I usually discover it very exhausting to write down on my pc. As quickly as I settle in and let these inventive juices movement … ding! In comes a Slack notification. OK, it’s going to take two seconds to deal with this primary. Minutes later, I will really feel the urge to verify my inbox. Oh wow, six pressing emails. Two hours later, I may need typed a single phrase on my web page. That normally results in a late evening of writing. Rinse and repeat.
The ReMarkable 2 has been a salve on this course of. This e-paper pill with a snug stylus is a superb digital notepad—it mimics paper and pen much better than many different gadgets—and the keyboard attachment has grow to be an effective way for me to kind up tales distraction-free. You may write notes, draw sketches, mark up PDFs, and arrange all of those paperwork into folders. 5 years after the discharge of that pill, the corporate is unveiling a brand new product known as the ReMarkable Paper Professional. It elevates the notepad expertise whereas nonetheless prioritizing that distraction-free ethos.
“We invented the class,” says Mats Herding Solberg, the pinnacle of product administration on the Norwegian firm. “We’re targeted actually on focus and making a single product that is actually good on the verticals that we imagine are necessary. We do not wish to be the corporate that goes tremendous broad and tries so as to add too many bells and whistles.”
Paper Path
{Photograph}: Julian Chokkattu
ReMarkable’s Paper Professional is not strictly a successor to the ReMarkable 2. Consider it like how the “Professional” model of the iPhone aligns to the usual mannequin. It has some good upgrades at the next worth beginning at $579, however you’ll be able to persist with the $399 older mannequin should you do not want the brand new options; it isn’t going away anytime quickly.
So what’s new? The spotlight is colour. At CES 2024, E Ink—the corporate that produces lots of the digital paper shows present in Kindles and the like—confirmed off extra gadgets than ever utilizing colour E Ink expertise. This checklist now consists of the brand new ReMarkable Paper Professional, although Solberg says ReMarkable has achieved quite a lot of work on high of E Ink’s expertise to good the colour expertise. The customized “Canvas Shade” show stack is comprised of bodily colour particles that transfer across the display to indicate particular colours, slightly than a separate filter on high of the black and white show. Solberg says this could higher replicate the precise feeling of “colour on paper.”
Do not count on vivid, shiny colours such as you see in your smartphone’s display. These hues are nonetheless muted, and you’ll solely select from 9 colours (from magenta to cyan), however you’ll be able to mix and layer them collectively, which might then create much more colour choices.
{Photograph}: Julian Chokkattu
Additionally new is a entrance gentle system. It is completely different than the backlight typical of telephone screens. As a substitute, a entrance gentle angles the sunshine supply down onto the pill’s display so it is mirrored up at your eyes. It is a design that is grow to be fairly customary through the years on the earth of e-paper gadgets. The ReMarkable 2 solely displays ambient gentle, which makes it tough to see the display in a darkish room. This is not an issue with the Paper Professional. You may modify the brightness of the sunshine, although it is nonetheless not going to get eye-searingly shiny. Simply sufficient that you should utilize it in dim situations.
The Paper Professional has a bigger 11.8-inch show, which suggests not one of the outdated equipment for the ReMarkable 2 will work on this unit. That is why there are an array of folio covers ($89 and up) at launch to assist the brand new gadget, together with a Sort Folio cowl ($229) that provides a keyboard. Even the stylus has been rebuilt. The Marker/Marker Plus are energetic styli, in order that they have to be charged—simply pop ’em on the sting of the Paper Professional, the place they are going to magnetically connect and begin wirelessly charging.
