reMarkable's new Paper Pro tablet brings the company's vision of combining PC and paper closer to reality, adding color and functionality while keeping the same philosophy of focus.
The Norwegian company is something of an unlikely success story. In an age where devices are packed with more and more features, reMarkable's approach of doing a few things well seems almost black-and-white, almost self-defeating. But despite the current, the company has grown, self-financed and thrived without relying on venture capital, something most startups can't do.
With the first reMarkable tablet, the company established the philosophy of focusing on one document at a time and reading and writing on the device like paper. With the reMarkable 2, the device has been significantly improved and streamlined, making writing much more responsive in particular.
The $499 Paper Pro is a step up from the current $379 reMarkable 2 — a new naming scheme that indicates it's not a direct successor — and it's groundbreaking in that it adds both color and a “front light,” though both features are what you'd call modest.
We've received a device for review and will have a review (and our own photos) to share in due course, as well as more technical details in a separate article on the hardware, but for now, here's the gist of what's new with the reMarkable:
Oreo and Skittles
Image credit: reMarkable
Color e-paper devices have yet to convince me that their features are worth the trade-off: if you compare a color to a black and white Kobo e-reader, for example, it's clear to anyone that the color version is inferior for everyday reading, and color content, while passable, is far inferior to what you'll see on a regular screen.
Mats Herding, hardware lead at reMarkable, explained it succinctly: On a reflective screen like e-paper, a pixel is like a glass of milk with an Oreo submerged in it. When the cookie is below the surface the pixel is white(ish), when the cookie rises to the surface it's black. Typically color is added by putting an RGB filter on top so that the white pixels get colored, but this also affects the resolution and contrast.
What they did, Harding explains, was dump a ton of Skittles (American type, rainbow flavors) into milk, and then they could pop Oreos or red Skittles or green Skittles or whatever onto the surface without losing any resolution or clarity.
The colors are still muted, and I wouldn't hesitate to use this device to read comics, but the purpose of adding color is to expand the interactive and creative options. Whereas previously you were limited to black and white, you can now highlight, circle, take notes, and sketch in several different colors (they blend together, but pure colors look best).
Anyone who works with text and mixed media on a daily basis knows how limiting it can be to work with only one color. At the very least, using a highlighter for important passages and a ballpoint pen for notes increases clarity. The team at reMarkable was careful to take inspiration from real-world examples, so the software now supports the ability to quickly switch between two pens, just like a professor or editor would when marking up a story.
In theory, this is a liberating feature for anyone wanting to edit or mark up any document — design proposals, pitch decks, article layouts, books, etc. — but it felt limited by the device's achromatic predecessor.
Light, stylus, (active)
Image credit: reMarkable
Apart from the above, the writing experience remains superficially unchanged, but ask Harding and you'll get a detailed account of just how challenging it was to simultaneously add color and frontlighting, increase the screen size, and further improve on an already standard pen/writing experience.
He emphasized that they didn't want to compromise on anything, so they had to develop everything pretty much from scratch (the only exception being weight, which had to sacrifice something). Just as filter-based color was not an option, existing front-light and stylus tracking technology were also not an option.
The new front light is not intended to overcome ambient light, but is a replacement for lighting the screen, not a light itself, and is locked into a specific color temperature range, as changing too much would result in altered color casts.
That might sound limiting, but in reality, my experience with e-reader frontlights has been that you just pick a temperature and a minimum brightness or two and stick to it. The reMarkable Paper Pro's screen is a little cooler than I like for reading books, but for virtual paper it makes sense.
There's a new active stylus that works in sync with the screen, giving you a response time of under 20 milliseconds to draw a line as you write. That's above the inflection point of about 25-30 milliseconds that feels adequate and still seems a clear improvement. The pen doesn't have a charging port, so it only stores power by sticking it on the side of the tablet. It's more expensive, though, so be careful not to lose it; I nearly lost it within about two hours of getting my review unit.
Finally, a truly ready-to-go type deck?
Image credit: reMarkable
One of the reMarkable 2's more aspirational than functional features is its typing capability. I'm a writer who keeps procrastinating until I have the perfect device specifically for writing (the general lack of devices on the market has led people to resort to making their own “type decks”), so I was excited about this, but when reMarkable's otherwise well-made keyboard case debuted last year, I ended up feeling a bit underwhelmed.
Thankfully, rather than leaving the feature as a vestige, the company has doubled down on it, with a new typing case for Paper Pro and a reworked typing/mixed-media experience that takes into account the quirky and complex needs of writers: selecting text, copying and pasting, writing in the margins, etc. In other words, it's really high-tech. There are dedicated keys for switching between sketching and highlighting, as well as editor-type actions like select and shift.
I've only very briefly tested the new Paper Pro as a typing deck (I received the device over the long weekend, with the announcement coming shortly after), but I'm optimistic this time around. Letters look better, there are more inline options, and the interface is more robust, allowing you to actually edit your work. The keyboard itself has also been improved, though I haven't had time to compare it directly with the original (again, review coming soon).
The new reMarkable tablet is still a tough sell in many ways. As I had hoped, the company hasn't identified several services, such as Pocket, Notes, and others, as sync partners. Users still have to live and work within the reMarkable ecosystem and export to those apps and services. But reMarkable has improved and sped up that process.
But this isn't some perverse desire to cultivate a walled garden, but a legitimate rejection of what the company sees outside its walls: The whole idea of the reMarkable device is that it's not always connected, that it doesn't notify, that you interact and create rather than just consume. There's no app for that. If you want that, you can just get a laptop or an iPad, which you probably already have.
But if the idea of a more focused digital creative experience appeals to you, the Paper Pro is a big step up. Is it worth the $500-plus price tag (or closer to $900 if you add the Marker Plus and keyboard case)? If it helps me finish a few of the dozens of stories swirling around in my head, then for me it's an easy “yes” (but that's probably a personal question). But the lack of support for YouTube, Spotify, etc. will quickly get others to say “no.”
The company has found enough buyers (and those who subscribe to its Connect data syncing service) to survive and thrive in a crowded device market. With improvements to Paper Pro, this trend is likely to continue, but most of the time, people like me would rather use the device than actually use it. I'll try to change that in the coming weeks.