I’ve never been much of a notetaker, right through my school years and carrying through to my professional life. I’ve always taken pride on my ability to keep a pretty good mental note of any key things that I have to remember, but as I hit my 30s, that’s definitely changing.
Whilst I’ve had an iPad and an Apple Pencil for quite a while now, I’ve often only used it for sketching and drawing plans rather than taking notes, due to the fact that I’ve find myself getting distracted by notifications and also whilst the handwriting experience on iPad has gotten better, it definitely doesn’t replicate the pen on paper experience, and that’s where the ReMarkable 2 comes in.
Where the ReMarkable 2 excels above the iPad in my opinion is the fact that it feels like you’re writing or drawing on paper, thanks to the ReMarkable 2’s canvas display. Whilst there’s a tad more latency than on iPad, it’s just a genuine joy to write on.
It’s got a 10.3-inch monochromatic digital paper display with a 226 DPI resolution. One of its biggest strengths is the fact that it’s literally 4.7mm thick and only 403 grams in weight which means it’s super easy to put into your backpack without any extra weight. It’s worth mentioning that there is no backlight, so if you’re wanting to use this in bed with a lamp, you may struggle, but I personally never found this to be an issue.
@alwaysonaus The ReMarkable 2 is 10-inch e-ink tablet that is perfect for taking notes and drawing. #tech #techtok #tablet #remarkable2 #remarkablepaper #remarkable
Using the Marker or Marker Plus (which has an eraser at the top), you’re able to use a number of tools including a ballpoint pen, fine liner, marker, pencil, mechanical pencil or paintbrush, and get different results depending on what pressure you’re using.
The ReMarkable 2’s user interface is pretty intuitive regardless of whether you’re navigating it with your marker or by using your finger with the multi-touch display. You’re able to easily sort your notes into notebooks, folders or quick notes if you’re just quickly wanting to scribble something down.
There’s also a number of templates ranging anywhere from ruled pages, to storyboard templates and extremely helpful things like to-do lists with check boxes, which are not only super useful, but actually made me think of different ways that I’d use this device that I hadn’t thought of otherwise.
The user interface can be a little bit slow, and because this is an e-ink display, if you’re erasing certain things, they can stay on the screen until you flip pages, but for the most part, everything works as expected and is really seamless, which is super important for a device focused on productivity like this.
My hand-writing is absolutely atrocious, so I was doubtful that the text to hand-writing conversion would work, but it managed to pickup every word and present it on a nice seperate slide for me, which really takes the usefulness to the next level, as I’d hate to be referring to my own scribble for important notes.
The device does a fantastic job of syncing your notes to Google Drive, Dropbox or One Drive, or it’ll pair nicely with the ReMarkable app on your computer or mobile device, pulling across any of the notes you’ve taken, with the ability to continue adding typed notes coming soon.
You’re also able to import in any PDFs to the ReMarkable app and mark them up on your device, and there’s also a Google Chrome extension that lets you bookmark any website and either read it on your device or mark it up on the go as well.
Battery live on the ReMarkable 2 is rated for up to two weeks of use, or three months in standby, and mines gotten a good workout in these first few weeks of the year and hasn’t needed to be charged yet.
If you’re an office worker or uni student that is in a lot of meetings or lectures and need to take a lot of notes, then the ReMarkable 2 is an easy recommendation, but where you might hit a snag is the price. You’re paying $499 for the device, $119-$199 for a marker and at least $100 for a folio, so you’re getting well toward iPad territory if not past it.
Whilst I absolutely recommend this for note taking ahead of the iPad, it is a big pill to swallow at $600-800 for a device that can only do note taking, where as an iPad can obviously act as a fully functioning multimedia device.
