Paper Circuit

You would think that naming a product "Remarkable" is almost setting it up for ridicule. But it's not very often that a gadget so perfectly fits the job it's meant to do that it lives up to its name. Indeed, having used the Remarkable writing and reading tablet for over three years now, I can assure you that it is one of those gadgets.

I bought the Remarkable tablet when it launched back in Oct 2017. I have been using it daily since then. It has completely transformed my note-taking and book-reading — to the point that I have donated all my beautiful paper notebooks, Field Notes, Bullet Journals, and assorted swag conference diaries to my kid's school. I am paper-free.

A tablet that reads and writes

The Remarkable tablet is a simple computer with an A4 paper sized e-Ink display. With just this description, it sounds like a large Kindle. Yes, you can also read books on it. But what makes it stand apart from the Kindle is that you can write on it.

And when I mean write, it feels like writing on paper. This fantastic experience is due to the rough paper-like texture of the display cover and the passive stylus with a plastic nib that wears down like a pencil. The tablet thoughtfully comes with five spare stylus nibs.

The paper-like experience is so real that it makes a scratching sound when you write on it, just like paper. The feel is very textured and rough, akin to a graphite pencil on sketch paper.

This feature alone would have sold me on the benefits of the tablet. But there's more.

The tablet runs a custom version of Linux called Codex on an ARM chip. It has 8GB of internal storage that's equivalent to about storing 100,000 pages of text. Trust me, if you can write 100,000 pages of notes, plans, stories, etc., you are in the wrong career. You should be a full-time writer.

The Codex OS on the tablet is a beautiful example of a user interface done right. It is intuitive, fast, and reliable. The tablet has never crashed or misbehaved in my three years of use.

Due to the low power e-Ink display, the battery easily lasts a week or more. Charging is quick through a micro-USB connector so you can use the same one that charges your multiple devices at home.

Notebooks and eBooks

The tablet supports three core formats: Notebooks, PDFs and eBooks in the DRM free ePub format.

Notebooks are for things you create yourself. Sketches, bullet journals, daily diaries, ToDo lists, lecture notes — you can create all these in one notebook or have individual ones for each writing type.

The Notebook feature comes with over 50 templates of different types of page formats: pages with small, large dots for bullet journals, Day Planner format, Week plan format, ruled lines of various widths and sizes, squared pages for sketching or Math – the Remarkable team has pretty much thought of everything.

You can have a different page format for every page in your single notebook. Or you can create notebooks with different formats. And you can easily move pages within a notebook or to different notebooks. This feature is useful when you start taking notes quickly and later on want to categorize them.

You can transfer your eBooks and PDFs to the tablet using the companion app. Reading books on this tablet is a joy as you have a larger size than the Kindle, and you can annotate any page of any ebook or PDF with your stylus. These annotations will persist and sync across your devices through the app. Friendly page-turning swipe gestures on the screen, and hard buttons to advance or go back pages make it easy to navigate a book.

Writing done right

The writing features also has a few neat functions. The most basic one is UNDO. You have infinite Undo capability, so if you want to fix any squiggle, you can undo one stroke at a time. If you're going to erase many strokes or a large portion of the page or the entire page itself, you are better off using the Erase feature. The Erase feature allows you to erase like a pencil eraser, or draw a shape around the strokes/writing you want to delete, and it will erase everything within that closed shape.

You can duplicate anything you write or sketch - which is handy for quickly creating patterns or bullet points or templates. Again, circle the writing or drawing you want to duplicate, tap on the '+' icon on the selection rectangle, and drag the duplicated material to another spot on the page.

If you are like me and can't sometimes recognize your handwriting due to a lack of practice since we all type on our devices now, Remarkable also has handwriting-recognition built into the tablet. You can choose a page or entire notebook and convert the text and symbols into digital text and symbols. The accuracy is over 95% and very reliable across a range of handwriting. You get the converted notes as a text file sent to your email. Very convenient and easy to use.

Sketchy stuff...

Besides these basic writing features, if you are an artist, this tablet will replace your daily sketchbook. It has Pencils, Pens, Brushes with varying thicknesses of nibs & strokes. You can create layers (like PhotoShop) and have a rich canvas that allows you to create some spectacular art, like these from the @remarkable Instagram account.

@dragana.draws on Instagram

@remarkable on Instagram

@arnullfoventura on Instagram

@richardfxr on Instagram

WiFi without the distraction

The tablet connects to WiFi. But don't think you will be able to browse the internet on this. The WiFi is strictly for syncing the content from the tablet to your mobile or desktop devices through an extremely functional companion app available on macOS/Windows and iOS/Android. The app allows you to sync content across your tablet and your mobile & desktop devices. You transfer PDFs and eBooks to the tablet by loading them first in the app and then automatically sync to the tablet.

The ability to not get distracted by notifications, browsing, email, or other apps makes this tablet spectacular to focus on the task at hand — be it writing, taking notes, sketching or reading books. This non-feature alone is worth the price of admission.

Scandinavian beauty

I want to highlight the beautiful visual experiences that the Remarkable team has created on every customer-facing aspect of the tablet, the user interface, their website, and their app. The design is typically Scandinavian, as the Remarkable team is in Oslo, Norway. You can very clearly see the Scandinavian design influence of pure, clean, functional design that delights. It's what I would expect the evolution of the current Apple design aesthetic. This product straight up seems like an Apple product from the future.

Every time I take my tablet out for reading or taking notes in a company meeting or with friends, the first thing people exclaim is "What's that ?". Then, I give them a run-through of all the features and then invite them to pick up the stylus and write on it themselves. Within the first few seconds of writing or drawing on it, their face cracks open into a wide smile as they realize how close it is to writing on paper. It's something you have to experience for yourself. Many of my friends and colleagues have subsequently purchased one for themselves and are enjoying the benefits of going paper-free.

Going green... remarkably easy...

This tablet could revolutionize the school and college experience for students. They won't have to spend on expensive paper notebooks and textbooks. If the schools and colleges invest in these tablets and provide all the textbooks in eBook form on the tablet, the productivity and cost benefits will surpass the cost of the tablet in no time. Remember, no internet distractions on this device so it can be safely used inside a classroom.

Many industries and markets could benefit from this: healthcare professionals, law enforcement, lawyers, government officials, and workplaces with a lot of paperwork required for reading, writing, and sharing. This tablet is as green as it gets.

Remarkable 2.0

And now, after three years, Remarkable has announced version 2 of their beautiful tablet. This new version looks fantastic and has an elegant polished look and feel. With an aluminum casing, it is thinner than the first version, with longer battery life and a stylus with an eraser at the opposite end - just like a regular pencil. And they also upgraded the connector to a USB-C, so it works universally with all your latest devices.

The benefit of introducing the new version of the tablet extends to the old version. You can now buy version 1 for 20% off for a new one and 27% off for a refurbished one. These are some great deals for a device that will pay itself over many times.

I have already ordered the version 2, being delivered sometime in July this year. Expect a followup to this review focused on version 2 of the tablet in August.

They weren't kidding when they named their device Remarkable. It truly is...

If like me you spent your late teens and early twenties in the 1980s, playing this amazing game called “Prince of Persia” then you will really admire the effort it took for another 20 year old named Jordan Mechner, half way across the world from me in India, to build this game painstakingly frame by frame.

The first time you saw the Prince jump in one fluid motion and land with bent knees you knew this was something exceptional - because, this was on bitmapped graphics on low powered CPUs in the late 1980s. It originally was developed and ran on an Apple II running CP/M or ProDOS and was written in 6502 assembly language.

Gameplay on IBM PC - animated gif from Wikipedia.

I was in college studying computer engineering, at the time I first saw the game. I was hooked instantly and got the game on a floppy. My classmates and I spent hours playing and replaying every level until we got to the Princess after fighting the nasty Vazir and a bunch of his hooligans along the way. Even though there were only 12 levels we felt that it took forever to get to the top of the tower and rescue the princess.

Now you can read Jordan Mechner’s journal of how he single handedly created this amazing creative work for the ages. The game has been ported onto almost all gaming and computing platforms since it launched and you can even get it on your iOS or Android device.

The book is a revelation. He actually filmed his younger brother in various poses that the Prince character would do and rotoscoped the animation so that it looked lifelike. Very honestly written, Mechner's journal shows a rawness in thought and boldness in approach on how to solve complex problems and achieve slow but steady progress daily.

It took him almost 3 years to perfect the game and when finally released in 1989, he was completely burnt out.

The journal should be an inspiration for every young person in college or starting out their career on how to overcome challenges in life and stick to your passion. It also is a lesson on how to achieve extreme focus and not give up.

But the most important lesson is about keeping a daily journal. You never know when that could become a published book ! I use the Day One app to keep a daily journal. More on that in another post soon.

The saying goes that everyone has one book, one movie, one game, one big achievement in them. This was Mechner's. And it certainly lasted the sands of time… 😀