Have you heard of reMarkable?

It’s an e-reader and tablet rolled into a single device. The whole purpose is to increase your productivity and creativity by encouraging you to move away from technology and go back to paper. The goal is to give the feel of paper without it actually being paper.

The concept of reMarkable is mind blowing

As an individual who is attempting to live more of a minimalistic and greener lifestyle, this product is amazing. I have over ten sketchbooks, notebooks, and paper clutter in my home office and workplace. I have a habit of overspending on office supplies such as pens, markers, coloring pencils, and more. With this device, I remove the need to constantly be purchasing notebooks, sketchbooks, and more.

While this device does not completely eliminate the need for sketchbooks, it does free me from making impulse purchases on ‘cute’ notebooks and stationary products.

My history with reMarkable

I heard about the reMarkable in the year of 2017, it was close to the end of the year and I stumbled across an advertisement about it on Instagram. I instantly connected with the product and decided that since it was on an early bird sale, I’d purchase it for myself as a Christmas present.

It took months for the product to get in my hands, but that’s the nature of ordering something new and on a pre-sale. This is why projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo get a bad rep sometimes due to long wait times for ‘investors’ to get their merchandise. I however didn’t mind the wait, life went on and I knew that someday my package would arrive in the mail.

When it did arrive I was ecstatic. Who wouldn’t be when receiving a new item in the mail and especially when it’s a shiny new piece of tech. I was incredibly impressed with the packaging the reMarkable was in and even recorded myself doing n ‘unboxing’ of sorts with it.

I used it eagerly for the next couple of weeks, uploading my ebooks on it, taking notes on it, and doodling with it.

Then… time passed

Like most ‘new’ things, the novelty of the reMarkable tablet went away. After a friend’s child had utterly destroyed the nibs of my reMarkable pen, I just put it away in a bag and didn’t use it… For months.

That was until reMarkable sent me an email and reminded me that their product existed.

That email came around the time I became more and more serious about my ‘greener’ lifestyle and I decided to give my reMarkable tablet a second chance. After all I had paid a lot to buy it so I might as well use it.

What’s Remarkable about reMarkable

The “latency” is really good, which in English means that the pen writing on the tablet feels natural. While nothing can 100% compare to writing on paper, reMarkable gets it 85%
It’s a lightweight and good eBook. Reading on it feels great since there’s no bright blue backlight that strains your eyes. Plus, even I can read with it using only one hand - and I’m a 80-something pound lightweight.
It syncs with your desktop and iPhone (not too sure about Android devices), which is great since I can enjoy reading it on the big screen.
It can export your notebooks and eBooks into PDFs, which can come handy. You can also easily import PDFs and eBooks into it as well.
Lastly, it just started incorporating handwriting recognition. Currently this feature is only available in portrait mode, but the ability to turn your handwriting into text is excellent!

What’s Unremarkable about reMarkable

Drawing and sketching is not that great. The eraser is what ruins the experience. Doodles are okay
Gradients and achieving various shades of gray is inconvenient and this is further increased by your eraser having an ‘all or nothing’ way of behaving.
Loading times between turning pages is not great. This is something that most devices that lack backlighting deal with and takes getting used to. It’s not a long wait, but in this time and age it’s mildly frustrating
The battery life isn’t THAT great. That could be due to my model being older, but I wish I didn’t have to have it plugged in all the time.

Interested in reMarkable?

If you are interested in learning more about reMarkable, please let me know. I could write more about my experiences with the tablet and even share the way I use it to increase my productivity on a daily basis.

If you are interested in purchasing your own reMarkable, then feel free to use my link to get $100 OFF. It’s pricy and any little bit helps.