Review of the ReMarkable 2 tablet (2023)

The ReMarkable 2 ($399) excels at its primary function: taking digital notes. This large screen makes it easy to annotate PDFse-lezer/TabletThanks to the low-latency e-ink writing experience and simple user interface that won't get in your way. We'd like to see it support more formats and handle complex documents a little more smoothly, though. While it costs more at $499.99, it doesOnyx Boox Note Air 2remains our Editors' Choice winner in the large-format e-reader category because it is more versatile and offers more free features.

A slim and compact design

The ReMarkable 2 is very slim and light at 7.36 x 9.69 x 0.19 inches and 14.1 ounces. It is significantly lighter than the Onyx Boox Note Air 2 (9.03 x 7.69 x 0.23 inches, 14.8 ounces) and thinner than thatEllipse Blanket(7,59 x 8,96 x 0,30 inch, 13,5 ounces).

The screen has a large bezel (especially at the bottom), but that's fine because you then have room to hold the tablet. There's a power button on the top and a USB-C charging port on the bottom left edge. Our model came with a nice $129 leather Book Folio cover; It is available in black or brown leather or a gray polymer fabric.

The optional leather trim (additional $129) feels quite premium (Photo: Sascha Segan)

The tablet is not waterproof. If you're looking for a waterproof e-book reader, here are some things to keep in mindAmazon Kindle PaperwhiteInstead it comes inIPX8 water resistance.

The ReMarkable 2 is based on the same 10.3-inch screen with 1872 x 1404 pixels (226 ppi).E-Ink-Carta-displaylike some older Onyx Boox devices, instead of the Carta 1200 panel which allows faster page turning on the Kobo Elipsa. Strangely enough, the tablet has no lighting on the front, so you may have trouble reading or taking notes in the dark. The same goes for writing on paper, but most other e-ink devices are affected by this scenario.

The tablet comes with a matte gray cylindrical marker that attaches to the outer edge with a magnet and does not require charging. You can get a replacement for $79 or the Marker Plus for $129 (the more expensive model has an eraser on the end).

Remarkable offers two markers for coloring

Because the ReMarkable 2 uses Wacom technology, many Wacom electromagnetic resonance (EMR) pens will also work with it. I've used two different Onyx Boox pens with no problem, and one evenSamsung Galaxy S21UltraS pen. There was even a magnetic onyx stylus attached to the bezel, just like ReMarkable's first-party stylus. While the tablet doesn't work with Bluetooth-based pens like the Kobo pen, theApple pencil, or Wacom Intuos pens, any of your other available pen options make the ReMarkable 2 even more fun to use - it's great to be able to go straight from a Galaxy phone to the larger tablet.

The ReMarkable 2 connects to the internet via dual 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi; It uses this connection to communicate with its companion apps and download software updates. However, the signal strength is weak and the connection range is more than six meters shorter than that of most phones. During testing, it had issues connecting to the network through a wall, while the Galaxy S21 andiPhone 13were both fine in this environment. But unreliable Wi-Fi isn't much of an issue here, as most of the work you do on this tablet will need to be done offline anyway.

You get 6.41 GB of usable onboard storage. You can secure the tablet with an access code, but unlike the Onyx models, there is no fingerprint scanner. For comparison, the 3,000 mAh battery lasted about a week if I used it for a few hours each day. With less frequent use, the effect can last for weeks. The lack of a headlight certainly helps with battery drain as well.

Pure simplicity

ReMarkable 2's basic user interface is a simple catalog of files and folders. It works with a desktop (available for macOS and Windows) and a mobile app (available for Android and iOS) so you can wirelessly transfer files to and from the tablet and organize the files into folders. You can also upload files through a web interface. With a notebook app, you can draw and write freely.

But with ReMarkable, you can pay for free for cloud integrations that the competition offers for free. By default, the tablet syncs with the very easy-to-use desktop and mobile drag-and-drop file apps. However, unless you pay $4.99 per month, the company will delete any file you haven't used in the last 50 days from the cloud (the file will remain on your tablet). For $7.99 per month, you get the ability to transfer files back and forthcloud storage servicessuch as Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. Kobo offers free Dropbox integration, and with Onyx you can use any service you want at no extra cost.

Sketching is a piece of cake on this tablet (Photo: Sascha Segan)

This $7.99 per month plan also unlocksOCR(optical character recognition that converts handwriting into text) and the ability to email pages directly from the tablet (another feature that Onyx offers for free). The OCR works just as well as any comparable system; it works well if you have good handwriting.

However, I am thoroughly impressed with ReMarkable's responsive, accurate, and lag-free ink system: it's the most responsive I've ever seen on an e-ink tablet. It doesn't have the occasional lag or limp I've encountered with Onyx products, or the pen slippage I've experienced with the Kobo Elipsa. This is the first and only e-ink tablet I've tried that offers ink as accurate and vibrant as an LCD tablet. It's very close to the feel of writing on paper, both in feel and texture, which is a big plus.

In terms of ink, you get seven pen types, a highlighter, three line weights, layers, and blue, red, black, gray, and white ink. So it is for the tools: it's nowhere near as comprehensive as Onyx's Notes app, which offers 12 shades of gray, audio recording, shapes, and other options. That difference doesn't matter too much though, as you don't necessarily need more options than the ReMarkable 2 to take good notes.

There are several ink options (Photo: Sascha Segan)

It's important to note that the ReMarkable 2 isn't a general-purpose ebook reader: it's a note-taking tablet that you can read on. In this way, it is more or less the opposite of the Kobo Elipsa or Onyx Boox tablets, which are e-book readers that offer note-taking features.

The main difference is the support for document formats. ReMarkable supports PDFs, non-DRM EPUBs, as well as JPG and PNG images - that's it. There's no easy way to load, say, a DRM EPUB from a public library or a CBR comics file, let alone a Kindle or Kobo book.

PDF page turning, zooming, and navigation movements can feel quite sluggish on longer or more graphically intensive documents. For example, when I opened an extensive phone review guide, it took several seconds to display the first few pages before the tablet cached another four pages. Rendering the next page also took a few seconds. On the other hand, when I read a text-based Wave7 research report, the pages appear almost immediately.

PDFs of black and white comics look sharp (Photo: Sascha Segan)

At a minimum, the reading app supports table of contents and chapters in EPUBs and PDFs. You can also search documents for specific words, but this feature worked slowly during testing.

The smoothest writing experience with e-ink

The ReMarkable 2 is ideal if you want to write an unlimited number of notes or annotate PDFs. It is a kind of spiritual successor to Sonydigital paperTablets that way - these devices were popular with lawyers and academics. However, the ReMarkable 2's limited format support and issues with complex documents prevent us from fully recommending it. Among large-format e-ink tablets, the Onyx Boox Note Air 2 is still our editorial winner for its more flexible Android operating system, convenient front lighting, and free integration with cloud services. The Kobo Elipsa is another good e-book reader with a newer generation E Ink display. However, if note-taking is most important to you, there's no other e-ink device we've tested that even remotely matches the ReMarkable 2's writing experience.