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REVIEW

reMarkable 2

Issue: 22.6 (November/December 2024)
Author: Marc Zeedar
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 11,403
Starting Page Number: 12
Article Number: 22602
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I love gadgets, notebooks, and the digitalization of data. Thus, the idea behind reMarkable greatly appealed to me. It's a new large-format E-ink tablet with a custom operating system that features a no-battery pen that writes as if on paper, handwriting recognition, a keyboard folio for typing, and a cloud syncing service so that all your reMarkable notes show up on your phone and other devices (see Figures 1 and 2).

The idea is that you can mix handwriting, sketches, and typed text all in the same document. You get the benefits of digital with the feel of note-taking on paper.

Though I have had iPads with Apple Pencils for years, I've never gotten into the habit of using them for note-taking. That's partly because my handwriting is poor (I literally got into typewriters and computers to avoid having to handwrite), but I now realize it's also because I don't really take handwritten notes!

As a Xojo developer and writer, I thought a tablet like reMarkable would be great for sketching out app ideas and notes for writing projects. Using pure text to describe your app's structure or user interface is a struggle, but being able to combine text with sketches in one document is amazing. It really does work well.

Writing and drawing with the included pen is as close to writing on paper as I've ever experienced. There's minimal lag, every detail is transmitted and digitized, and it's wonderful. The built-in handwriting recognition actually made sense of my hen-scratches that I couldn't read myself (see Figure 3)!

There's obviously been a lot of work put into creating a reMarkable ecosystem: the tablet lets you organize your documents into folders and has a search function; you can import files from various cloud services such as Dropbox; and there are companion mobile and desktop apps so that you can share your notes across platforms (see Figure 4 and 5).

This is where the service falters, however. E-ink, by its nature, is slightly slow in terms of refreshing the screen. While I had no issues with writing and taking notes, scrolling through documents, moving files around, and other organizational tasks feel like a slog. You have to wait for the device to catch up.

I had hoped to use reMarkable for reading ebooks, especially large-format graphic novels that are difficult to read on a smaller screen. I was not impressed. Despite the tablet's large size, text in comic panels was still too small to read, and zooming in was a nightmare. After hours of use, I still could not get reMarkable to consistently zoom in where I wanted. Panning around while zoomed in didn't work either. It was incredibly slow and very frustrating.

For regular books, the large size is nice, and the reading experience isn't bad, but reMarkable isn't designed as an ebook reader and doesn't have even the basic features of a Kindle. For instance, you have very limited control over font sizes and appearance.

Highlighting text was wonderful with the included pen—just like using a highlighter on a paper book. But then I discovered a horrible limitation when I changed the text size of my book. Making the font larger moved all the page breaks, and my highlights did not move with their associated text, remaining in their original locations and now marking the wrong text!

While I love the thinness of the tablet (just a few millimeters), reMarkable 2 does not have a backlit screen, and I occasionally found it difficult to read. I had to turn on a reading light, just like with a paper book. That created some glare if the tablet was at the wrong angle, and I found that frustrating as I had to constantly tilt it just right in order to read. I've never had that issue with any of my backlit Kindles.

(There is the new reMarkable Paper Pro, which has a color screen that is apparently better, but I didn't feel like spending $200 more just for that.)

Another aspect of reMarkable I wanted to try was drawing. I can't really draw (though I have ambitions), and I was intrigued by how much better reMarkable felt than my iPad. Sketching feels so much more natural, and I don't get the interference of my palm.

That said, the reMarkable's drawing software is minimal to non-existent. The cheapest iPad drawing app offers ten times more features. While it's not terrible, I constantly ran into basic features that weren't available, which made drawing more frustrating. In short, it's fine for rough sketching, but you can't use this for serious art.

"Limitations" is the theme with reMarkable: there's neat stuff, but everything is restricted and only works one way. For instance, you can move drawings around, but not text. When you convert handwriting to text, the handwriting is removed. I suppose one could get used to things and eventually learn the reMarkable way, but I found it irritating.

None of these flaws alone would be dealbreakers, but the real problem with reMarkable is all the software. On-device, the note-taking is finicky.

For instance, you can draw anywhere, but typed text is only permitted in certain places on the page. Wide margins are enforced, and headlines only go in specific locations. That drives me nuts. I can see some sense to this restriction in terms of creating consistency between notes, but for a creative person, it's frustrating.

Unfortunately, that's only the start of the problems. While you can import documents from various cloud services (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.), there is no batch function. You have to bring in each file one at a time. That's not great for importing my thousands of ebooks!

One workaround for this is to use the Mac desktop app, which lets you drag a bunch of files in at once, but the service took so long to sync and offered no feedback that I thought it was broken. I tried multiple times, and 30 minutes later, I ended up with many duplicate files that were a pain to delete one by one.

Also, because you have to import rather than edit in place, you now end up with two copies: one on your original cloud source and one on reMarkable that you might have edited.

Speaking of the associated apps—they need serious work. While I'm glad they exist, they seem more like someone checking a box to show they have them rather than being useful products.

They only offer syncing if you sign up for reMarkable's $3/month "Connect" service. Otherwise, your content is read-only on the mobile device. My assumption was that I could edit my files just as well on my iPad or Mac, so I wouldn't need to pay for reMarkable's hardware keyboard. Sadly, they have crippled the apps (either intentionally or out of disinterest) so much that the mobile/desktop editing aspect is dismal. You can type, but that's about it. The app experience feels like the most primitive editor from 1998, not a modern word processor. And there are terribly obvious bugs.

A red flag for me was that on my iPad, the arrow keys to move the cursor work in reverse. I kid you not: pressing the right arrow moves the text cursor to the left, and the left arrow moves the cursor to the right. This is such a shocking bug that it shows how little the company cares about these apps—and right there I knew I was going to return this tablet.

I also discovered that the iPad won't let me use my Apple Pencil to draw. Why? This strikes me as an artificial limitation designed to force me to use reMarkable's hardware. If my notes consist of a mix of text and drawings, it is essential that I be able to edit both on other devices!

That really is the crux of the whole matter. While reMarkable's pen and hardware are amazing, it's a one-trick pony. The company sells this device as better than a traditional tablet because there are fewer distractions with no email and app support, but the truth is that unless you are a serious note-taking person, reMarkable is too limited for most people. It's expensive compared to an iPad that can do everything the reMarkable can and a lot more.

Sure, reMarkable 2 has weeks of battery life, but I don't my iPad for 24 hours at a time, so charging it overnight has never been an issue. I don't see battery life as a huge advantage.

Ultimately, like with a lot of hardware these days, we come down to the cliche that it should have been an app. If reMarkable's app would let me draw with my iPad's Pencil and use it just like on their own tablet, I'd be happy to pay for the monthly service. They clearly don't want that, however, and block iPad drawing. That's a sign that even they don't believe their hardware is good enough to compete.

I really wanted to love reMarkable. If the product were half the price, I might keep it for occasional use. But at more than the cost of a base iPad with a fraction of its usefulness, I decline.

One great thing about reMarkable is that they give you a free 100-day trial. If you're intrigued and do more handwritten notes than me, you might give it a risk-free trial. However, for me, I shall soon see how well they honor their return policy.

End of article.