It’s insanely expensive and you have to buy all the accessories (which you will need anyway). But if you are willing to put 500€ on the table, it has the potential to change your life.
You can’t and shouldn’t compare it to an iPad or other tablet. If you want a tablet, you should buy a tablet, not the reMarkable.
It combines the advantages of writing on paper with the flexibility of writing on a computer. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. In my humble opinion, the reMarkable offers the best of both worlds.
The flexibility that comes with writing on the PC
As I mostly have a thousand thoughts in my head, writing on a computer enables me to quickly erase, copy, restructure, resize those thoughts. A sheet of paper cannot offer me this kind of quick flexibility and structure.
More creativity and clarity of thought on paper
To be honest, I didn’t write that much on paper before (because I simply hate the clutter of notes and prefer to keep them nicely organized in my digital folders). Still, I missed it as it feels so liberating to get all 1000 current thoughts out of my head. Writing by hand and without a fixed structure supports my thought process to a greater extent. I feel immensely more free after doing it (whether in a professional context during a design sprint or in private journaling). It also helps my creativity enormously and I feel much fewer limits and first write down what comes to mind and then form my idea on the next page of the notebook and then refine it on the next page again…. This way I have the process, but without the paper chaos. I now hand write almost all of my notes.
Ebooks: reading, marking, taking notes
I love marking and taking notes in books. This way I can remember much better what the book was about when I return to it at a later time. I feel at home in my books and want to have a look from time to time. However, when I’m on vacation or in the office, I often don’t have the book at hand when I need it. But I’d love to have my little library of favorite books with me at all times. That’s why I tend to read e-books, because it’s convenient to have them with me all the time. However, I haven’t found a good way to mark and save passages in ebooks yet as I also have X different vendors für my ebooks and totally lost track.
Less distractions and screen time = more digital wellbeing and focus
I often use my phone in the evening as I feel the need to be productive: I have to quickly answer the last emails and WhatsApp messages, and so on. However, I get distracted by my phone insanely quickly and get caught up in the endless swirl of Instagram. Sure, I could switch my phone to airplane mode….But this thought always comes to me when I’ve already spent 30 minutes on Instagram — which I personally find very fun and entertaining, but still somehow a waste of time. How many books would I have finished if I’d rather been reading instead of scrolling through Instagram? Now when I start reading in the evening, I turn off my phone and put it in a completely different place. And don’t turn it back on until I finish my morning routine (including the 3 morning pages in my ReMarkable journal). Also, I mark all the exciting blog articles during the day and then can read them on the reMarkable in the evening (without annoying ads, pictures and co) instead of searching for them on my phone or laptop.
Scribble on “paper” and have it seamlessly available on your computer
As a UX researcher, I have to scribble something from time to time. It’s fun, but I’m really bad at it. The remarkable thing motivates me to keep practicing, because luckily I can undo any step. Also, I have my scribbles that I need for a design sprint synced directly to the PC and I can share and discuss them with my team.
