Tablets are great and all, especially for reading or staying productive on the fly, but one thing they don’t work as well for is note-taking and doodling. Yes, while there are a number of apps that allow your stylus to take notes or sketch to stay awake during a meeting, it doesn’t quite have the same effect as an actual notebook.
That is something which the reMarkable’s E Ink tablet was looking to change by recreating the feeling of working on a piece of paper, yet still serve as a tablet. It was an ambitious idea that didn’t prove too popular as people found it to be too bulky, had sluggish performance, featured problematic software and was not quite a successful replacement to the traditional notepad and pen.
The company is back though with a new E Ink pad, the Remarkable 2.0 (via The Verge) that they hope addresses all those issues with a newer, faster dual-core processor, software that has been updated and new features, including a new Google Chrome plugin that will offer a Pocket-esque service where you can send articles from the internet to read later on the tablet. Importantly, the design is also thinner with reMarkable claiming that the new tablet is the slimmest in the world.
I guess the proof will be in the pudding once they actually get this thing out to people and see if this new take on a digital notepad will be able to replace the typical paper alternative. One thing they are doing right though is with the price, as the new remarkable 2 will launch at a cost of $399, more than $100 less than the price of the first one, which includes a pressure-sensitive pen and cover. It’s a good improvement, though still a high cost for a tablet that essentially does very little else.
Last Updated: March 19, 2020
