Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Could a Remarkable Paper Pro Change How You Organise Your Life?
Annie
19th Jan 2025
I’m on the MoneyMagpie writing team, but I’m also a screenwriter, development producer, and burgeoning novelist. That means I spend all day, every day making notes and linking ideas together and I am definitely not as organised as I could be about it. When I had the chance to review the ReMarkable Paper Pro, I leapt at it. Here’s the in-depth review of this paper ink tablet.
I received a product to test for review but this does not influence my assessment of it. MoneyMagpie prides itself on honest consumer product reviews to help you find things that could save you money.
What is the ReMarkable Paper Pro?
Unboxing the ReMarkable Paper Pro
Using the ReMarkable Paper Pro for Notes
Where to Buy the ReMarkable Paper Pro
What is the ReMarkable Paper Pro?
This is not an e-ink tablet, but it looks similar to one. If you’ve ever picked up a Kindle or other e-reader, you’ll have come across the greyscale screens that are easy on the eyes. The ReMarkable is a paper tablet, using similar technology but far more advanced – and it was the first of its type to hit the market, so the company has been a market leader in e-notebooks since day one (OK, since 2017). The ReMarkable 1 and ReMarkable 2 were also greyscale, but you could write on them with the ReMarkable marker, read documents, and do a lot more.
What makes the ReMarkable Paper Pro stand out is that this is in colour. Which means you can now highlight, draw details, annotate in colour coding – so much more than with black-and-white. You can choose from seven colours and black (with thousands of further variations on these colours such as for highlighting), and writing on the screen with the provided marker or the Marker Plus is akin to writing on paper, without reams of pages to file and organise in your home office or trying to keep track of different notebooks everywhere.
Unboxing the ReMarkable Paper Pro
Opening the box for the ReMarkable, the Keyboard Folio, Book Folio and Marker Pen Plus was a joyful experience. The package was delivered in completely recyclable packaging, which is an immediate bonus point. The outer boxes are made of premium white cardboard, with a simple and classy design that reflects the aim of the tablet notebook: simple, effective, minimalist. A strip to rip down the side opens the outer box to reveal a sleek black inner tray, with the ReMarkable Paper Pro in a paper wrap, charged and ready to set up.
The same experience applied across all the products: quality materials, simple design, and a real ‘heft’ that made every moment feel premium. In a time of cheap packaging and cut corners, I was delighted to see that quality started from the outside and remained all the way through.
First Impressions: Setting Up
The ReMarkable was charged and ready to set up immediately. The instruction screen was straightforward, and the Marker Plus started to charge seamlessly as soon as I attached it by the magnet on the side as the screen instructed (though it did already have some charge, too). There is even a page in the startup process that shows you what a paper tablet looks like when the screen refreshes. This is important, because if you’ve never used an e-ink device before, you might worry that it’s not refreshing quickly enough or it looks a bit flickery. That’s perfectly normal, but having this in the startup was reassuring.
It was easy to connect to the WiFi, and to set up my Connect account. ReMarkable Connect is the system that you use to save your files between your tablet, desktop, and phone. It’s a cloud service, but if you’re not connected to the internet your files will save locally to your ReMarkable until you can sync later on. It’s free to have a Connect account, with unlimited cloud storage for your documents available for 50 days – if you don’t access within 50 days it will be removed from the account (so you can get around this by simply accessing files and syncing them regularly). But there is a £2.99 premium Connect service that allows you to always access all documents, and you can trial that for 100 days before you decide whether you want the premium version. The premium version also lets you work seamlessly across your devices, continuing your notetaking between the ReMarkable, desktop, and your phone which is a massive time saver and brilliant for organisation.
Getting Started
Finding my way around the ReMarkable took less than half an hour to get used to. You can add your own folders, and create ‘notebooks’ within the folders. Or, you can have quick notes in the jot option, if you want to scribble something now and sort it out later. The notebook templates are incredibly varied – not just blank pages, but dots, grids, lines of different sizes, music staves and guitar chord tabs, even perspective grids for drawing or hexagonal and isometric grids. This shows the huge variety of ways in which the ReMarkable could be useful, rather than being a straightforward notetaking device, as it’s applicable to so many job, hobby, and life functions. There’s even storyboard templates, which I found useful in my job as a development producer.
I like to test things by how intuitive they are to use, so I didn’t read any instructions to get started. Despite this, within a minute I had a new folder and a new notebook open, and I was drawing a silly doodle. I then tried my handwriting – and despite my chicken scratch, I was able to locate the handwriting-to-text function easily and transform it into text. You draw around the handwritten section you want to convert to formatted text, press the little sparkle icon, and it turns it into text. To change colours and pen types, the left-hand menu was self-explanatory and easy to navigate. If you’re expecting bright colours like you might get on a standard tablet, that’s not what you’ll see, purely because of the paper ink screen type. However, the colours are very clear, and variable with the pen and highlight options, and when I uploaded to the Connect app and opened on my desktop, they were vivid.
The ReMarkable Paper Pro has a reading light, too. This can be adjusted, and makes it easy to keep working in low light – a new feature compared to previous models.
Using the ReMarkable Paper Pro for Notes
As someone who writes all day, every day, I’m glued to my computer, laptop, or phone all the time. I get tired eyes from using screens so much, and hand cramp from typing thousands of words. There’s also something limiting about sitting at a keyboard and a blank screen sometimes that can be remedied by writing in a notebook. But, then I’ll forget to refer back to my notebook, lose the notes, or – in my laziness – not want to type them up later. The ReMarkable really changed how I worked with my notes.
First, it allowed me to get away from my desk and write anywhere. There are two reasons for this: first, I was able to handwrite my thoughts like in a normal notebook, and instantly store them to be accessed on my other devices without having to type them up again. I also found that being able to handwrite my thoughts helped them ‘stick’ better in my mind – I can see how a ReMarkable would be ideal for anyone studying, as it saves time on organising notes but reconnects that ‘pen to page’ action which can help some people remember notes (it does for me, anyway!).
And second, I had the Keyboard Folio.
The Keyboard Folio turns the tablet from a handwriting notebook to a tablet you can type on. So, when an idea struck, I was able to quickly convert it into typing mode and type my thoughts up – or, I could use it to tidy up handwritten-to-text notes to create smart documents in minutes. The versatility was really quite enjoyable. The Folio also protected the ReMarkable in my bag, so the screen didn’t get scratched against my keys or anything like that. It’s not a super rugged case, however, so if you’re a particularly clumsy person I would look at finding a padded outer case for transporting the tablet.
I think my favourite thing about the ReMarkable was how integrated it was with my other devices. It saved me SO MUCH time when it came to working across my computer, phone, and the tablet. Not just because it was easy to work seamlessly between the devices, but because of the way I could organise the folders exactly in a way that made sense to me. It was easy to find any notes I needed at a few clicks or touches of the screen, and I have been able to keep on top of my To Do lists like never before. No more random Post It notes stuck around the house – it’s all on the ReMarkable!
The Best Features
The outstanding feature of the ReMarkable Paper Pro is the colour screen that allows colour highlights, drawing, or handwritten text. If you’re reading a document, you can easily highlight and add notes, or you can create doodles or drawings with colour accents – perfect for
sketches.
It’s light and easy to carry, and the Keyboard Folio does add a little weight but not a significant amount. I did also try the Book Folio, which is a leather case without the keyboard – it felt premium and high quality, but as I like to switch between handwriting and typing, the keyboard version suited me best. The Keyboard Folio increased the versatility of the tablet, so I was more likely to reach for it instead of either my laptop or paper notebook when heading out and about.
The paper ink screen is REALLY easy on the eyes. This meant that time away from my screens to use the ReMarkable felt like a rest for my eyes. But being able to sync notes with the Connect app saved me literally hours every week in my organisation, writing, and sorting of documents. A side effect of being able to do this was that I got out of the house more – I tried a new coworking space, I sat in a cafe a couple of times, and was able to work without worrying that I’d still have to go home and type everything up again.
The battery life is phenomenal. I’ve had it for a few weeks, used it for hours every day, and have only had to charge it once so far. This means it’s an ideal companion for people who travel a lot or are often working in places that don’t have access to power outlets or they can’t sit in one place to work while their device charges.
Distraction-free working was one of the most notable benefits of the device. While it connects to the internet, you can’t download any apps that you’d find on an Android or iPhone. It’s designed to streamline your working and remove distractions, so it’s just you, your tablet, and your notes. I left my phone in my bag when working out and about with the ReMarkable, and was significantly more productive as a result, because I wasn’t getting sidetracked with emails or other interruptions. This meant I also actually got more work done in less time, so I had more of my own downtime in the evenings – something that feels rare, as a freelancer always ‘hustling’. From a MoneyMagpie perspective, we understand that time is money – so anything that helps you save hours each week is a money-saver in our eyes.
Cloud storage is vital to protect loss of documents and enable seamless working. As well as the Connect app, the ReMarkable tablet is compatible with Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive, making it easy to import and export documents.
Things to Consider
We always provide honest reviews at MoneyMagpie. So far, it feels like this might sound like an effusive advert for the ReMarkable Paper Pro. So, let’s look at some things you might want to consider before you look at buying one.
- The ReMarkable Paper Pro starts at £599, which is quite expensive compared to other tablet devices
- The paper ink screen can be distracting when it refreshes if you’re not used to it
- You can’t work as seamlessly on the free Connect version, as the premium £2.99 a month allows some extra features
- It’s quite a large tablet, about the size of an A4 piece of paper – which some might find unwieldy to hold
- The Book Folio and Keyboard Folio provided some protection but clumsy people (or those with young children around) will need an extra outer case when not in use to protect it
- Writing on the screen can feel a bit weird and ‘scratchy’ if you’ve never done it before
However, there is one very important thing that balances all of the above out: ReMarkable offer a 100-day money back guarantee. They’re so confident you’ll like their product, but know it might not be for everyone. That’s why you can return within 100 days for a full refund. This failsafe helps you find out if the ReMarkable is the device for you, without putting you significantly out of pocket. There is also a one-year warranty, too.
Where to Buy the ReMarkable Paper Pro
If you want to give it a try, the best place to buy from is direct from ReMarkable. There are other models available, such as the ReMarkable 2, which is lower in price from £349 but doesn’t offer as many features (and is not a colour screen). Visit www.remarkable.com for full details.
This article does not contain an affiliate link; MoneyMagpie doesn’t make any money from purchases made via this review (we just really like the product).
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