a review of the remarkable 2, or 'i love my cutting edge digital paper technology!'
my adhd is making things very difficult this month, and it honestly took me five (5) times to search my email client for a receipt because i couldn't remember what month i bought my remarkable 2. i bought it in february.
another device photo showing low battery for the internet to scold me about, thrilling!
my remarkable 2 is "cutting-edge digital paper technology". basically, an e-ink notebook. an expensive e-ink notebook, i'm now being reminded as i look at this receipt. it was a birthday gift, jennifer jean. you deserved it.
let me tell you, friends, the remarkable 2 is worth every penny i spent on it ($530.98 usd for the device, the marker plus and tax to be precise). i gave it a few months before i exclaimed that, yes, but it was truly love at first sight (some of you saw that when i unboxed it one of my first streams ever hehe).
you can read e-books on it, but i have that condition where i stopped being able to read books once the pandemic hit. what is most important to me is that it's an extremely portable and incredibly customizeable library of notebooks.
here is a list i've been keeping in this doc over the past months as i've been procrastinating on writing this review:
- feels nice
- feels and sounds like paper
- v little if any noticeable latency
- haven't lost the pencil...yet
- templates on etsy
- consistent software updates
- not broken yet
the one thing i want to call out on that list is "templates on etsy" so bear with me here:
my most powerful weapon when battling my adhd is taking notes for everything, every day. it's quite literally the reason i bought this thing. normally i'd buy a nice notebook with a cool planner layout, then a month later decide the layout isn't working for me, so i put that notebook away and i buy a new one. it's expensive, frustrating and absolutely demoralizing. having a digital notebook as versatile as the remarkable 2 makes things so much easier and empowering for me with this big dumb hot and smart brain.
and this brings me to those "templates on etsy". there is a whole marketplace there for templates compatible with the remarkable 2 and other devices. my absolute favorite is ePaperTemplates. i got the starter pack and some planners. the creator even reached out and let me test out a beta version of a particular template, like i'm basically the dutchess of "cutting-edge digital paper technology."
so you're probably wondering what is on my feature wishlist for this and, predictably, it's an api. yes, they already have apps for all the platforms so you can read your notes in case you leave the notebook behind, but i'm a CSS Pervert™ and want to build my own! oh i also want them to open a marketplace for selling stickers for the back of the device, and where they can commission artists to create them and of course they choose me first so the only stickers available to all remarkable 2 owners are nude pixel art butts.
do you have a favorite digital notetaking workflow? do you have to write literally every thought that comes to your head because it would be unhealthy to otherwise tweet it all as they form? sound off in the comments!
xoxo jenn
ps. if you are interested in purchasing a remarkable 2 because of my raving about it, here's a referral link that will help me gain e-ink influencer status <3
