4 years in the past, the ReMarkable 2 arrived and altered my writing life.

This ultra-thin, silver-framed e-ink display, which I nonetheless consider as a authorized pad from the longer term, helped me kickstart a handwritten diary I’ve stored up practically daily for the final two years. I exploit its Marker in calligraphy pen mode, which has an aesthetic attraction even the mighty iPad cannot match. Plus, the older I get the extra I really feel the enjoyment of e-ink, tech’s most soothing different to all that LED screenlight blasting our faces.

So when Norwegian pill maker ReMarkable handed me the gadget it has been engaged on ever since 2020, the Paper Professional, you’ll be able to wager my peepers went wider than a side-eye emoji.

An even bigger display? A backlight? A redesigned Marker the place the nib would not put on down as steadily? Half the lag (that milisecond-measured hole between nib touching display and e-ink showing) of the ReMarkable 2, the place the lag was already impressively low? And a variety of colours, not simply black and gray? Sure, sure, sure, sure, and sure please.

The ReMarkable Paper Professional additionally updates the keyboard folio, an non-compulsory additional I would been toting round with the ReMarkable 2 for the previous couple of years however not truly used that a lot: the typing lag felt a tad too lengthy, the textual content column was too slender, the keyboard wasn’t backlit. The Professional folio fixes all these issues, and it comes with a pleasant little wrap-around magnet that helps lock the Marker in place.

Was this, lastly, the right distraction-free gadget for writers I would dreamed of for a decade?

The Paper Professional is not excellent

After testing the Paper Professional for every week, I am much less enthused. It has some points, although not sufficient for me to cease utilizing it. Nonetheless, I can see why ReMarkable will proceed to promote the $399 ReMarkable 2 ($449 with the extra delicate Marker Plus) alongside the Paper Professional ($579; $629 with Marker Plus; add a $199 keyboard folio and also you’re speaking severe scratch for any e-ink machine).

For a lot of customers on tighter budgets, the ReMarkable 2 will stay a superior selection.

I am additionally shocked to search out that the 2 units do not play effectively collectively. The Markers will not be swappable. You’ll be able to sync paperwork between machines utilizing ReMarkable’s Join service — however a doc began on the Paper Professional’s 11.8-inch show will spill over the edges of the ReMarkable 2’s 10.8-inch display.

Primarily, ReMarkable is making a know-how fork, asking you to decide on one gadget or the opposite.

If you happen to take the Paper Professional path after touring with ReMarkable 2, you would possibly hit some bumps within the transition. You will not essentially discover the brand new one is heavier (by 0.17 lbs) because the weight is distributed in a bigger kind. You might discover it is a number of hairs thicker, regardless that the Paper Professional’s ridged sides are nice to the touch. You’ll in all probability discover that the screen-nib mixture is extra slippy on the Paper Professional, a little bit extra like the sleek glass really feel of writing on an iPad. I merely faucet the display more durable on the finish of sentences, interval.

Additionally your mileage might range on this one, however I felt that the essential black shade you will use for writing more often than not seems a little bit extra washed out, from sure angles, on the Paper Professional display. This may very well be the fault of the brand new backlight, which does the job however has an ethereal, barely uneven glow across the edges of the display, and which I discovered myself turning off as usually as potential, for the sake of the battery (which, as you would possibly anticipate, appears to expire a little bit quicker on the Paper Professional.)

Or it could need to do with the truth that black is not truly black on the Paper Professional: it is yellow, cyan and magenta all smooshed collectively.

Paper Professional Shade: a (enjoyable) work in progress

Technologically talking, the Paper Professional is a powerful leap ahead. Taking e-ink from monochrome to CMYK isn’t any imply feat, contemplating the ink truly sits there in an actual layer beneath the display glass. Mixtures of cyan, magenta, yellow and white provide you with a second set of choices — black, crimson, blue, inexperienced — and by layering all these colours on high of one another, you may get 1000’s.

In concept, at the very least. In apply, you will see a number of bumps on the highway to paint. First off, there’s the truth that while you carry the Marker from the web page for a second, something you’ve got simply handwritten or drawn in shade (you’ll be able to’t kind in shade but) has to refresh. Even for those who’re simply writing in blue pen slightly than black, that little bit of the display you’ve got simply modified flashes on and off a number of occasions, in a short time.

The flashing seems a bit bizarre at first, like your ink cannot resolve whether or not it is invisible or not, like your phrases aren’t safe in their very own existence. Nonetheless, I used to be shocked to search out I finished noticing it after some time.

There is a bigger shade drawback, and you’ll see it within the screenshots above the place I made my first-ever e-ink shade drawing — a fantastic anatomy of a human coronary heart — utilizing the Marker’s brush and pen settings. What you are drawing on the display is refined, like pastel colours. However while you ship the picture (you’ll be able to electronic mail your ReMarkable output with or with out turning your handwriting into textual content), the PDF will present way more intense, virtually cartoonish main colours.

In different phrases: sure, you’ll be able to dither your solution to fascinating shade combos, however the Paper Professional display will not provide the clearest picture of what you are truly creating. Shade e-ink is one thing of a piece in progress, and ReMarkable will proceed to tweak the software program with updates each few weeks. However it’s arduous to see the corporate getting round this elementary divide between e-ink content material and a LED display world.

Are you a Paper Professional type of professional?

Which leads us to the query: For whom was the ReMarkable Paper Professional made? Artists and designers might take pleasure in taking part in round with it, however the shade illustration drawback means they’d be higher off utilizing an iPad for severe work. If you happen to simply take pleasure in distraction-free handwriting and typing, it’s possible you’ll be higher off shopping for a monochrome ReMarkable 2, and conserving an additional $180 in your pocket.

The core viewers for ReMarkable, if Reddit enthusiasm is something to go by, is college students and data employees.

The Paper Professional is for taking and highlighting notes — ReMarkable has taken pains to make sure the spotlight strikes with the textual content it is highlighting, irrespective of how the remainder of the web page adjustments — and sketching out new concepts on the fly. Medical and engineering college students may have makes use of for that shade. IT departments will like the brand new six-digit PIN safety; I preferred the four-digit PIN as a result of that is all I wanted to maintain prying eyes out of my diary, however I am not the target market right here.

Then once more, my informal shade sketching type, the place I care extra about having enjoyable than true colours, is a pleasant match for the brand new gadget. I could be extra inclined to succeed in for it, after I really feel the urge to make artwork, than fireplace up Procreate on my iPad.

The ReMarkable 2 modified my writing life; maybe the Paper Professional will change my artwork life.