This isn’t a tech blog by any means, but when tech is good enough to carry everyday, I am happy to write about it. I recently purchased a reMarkable 2 (I am not typing the wordmark out every time, its annoying), a so-called “Paper Tablet,” and I have been impressed. This is an unscored review of the Remarkable 2 (I have no scoring system for tech or, more specifically, paper tablets).

Here is the product page. There are two versions of the Remarkable, the Remarkable 2 and the Remarkable Pro. The 2 uses the same e-Ink display that a Kindle does, while the Pro uses a color e-Ink display. There have been issues with the color version. It is also significantly more expensive (2: $399 and Pro: $700). Here is a written review of the Remarkable 2. Here is a video review. Here is my review sample (purchased with my own money and mine to keep):

TDLR: For the right person, the Remarkable 2 is a game-changing tool. If you aren’t that person, you will mistakenly think it is a nerfed iPad.

Like with pens, I tried to a very brief written review. Here it is:

I use the Remarkable 2 for two primary things: notetaking and discovery review. Discovery is a legal term for information provided by the other side or investigators in the lead up to a case going to trial or a hearing. Now discovery often includes video and audio, but at its core, discovery in the kinds of cases I do is still written documents. My law partner and I are trial lawyers. We do mostly criminal work with some civil rights work and personal injury cases too, and all of those cases still rely, primarily, on written documents. The other material that I review is interview or testimony transcripts.

As a notetaking device the Remarkable 2 is really strong. While most folks are okay clacking away at a keyboard, there is still something intimate, discrete, and compelling about handwritten notes. I can take notes and not lose much, if anything of what is said, without the distracting click, click, click of typing. If you would like to see an overview of my notetaking method, developed over 22 years of working as a lawyer, click here. The system converts over quite easily to the Remarkable 2.

The other thing that I do with my Remarkable 2 is reviewing paper discovery. Most criminal cases have a few police reports. As I have started to do more complex cases, the amount of discovery has increased dramatic, including written discovery. As a discovery review tool the Remarkable 2 has all of the benefits of the eye-pleasing e-Ink display. It allows for searching and notation as well. The entire package works wonderfully.

The first day I had it, I plowed through hundreds of pages, making notes and processing information. I did so while sitting in an Adirondack chair in my backyard around my fire pit. It was a glorious spring day in New England and I had some camp food and sunshine while drilling down on a big case. It was a perfect use case for the Remarkable 2 and showed me that the notetaking is only half of what the device does well.

Design

With a very slim, minimal, almost inscrutable design, the Remarkable 2 is a very appeal piece of tech. I wanted it to allow me to take notes quickly and simply and powering up this, plugging into that, and connecting to this network all take time and distract from the goal of taking notes. The integration with the folio cover is magnetic and the cover is nice. Together the package feels substantial and useful. Its thin enough to not be a problem but thick enough and substantial enough that you won’t lose it. I will say that I wish the folio had a pen loop as I have had the pen pop off twice, once in a panic inducing way. This is a little nit to pick, but the magnets aren’t super strong and when the folio is on and something brushes the side of the Remarkable with the pen it will likely pop it off. I have figured out how to carry it better now so this doesn’t happen, but a pen loop would be nice.

Build Quality

The entire Remarkable product line is incredible—the device itself is impossibly slim, the folios are nice (my law partner has the other version), and the upgraded pen works well. The pen itself combined with the texture on the Remarkable’s screen is so good at simulating writing with pencil that I occasionally brush away eraser bits when I erase writing. Old habits die hard, especially when the kit is so well made that it tricks your brain and hand. Compared to something like a Kindle, it feels a bit more staid, more Mac than iPad.

Carry

The Remarkable is thin. Here is next to a 1/4 inch sheet of plywood.

Even with its folio, which should just be part of the package—charging for it makes the Remarkable feel like a piece of widgetized tech instead of a high end work tool (my Festool stuff comes with a useful container for free, while my Makita stuff does not), its only marginally thicker than the USB-C port on the bottom left hand side of the device. The Remarkable is dense but not so large that it will weigh you down, ever. It replaces a huge stack of papers with a thin, slick device.

Ease of Use

This is a device that can, if need be, powered up and used immediately, no lessons or exploration required. Once you find the button to turn it on (top lefthand side), using the Remarkable is no more difficult to use than a pad of paper. But, with a very little bit of exploration, which, frankly, is my favorite part of a new device, the Remarkable offers tons of features all that work just as I would have imagined them to work when I learned what they were. Sending notes is easy. Adding sheets to a document is a breeze. Downloading large files is no problem at all. Nothing about the Remarkable is tricky or challenging, though downloading a file from the cloud is the only way to get larger files (more than 100MB) on the device.

Writing Performance

The Remarkable is VERY close to the experience of writing on paper with a pencil. Probably 95-99% there. Compared to a fine fountain pen, it is not quite as good a simulacrum. As the written note above indicates, I think it is probably about 80% of the experience. To get there though I have had to tweak the basic settings, opting for a fountain pen writing experience, with a medium nib width, and black instead of gray output. In that one mode with those specific settings, the experience is at its best for those that appreciate a good pen-and-paper experience.

Compared to other tablets, specifically the iPad, this is orders of magnitude better. If I were to compare the iPad to genuine writing, I would say it is around 1% of the experience. So, as you can see, the 80% number is a real accomplishment. It is the difference between hating the notetaking experience and loving it. I look for excuses to use the Remarkable 2, whereas I avoided the iPad notetaking experience like squirrel roadkill while on a walk.

Tech Integration

One of the promises of the Remarkable 2 is seamless and unobtrusive integration of tech. I can state with certainty that they hit the balance just right. Lots of companies designing tech are tempted to take the “Swiss Army Knife” approach. The chipsets now are better than ever before. Lots of formats—Blutooth and USB-C—are standardized. And people, thanks to smartphones, have a facility with multi-purpose devices. It used to be that there was a performance tradeoff for the SAK approach, but now there isn’t. Devices can really do everything you want. But there is a problem with this approach and the Remarkable 2 is a solution. If you have the technical capacity to do everything at once, given the pace of life (which has increased a staggering amount in the last 150 years, so much so that humans were really something of a different species in the 1860s), you will be tempted to do that. And then your life becomes a never ending cycle of emails and texts and notifications and emergencies and updates and blah, blah, blah. With these devices it is exceedingly difficult to focus.

Thanks to a one way email system and easy but minimal cloud integration, all of these distractions are gone. That day in the sun in my backyard, I fell into the discovery like a good book (it helps that I am not a trust and estates or an IP lawyer—no amount of distraction-free time could make that dreadful mental cardboard interesting). It was only after processing hundreds of page and the blink of an eye passage of time did I realize that I had been reading for four hours. And this isn’t the only time that has happened. A few days later, I took the Remarkable to an outdoor track meet and again I feel into discovery, so much so that my wife had to nudge me to let me know my son’s race was about to start.

Sending notes via email is a breeze, making that process much less time consuming and costly for my business. Dropping files via the cloud is a few clicks. Remarkable wisely focused on the device as a funnel for information as opposed to a firehose.

Quick aside—I think about this metaphor a lot when working: is this device, process, person, or experience a funnel, a firehose, or a magnifying glass? The funnel takes information and squeezes it down to a small stream (a legal secretary is another example of a funnel). The firehose lets everything pass through (your smartphone is the archetypical firehose). The magnifying glass takes a small area of information and expands it (this site is a magnifying glass). Being a lawyer requires a funnel, at least one. There is simply too much coming at you at once. End aside.

As a result, its a better device than it would be otherwise. I didn’t buy it to be hobbled iPad. I bought it to take notes and review discovery. And the tech integration here, both the amount of integration and the processes themselves, is perfect.

Conclusion: Highly Recommended

Its not just that the Remarkable 2 is good at what it does. It is so good that it will encourage you to use it more than you would the paper it replaces. As someone that takes notes everyday, this is a huge plus. It is also a work saver. Instead of scanning notes and adding their PDFs to my case management system, I can just email them. Using it to review discovery is a dream—thousands or tens of thousands of pages—are easy to access and manipulable. And, unlike in the old days where that would require boxes of material, everything is available in one slim, light, neat design.

Here is the ultimate proof of the Remarkable 2’s power: I billed more in hours using it the first day I got it than it cost. This is a device that would do better if we had a more in-person marketplace for electronics. I was sold on it once I saw someone use it, but reading reviews and watching videos doesn’t really sell the product the way that it needs. This is not a hobbled iPad, but a different device despite the similar form factor.

That’s incredible for a tool that is not required, but simply a better version of an existing tool. It is so good at what it does that I want to use it ALL THE TIME. The biggest problem I have with the Remarkable 2 is this—what do I do with all my nice pens? That’s a joke, of course. I still need pens, but for work notes, which have been a hassle to organize and catalog, I am pen free.

Amazon Link

Remarkable 2