Buying the ReMarkable 2 in 2024

A fantastic device with one big caveat

I’ve posted many times on Medium about different types of e-ink tablet. These devices offer brilliant battery life, superb writing feel and an efficient way to condense many physical note books into a single device. I decided to have a go using the ReMarkable 2: a device that was first released four years’ ago but that is the go-to-device in this space. I was curious to see how it performed for me.

First thing to note: the hardware is gorgeous. The tablet is sleek and very lightweight. The white bezels almost match the e-ink display giving the impression that there’s little separation between the two components. The power button is small put placed on the top left corner and it makes a reassuring click when depressed. The Marker Pro is more textured than any stylus I have previously used and is nicely weighted for long writing sessions. The entire unboxing experience is slick: I wanted to use the device as soon as I had it open. Even the smell of the packaging was somehow premium!

The eink display is right under the cover glass. There is very little separation or air gap because there is no front light (more on that later). As a consequence, text looks crisp. PDFs look a little more washed out (and there is no option to change the contrast), but they still appear to be right there, like using a print…