in the future.
I’m with @Nonsteroidal that it’s 90% amazing. It’s where all my long-form handwritten notes go. What would make it 100% amazing? A bigger screen, color e-ink, syncing with Google Drive. Maybe a way to program the Lamy digital pen’s button to act as an undo button. I wouldn’t spend a ton on the accessories, but that’s just me. If you ask this on the rM forum on Facebook, you’ll get a lot of perspectives, many likely disagreeing with mine.
posted by saltypup at 3:35 PM on November 25, 2020
rM vs iPad: I have both, and I almost always write on my rM and read PDFs on my iPad. The reading experience isn’t great on the rM (not as easy to skim documents, not synced to my Google Drive, screen size not optimal for letter-sized PDFs, etc). The only time I choose my iPad as the writing device is when I’m filling out forms or need different colored pens.
The only other option I’ve tried is the Rocketbook. I liked it for a few months but gave up because it requires too much upkeep. I am curious about the large, letter-sized Onyx Boox (I think it’s called the Lumi?), but I’m not convinced it’ll have a great writing experience like the rM so am hoping that rM will come out with a larger version in the future.
I’m with @Nonsteroidal that it’s 90% amazing. It’s where all my long-form handwritten notes go. What would make it 100% amazing? A bigger screen, color e-ink, syncing with Google Drive. Maybe a way to program the Lamy digital pen’s button to act as an undo button. I wouldn’t spend a ton on the accessories, but that’s just me. If you ask this on the rM forum on Facebook, you’ll get a lot of perspectives, many likely disagreeing with mine.
posted by saltypup at 3:35 PM on November 25, 2020
The list price of those things pays for a lot of paper...
Apple's Notes app on the iPhone and iPad has a really nice scanning tool for your paper notes when you've written them, which means you can get your (single and multi-page) notes rapidly into digital form. I mention it because it's so well concealed that no-one seems to know about it. Once your docs are in a note you can send them elsewhere as a PDF and, of course, reprint them; I'm guessing that further annotation, though, would be a bit of a blunt force thing.
If you happen to be an iPhone or iPad person, then this is effectively free to you.
Does that satisfy your analogue/digital itch?
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 3:39 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Apple's Notes app on the iPhone and iPad has a really nice scanning tool for your paper notes when you've written them, which means you can get your (single and multi-page) notes rapidly into digital form. I mention it because it's so well concealed that no-one seems to know about it. Once your docs are in a note you can send them elsewhere as a PDF and, of course, reprint them; I'm guessing that further annotation, though, would be a bit of a blunt force thing.
If you happen to be an iPhone or iPad person, then this is effectively free to you.
Does that satisfy your analogue/digital itch?
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 3:39 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
I received my Remarkable 2 about two weeks ago. The short review is: amazing for writing, "meh" to "terrible" for everything else.
Writing on the thing is nothing short of magical. The pen feels amazing. I'd liken it to a high-quality mechanical pencil, or maybe a ballpoint on paper with some grain. It's a bit "scratchy", not at all like writing on glass (like an iPad). I love it. There is a very slight lag between laying down a line and seeing it rendered on the screen, but I really have to be looking for the lag to notice it. When taking notes, it doesn't matter. The device truly disappears; when I'm writing, I can almost forget I'm using it. There are several ways in which writing on this thing is better than writing on paper: erasing, being able to move things around, and the writing-to-text conversion which works surprisingly well on my terrible handwriting.
Everything else, though, is kinda crummy. It's slow - typing on the keyboard (e.g. when naming new notebooks, or typing in a wifi password) is so slow and painful as to be almost comical (if I type faster than about one letter per minute, it won't register some of them). Reading is OK: PDF rendering is quite nice, and taking notes on top of PDFs is nice. But again, very slow. I have a ~500 page PDF I'm reading through, and turning pages takes a couple of seconds. Annoying. ePubs are better, but the lack of support for Kindle books (or anything with DRM) means options for books are limited. I thought I'd be able to get rid of my Kindle and read on this; I probably won't be able to.
Personally, I'm very happy. I take notes both at work and for personal stuff on paper, to the tune of maybe 1,000 pages per year. Being able to keep writing by hand and also have all the advantages of digital notes -- moving things around, reorganizing after the fact, search! -- is lovely. But if I'd wanted this for anything other than basically a replacement for a pad of paper, I think I'd have been disappointed.
posted by jacobian at 4:40 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Writing on the thing is nothing short of magical. The pen feels amazing. I'd liken it to a high-quality mechanical pencil, or maybe a ballpoint on paper with some grain. It's a bit "scratchy", not at all like writing on glass (like an iPad). I love it. There is a very slight lag between laying down a line and seeing it rendered on the screen, but I really have to be looking for the lag to notice it. When taking notes, it doesn't matter. The device truly disappears; when I'm writing, I can almost forget I'm using it. There are several ways in which writing on this thing is better than writing on paper: erasing, being able to move things around, and the writing-to-text conversion which works surprisingly well on my terrible handwriting.
Everything else, though, is kinda crummy. It's slow - typing on the keyboard (e.g. when naming new notebooks, or typing in a wifi password) is so slow and painful as to be almost comical (if I type faster than about one letter per minute, it won't register some of them). Reading is OK: PDF rendering is quite nice, and taking notes on top of PDFs is nice. But again, very slow. I have a ~500 page PDF I'm reading through, and turning pages takes a couple of seconds. Annoying. ePubs are better, but the lack of support for Kindle books (or anything with DRM) means options for books are limited. I thought I'd be able to get rid of my Kindle and read on this; I probably won't be able to.
Personally, I'm very happy. I take notes both at work and for personal stuff on paper, to the tune of maybe 1,000 pages per year. Being able to keep writing by hand and also have all the advantages of digital notes -- moving things around, reorganizing after the fact, search! -- is lovely. But if I'd wanted this for anything other than basically a replacement for a pad of paper, I think I'd have been disappointed.
posted by jacobian at 4:40 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
I am an academic who needs to take notes and edit and grade with a pen. It’s vital to how I think and create that I can write fluently by hand. It dies with a keyboard. Or a bad stylus. Or not enough room on the screen.
The (12”) iPad Pro and Apple Pencil changed my life. Nothing has ever come close to the productivity gains that device (I’m now on my second) has given me. It’s a real computer when you need one for many purposes (for me including controlling a synthesizer or editing videos) but it works amazingly as a sheet of paper and a pen that just feels like a nice felt tip marker. I’ve never tried a remarkable but the ability to interface my iPad with a giant pdf library on google drive (I use the app notability to manage my documents and edit them) has just been amazing. And when I’m done editing it’s a hell of a device for watching tv or whatever. And it’s amazing as a portable zooming device.
Pricey but you may not need a new laptop. I preach the gospel of this device to colleagues who need a pen and paper to think, and one by one they thank me eventually.
posted by spitbull at 5:31 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
The (12”) iPad Pro and Apple Pencil changed my life. Nothing has ever come close to the productivity gains that device (I’m now on my second) has given me. It’s a real computer when you need one for many purposes (for me including controlling a synthesizer or editing videos) but it works amazingly as a sheet of paper and a pen that just feels like a nice felt tip marker. I’ve never tried a remarkable but the ability to interface my iPad with a giant pdf library on google drive (I use the app notability to manage my documents and edit them) has just been amazing. And when I’m done editing it’s a hell of a device for watching tv or whatever. And it’s amazing as a portable zooming device.
Pricey but you may not need a new laptop. I preach the gospel of this device to colleagues who need a pen and paper to think, and one by one they thank me eventually.
posted by spitbull at 5:31 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
And I must add, I don’t notice any issue “writing on glass” with an iPad with an Apple Pencil. There is ZERO lag time — none — when you write on it. It feels exactly like a felt tip pen to me. But you can get a matte screen protector if that helps.
For $450 for a remarkable 2, I don’t get it. That’s halfway to an iPad Pro that can do so much more for you.
Apparently even the base 300 dollar iPad works great now with an Apple Pencil too.
posted by spitbull at 3:31 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
For $450 for a remarkable 2, I don’t get it. That’s halfway to an iPad Pro that can do so much more for you.
Apparently even the base 300 dollar iPad works great now with an Apple Pencil too.
posted by spitbull at 3:31 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: For me I JUST need to be able to take handwritten notes and keep them next to me in a format that is not a stack of post its or multiple legal pads. That's why I don't want an iPad -- anything other than note taking capabilities = overkill.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 5:19 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitchen Witch at 5:19 AM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Apparently even the base 300 dollar iPad works great now with an Apple Pencil too.
Yes, I have a 10" iPad air + Apple pencil, and it works great for this. I use it for my job (higher ed). I'm a big fan of the notability app. I find it's a great way to organize all my notes, I really like the integration with Google drive (also you can use dropbox, icloud, one note, etc). This is also the configuration that my coworkers use.
I understand your point about overkill, and notability is basically the only app I use my ipad for. I also use it for reading ebooks sometimes and occasionally netflix when I don't want to bother using my laptop.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:52 AM on November 26, 2020
Yes, I have a 10" iPad air + Apple pencil, and it works great for this. I use it for my job (higher ed). I'm a big fan of the notability app. I find it's a great way to organize all my notes, I really like the integration with Google drive (also you can use dropbox, icloud, one note, etc). This is also the configuration that my coworkers use.
I understand your point about overkill, and notability is basically the only app I use my ipad for. I also use it for reading ebooks sometimes and occasionally netflix when I don't want to bother using my laptop.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:52 AM on November 26, 2020
Oh the killer app now is that Apple’s handwriting to text recognition is remarkably good with iOS 14.
I get the unifunctional aesthetic. Really I do. But you can do so much with an iPad if you are in words and ideas trades that it’s crazy, yet it also is superb as a note taking device. I guess it depends what you do with your notes. I’m usually hand marking documents as an editor so my comments are for others to see and converting them to legible text is awesome. When I take notes for myself, they’re usually only useful to me if I can search them retrospectively. And my note writing is usually centered around reading PDFs or attending talks or meetings where the iPad’s other functionalities come in handy.
Plus Netflix.
posted by spitbull at 1:20 PM on November 26, 2020
I get the unifunctional aesthetic. Really I do. But you can do so much with an iPad if you are in words and ideas trades that it’s crazy, yet it also is superb as a note taking device. I guess it depends what you do with your notes. I’m usually hand marking documents as an editor so my comments are for others to see and converting them to legible text is awesome. When I take notes for myself, they’re usually only useful to me if I can search them retrospectively. And my note writing is usually centered around reading PDFs or attending talks or meetings where the iPad’s other functionalities come in handy.
Plus Netflix.
posted by spitbull at 1:20 PM on November 26, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
Remarkable 2 Review Megathread
Questions to reMarkable 2 owners megathread
Other threads on the subreddit will also show off the device and discuss pros and cons. There's a lot of info. For my part, I'm still stuck in the cycle of "It's pricey but seems 90% amazing"
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:00 AM on November 25, 2020