Though Amazon’s hardware is arguably superior (and definitely more affordable), we definitely wanted software that was closer to what was available on the reMarkable 2 tablet.
And now reMarkable (the company) is out with a new reMarkable (the tablet), one that attempts to catch up with and surpass Amazon’s hardware while still keeping the focus on writing.
Where most color e-readers use E Ink’s Kaleido technology, which offers faster page refresh times but relatively dull, washed-out color, the reMarkable Paper Pro uses E Ink Gallery, which has richer color reproduction at the expense of refresh speed.
When writing, you get the responsiveness and fluidity of the Apple Pencil Pro, but on a textured E Ink screen with a very paper-like amount of resistance.
Here, there’s really no discernible delay between when your pen hits the screen and when “ink” appears, whereas the Scribe and reMarkable 2 do have a small delay.
When the Kindle Scribe was first released in late 2022, our primary criticism of it at the time—which is still largely valid today—was that it felt more like a large e-reader with writing capabilities added than a tablet made with note-taking and writing in mind. Even though Amazon’s hardware is undoubtedly better (and more reasonably priced), we really preferred software that was more akin to that found on the reMarkable 2 tablet.
While it does support EPUB and PDF documents, the reMarkable 2 is primarily focused on the creation and organization of notes in multiple formats, and doesn’t bother with e-reader features. Presently, reMarkable (the company) has released a new tablet, reMarkable, which aims to compete with and outperform Amazon’s hardware while maintaining the emphasis on writing.
Creating is enjoyable.
A slight weight gain and an increase in display size to an 11-point 8-inch screen (from the reMarkable 2’s 10 point 3-inch display), along with the addition of a front light and color e-ink support, make the new $579 reMarkable Paper Plus an improvement over the original design. The reMarkable Paper Pro uses E Ink Gallery, which has richer color reproduction at the expense of refresh speed, as opposed to the majority of color e-readers, which use E Ink’s Kaleido technology, which offers faster page refresh times but relatively dull, washed-out color.
The new Marker accessory is also an active pen now, instead of an electromagnetic resonance (EMR) pen; like the newer Apple Pencils, it has a small battery that is charged by magnetically attaching the Marker to the side of the tablet. Other minor quality-of-life improvements improve the writing experience; there is slightly less space between the surface of the “paper” and the tip of the pen, and writing latency has been nearly halved, from 21 ms to 12 msdot.
We found this out when we attempted to use the Kindle Scribe’s EMR pen on the reMarkable Paper Pro and when we attempted to use the new Marker to doodle on the screen of the device. Regretfully, you do lose compatibility with the larger range of EMR accessories.
But in return, whether you’re talking about the latest iPads from Apple or older reMarkable tablets like the Scribe, Microsoft’s Surface Pro, or Microsoft, you get a digital pen experience that is more like writing with a pen on paper than anything else I’ve tried. Writing on a textured E-ink screen with resistance that is almost identical to paper gives you the same responsiveness and fluidity as the Apple Pencil Pro.
The Scribe and reMarkable 2 have a slight delay between when your pen touches the screen and when “ink” appears, but here there’s really no noticeable lag at all. We observed two scenarios where there were more delays in our usage. One was when writing in color; after you finish writing something, you can see the text blink once or twice as the drawing you just finished gets merged into the rest of the note you are working on. When you use the Scribe’s highlighter feature, you see something similar, even though it’s happening in grayscale. It is primarily a visual pause, though, and doesn’t really impede using the tablet for very long.
We observed lag in two more obvious places: when we annotated or wrote on something with a dark background as opposed to a white one. This was the only instance, for whatever reason, where we really saw a noticeable delay between touching the Marker to the screen and seeing lines appear. Although we didn’t encounter this frequently, it’s important to remember.
The more notable functional hiccups are all things that users of any E-ink device should be fairly accustomed to: delays in responding to finger presses on the screen, pauses while the tablet draws menus, and generally having to wait for full-screen refreshes. It is not as fluid as even an iPad entry-level model. However, that’s always the trade-off with E-ink screens; if it makes the device feel less like a contemporary computer, that’s something you either actively prefer or don’t mind. E-ink screens are meant to look and feel more like paper.
