Two weeks ago, I picked up a Remarkable 2 tablet. I went to Best Buy and tried out the writing feel and was sold. It felt just like writing on a piece of paper.
TL/DR: I love the writing feel. This is NOT an iPad and does not have the apps and integration like an iPad. I wish it were backlit.
How I’m using it:
- Digital planning
- Over the last few months, work has gotten a little crazy and I haven’t kept up with digital planning. What that means to me is that my system I was using was not working. I shifted to making my own .pdfs for planning and don’t have them hyperlinked. I drop them in as I need them. This week, because I have so many big things coming up, I made daily pages so I can plan out when to squeeze work in. This is an example from the weekend as I can’t share any work details. I also made my own weekly recap page with things that make sense for me to want to recap on.
- Reading
- Here’s an example of the font I’ve started using for my books in both the Kindle and now on the Remarkable (thank you Calibre app!). This font is awesome of my ADHD brain and somehow keeps me from hopping around on the pages with bolding of the first letters. The screen is not backlit so I can’t read at night with this one.
- Note taking
- I have been loving this for taking all my notes at work. There are quite a few templates that are preloaded so that I can choose what kind of paper I want for that day for writing on.
The good:
- The paper feel is amazing!
- The pen erases with the back end – this seems silly but my Apple Pencil doesn’t do that and it’s a nice, intuitive feature
- The size is great and it’s thin.
- I bought a cheap case off Amazon that helps keep the pen attached
The not so good:
This was an expensive purchase. It also hasn’t been updated in about 4 years? So I’m worried a Remarkable 3 might come out that fixes that challenges I mention below and I will have just dumped a bunch of money into this one. It is probably too expensive for what it is…
One of the features I was excited about is the ability to read ebooks on it. It’s great to have everything in one place, but I do wish the tablet was backlit. I want to be able to read my books (like I do with my Kindle) in bed without any other lights on.. so this will not replace my Kindle.
There are a couple of other things that could use improvement. The menu on the left side sometimes interferes with my writing space, which can be a bit annoying. Also, the screen refresh can be a little laggy, and navigating or zooming around a page isn’t as smooth as I’d like—it can be frustrating at times.
They also make you pay a (low..) fee every month to be able to integrate with their app. This is essential for me since I use it to take notes for work. I export the jpeg and plop it into my One Note. If this integrated with OneNote directly – oh man, that would be a game changer.
This post has some good images and more details for their review.