Earlier this year, I was deciding between a Remarkable 2 tablet or an iPad to replace my traditional notepad. Although the Remarkable’s price point ($547 USD) was high for a device that could not do nearly as much as an iPad, I still decided to try it out. This decision came after reading many reviews and watching a bunch of YouTube comparison videos that claimed that it had the best writing experience.

Unboxing Experience

The delivery was pretty quick and smooth and the package came within a week. I decided to get the entire combo which included the Marker Plus ($99 USD) and Polymer Weave Book Folio ($99 USD). My purchase also came with a free 2-month trial of the Connect Plan (worth $8.80 USD/month).

I enjoyed the unboxing experience because everything came in sustainable packaging that was sealed without plastic wrap (the cardboard had pre-cut markings that you could rip along to open up your package). The Remarkable was very sleek and lightweight and looked great with the Book Folio. I liked the Marker Plus because it had an eraser (similar to a Surface Pen).

First Impressions

It did its job and replaced my notebook. It was easy enough to create new notebooks, add new pages, and navigate. However, the entire experience seemed very old school. For an impatient person like me, there was a noticeable lag when I navigated between the screens, and it would even blackout (by design) for a millisecond when swiping between pages. This reminded me of those Etch-A-Sketch toys that I played with back in the day #MillennialThingz.

The writing experience was great, and it felt really close to writing in a notebook with a pencil. Although you have the option to choose colours, you only see black and lighter shades of grey on the device. I did not try this myself, but you can export your pages and see the colours when you open them up online.

Likes	Dislikes
Sleek and slim design and lightweight	Laggy experience when switching screens and pages
Templates were very useful and came in handy (e.g. standard checklist)	Can’t see colours on the actual device
Writing experience (e.g. pen strokes were responsive to pressure)	Connect Plan seems like a money grab
Good battery life (can go for 1-2 weeks of daily use without charging)	Expensive for what it is

Final Verdict

After trying it out for a couple of months, I ultimately decided to return it as part of the 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Even though I really loved the Remarkable’s sleekness and simplicity, I could not justify the price when I thought about all the iPad features that I was missing out on (plus, the new iPad air was just announced around that time).

The return process was relatively easy and straightforward. I logged in with my account, answered a few questions, and received a label to print out. Fortunately, I kept all of my original boxes so it was easy to put everything back and drop it off at my local post office. It took a couple weeks for my package to make it back to Hong Kong, but I received an update that my returned device was being evaluated. Once everything checked out (which took about a week), they processed the return amount which took another few weeks to reach my bank account. Although it took a while, I am glad that I was able to keep track of the process via the return portal.

It was sad to say goodbye, but I ended up getting a brand new iPad Air (stay tuned for a separate review) 🙌

Hi, I’m Karen and I am passionate about sharing knowledge, experiences, and perspectives through the #kkarenism platform. Most of the time it’s career and development related; other times I am simply curious and want to write about different topics. You’ll find a mix-mash of content on here from paying off student loans to creating a career walking deck, so enjoy whatever you find and do share your feedback and share with others 👀 P.S. I do this mainly for fun and out of passion, with a hint of hope that I can retire off this one day ✨ thanks for checking my blog out and have an awesome day!