(Illustration: Preparing to unbox the Remarkable Paper Pro. Image source: Ernest.)
I’ve been eyeing the reMarkable 2 for quite some time, but with an iPad, Apple Pencil, and Amazon Kindle already in hand, it seemed like there might be too much overlap in functionality. Additionally, with rumors of color e-paper products about to bloom everywhere, I kept postponing the purchase. That was until two weeks ago when reMarkable suddenly released the reMarkable Paper Pro. After watching the Launch Event video, I impulsively placed an order, and two weeks later, I came home to find a box waiting for me :)
Below, I’ll briefly document the various ingenious ideas and details I experienced during the unboxing process from the reMarkable team.
tl;dr
- reMarkable Paper Pro is designed and used from a paper-first perspective, offering a reading and writing experience close to traditional paper. I can naturally hold or touch to read or hold the entire device without worrying about accidentally triggering annoying pop-up menus when touching the screen, and can let my fingers slide from left to right along sentences following my reading line of sight, completely simulating the experience of physical books, making reading more focused and comfortable.
- The settings (such as stroke and color) of the Marker Plus | Marker stylus are remembered on a per-file basis, so when switching between multiple documents in a short time, I don’t need to repeatedly adjust the pen settings. This is super thoughtful and practical, enhances focus, and makes it easier to enter flow state. The UI design also reduces various distractions, allowing me to focus more on interacting with this stack of paper.
- When considering whether to purchase, please don’t look at the hardware specifications of the reMarkable Paper Pro; judging from your own use case and reading habits might be more appropriate.
Unboxing the Outer Package
Let’s start by opening the outer box and taking out the three contents: the reMarkable Paper Pro (the e-paper device itself), the Marker Plus (this generation’s stylus with writing and eraser functions), and the Type Folio (integrated keyboard folio case).
(The reMarkable Paper Pro, Type Folio, and Marker Plus are securely fixed inside the outer box in a highly shock-resistant manner. Package tracking shows that this shipment was sent from Hong Kong via FedEx for transportation and customs clearance.)
Box Sides
(The outer boxes of the reMarkable Paper Pro and Type Folio are the same size. The width of all three boxes is identical. One can imagine that reMarkable might have a neat, well-aligned warehouse shelf.)
(A shot of the aligned sides.)
(The ‘rM’ logo aligned at the bottom of the spine.)
(Product names aligned at the top of the spine. Accessory names don’t include the brand name.)
(The ‘rM’ logo aligned at the bottom of the spine, shown in a stacked presentation.)
(Product names aligned at the top of the spine, shown in a stacked presentation.)
(While taking photos and documenting, I’m thinking I should order more accessories to align?! (How much do I love alignment XDD))
(Being able to implement a design system and apply it to various aspects of the product is a great process. I’m happy to document such product design.)
(There’s even an embossed illustration of the contents on the top.)
Box Back
(Now let’s look at the various markings on the back.)
(Barcode and various regulatory certificates. There’s also a Taiwan NCC certificate.)
(A one-line product description with multilingual translations.)
(Product description on the back of the reMarkable Paper Pro box.)
(Product description on the back of the Type Folio box.)
(Product description on the back of the Marker Plus box.)
Box Top
(The reMarkable Paper Pro body is 5.1 mm thick. Why isn’t the thickness of the Type Folio marked?!)
(Unit conversion: 0.20 inches thick.)
Paper Seal
(This way. Ready? Go!!)
(Haha, already torn.)
(This packaging method is quite protective of the main body. You need to adjust the folded areas a bit before sliding out the product.)
(Haha, already slid out.)
(Maggie Simpson wants to slide it too…)
(Slightly… slightly… heavy…)
(Changing angle, trying to align.)
Paper Pro
(The reMarkable Paper Pro already has a paper-like surface treatment, so I plan to use it directly without a screen protector. This is a semi-transparent packaging film, similar to the protective film on a new iPad. If I remember correctly, the iPad uses a transparent film?)
(There’s a USB cable and some paper instruction cards under the main body. There will be a complete onboarding process after powering on, so these papers don’t have much use now, but most products still include paper instructions. Hopefully, this can be gradually reduced in the future.)
(One USB cable)
(Several paper cards.)
Marker Plus
(What? What’s this? It slid out too!)
(A small box of Marker tips is included.)
(After unfolding everything, these are the contents. The small box for the pen tips is quite well-made.)
(I guess it might be made of eco-friendly materials? I often need such small boxes to store small items, but I hope these boxes can be aligned on the outside.)
(The tip of the Marker Plus.)
(Marker Plus packaging.)
(Upgraded to Marker Plus for the eraser function. (I absolutely won’t say it’s because I wanted the black color…))
(Nowadays, wireless products need to pass more and more regulatory certifications…)
(This adhesive, I don’t think it’s good. It’s not on the same level as the semi-transparent packaging film of the reMarkable Paper Pro earlier. Although it doesn’t affect any functionality of the Marker Plus, it does detract from the overall unboxing experience. (How strict am I!!))
Type Folio
(They’ve cut out a circle, allowing you to directly see the color and feel the texture.)
(Hmm… give it a kiss?! Did you see that extremely subtle brand name?)
(When adjusting colors in Lightroom, I realized the colors are quite rich. From a distance, it looks dark and simple, but up close, it’s moderately colorful.)
Preparing to Assemble
(I really like that small box for the Marker tips.)
(Multilingual thick paper card. Simple instructions on how to use the Type Folio. There are also illustrations on the back.)
(The metal back cover and metal contacts of the reMarkable Paper Pro.)
(Beautiful and aligned metal contacts (and strong magnets).)
(The other side of the Type Folio multilingual thick paper card, illustrating three usage methods. I later watched a video to understand the clever center of gravity shift in the second method for effortlessly pulling out the keyboard. At first, I was worried about accidentally pressing the power button, but then I realized I was thinking in the wrong direction.)
(I guess because the Paper Pro is larger, this keyboard set has increased in area compared to my iPad keyboard case, and the weight has also increased significantly.)
(Assembling the reMarkable Paper Pro with the keyboard. At this point, I started reminding myself that this is not a tablet, and I shouldn’t keep comparing the user experience with that of an iPad.)
First Boot
(After a period of fully charging, I started taking photos of the boot-up process.)
(I had already done this step while charging, but with the screen guidance and the status change after attaching the Marker Plus to the side of the Paper Pro, I still find this experience great. The product team has put a lot of thought into it.)
(It starts charging after connecting.)
(Did you see that? What?)
(Software update. At this point, there’s an opportunity to update the software to the latest version. This can make subsequent unboxing experiences more convenient to adjust or fine-tune. But it needs to be stable enough, otherwise it will interrupt the unboxing process. There’s only a fine line between experience and returns. Anyone can return a product, but how to stack experiences is worth discussing.)
(Reboot after software update.)
(Skipping a few steps in between, such as connecting to Wi-Fi, pairing devices, setting up PIN code, etc. Now we’ve reached the pairing completion. Adding this device to your personal or company account. A subscription is required, with a 100-day free trial. This is becoming a trend for physical hardware products, with monthly subscription fees ranging from USD 2.99 to 9.99, or annual subscription fees of about USD 99.9, which seems to be becoming mainstream.)
(Choose your preferred writing hand, which may change the position of the toolbar to the left or right.)
(Finished!)
More Introduction
(Each step is briefly introduced, with a bit too much information, but for the niche group who would buy a Paper Pro, it’s probably just right?!)
(Tooltips)
(More Guides, I recommend watching the videos and short clips on the official website directly.)
(46.32GB of storage space left. If there was originally 64 GB in total, then the various launchers, APKs, OTA upgrades, etc. of the Paper Pro have used up and reserved about 18GB. Looking forward to finding out which level of processor the Paper Pro uses in the future. Maybe we can adb into it?!)
Let’s Read a Book
(I simply threw in three PDF files for testing. The method is to first install the reMarkable app on my computer, drag and drop the PDFs into it, and then wait for the data to sync to the Paper Pro. These three PDFs are: an AWS SaaS Journey Framework (recently shared this useful framework tool with AWS SaaS Team SA at AWS Summit Taipei), an Ernest PKM web export file, and a good book Cloud Strategy (last year at re:Invent, I was lucky enough to meet and take a photo with the senior author))
(It’s a likeable display. The level of detail is completely acceptable, and the page-turning speed is also acceptable.)
(My acceptance is based on the reading experience of paper books and Amazon Kindle.)
(Let the pacifier check it out…)
(Check it again…)
(Comparison: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, black and white display. (Oh my, my lens is so dirty…))
(Comparison: Paper book.)
I’ll first share these photos with those who are interested. Later, I’ll update with more usage impressions and explain why I call it “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Focused”.
At home, I showed the reMarkable Paper Pro to my kids and said,
“This is a stack of paper ,
would you like to draw or write something?”
User Experience
Tablet-style Paper vs. Paper-style Tablet
- ✅ Thinking about and using the reMarkable Paper Pro from a paper perspective , rather than as a tablet. (I initially imposed my iPad usage scenarios on the reMarkable Paper Pro, constantly questioning why I bought it. But after consistently using it for a week, a month, three months, I rediscovered my childhood paper-based reading experience and productivity. Even during a week-long business trip to AWS re:Invent 2024 in Las Vegas, I chose to carry the reMarkable Paper Pro instead of the iPad Air. In client meetings, I’d take out the reMarkable Paper Pro, only bringing out the Macbook when I actually needed to look up information.)
- ✅ The reMarkable Paper Pro is paper with a tablet-like style.
- ✅ I can long-press anywhere of interest on the reMarkable Paper Pro without triggering selection, dictionary, or translation tool menus. This means I don’t have to hold the reMarkable Paper Pro in awkward positions with my palms and fingers; I can hold it like a stack of paper or magazine while reading.
- ✅ When reading on the reMarkable Paper Pro, I can touch and follow along the sentence I'm reading from left to right, making it almost identical to the reading experience of physical books . (Some say moving too quickly triggers page turns, but I wouldn’t make such rapid movements on physical books either.)
Marker Plus | Marker Stylus
- ✅ The sidebar menu remembers each document’s last pen settings (such as the last used stroke type and color).
- ✅ The last pen settings are remembered on a per-document basis. This is a very thoughtful and detailed design. (Most other applications remember settings at the application level, so when users switch between multiple documents in a short time (e.g., within an hour), they need to change pen types or colors multiple times when switching to another document.)
- ✅ The UI design concept of the reMarkable Paper Pro might be aimed at preventing users from overly worrying about the Marker Plus’s battery status, allowing us to focus on more important things . You can see the battery icon when the Marker Plus is connected, or check the battery status via “Home > Sidebar Menu > Settings > General > Software > Marker > Battery Status”. This means it takes 6 extra steps to see the Marker’s battery status numerically when in reading mode.
- ✅ A very sophisticated design is that the highlighter size adjusts according to the page zoom level to match the character height in PDF documents (or is this my imagination?). This way, we (as readers) can focus on reading without worrying about adjusting pen size when changing zoom levels (e.g., zooming in to read text or diagrams in detail while wanting to make annotations).
- ℹ️ Be mindful of the pen tip; try to protect the Marker Plus | Marker tip during transport. I bought a pen sleeve to protect my Marker Plus tip.
Type Folio
- ℹ️ The keyboard layout differs from the virtual keyboard, for example, the backspace key location is different.
- ℹ️ It’s a bit too heavy, so I now leave it at home. When going out, I just put the bare reMarkable Paper Pro in my bag.
Balanced Review
Let me share some drawbacks to help everyone cool down? Protect your wallet? :p
Asian Language Fonts
- ❌ The reMarkable Paper Pro device doesn't have built-in CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) fonts , so ePub files with CJK characters show up as typical tofu boxes. A temporary solution is to convert them to PDF files. I hope the product team can address this in the future, and if there’s an opportunity, I’m willing to help test.
My Files
- ❌ Moving files (notebooks or PDFs) into folders is somewhat difficult. It requires users to drag and drop documents onto folders on the screen. I’d prefer to right-click a document, select “Move to Folder” from a popup menu, then choose the target folder.
- ❌ I wish there was a “Recently Used” filter to access my 5 or 10 most recently opened documents.
Tags
- ❌ The reMarkable Paper Pro has a “Favorite” function. However, I can’t mark files as “Favorite” from the tags page.
Final Thoughts
I call the reMarkable Paper Pro “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Focused” mainly because of the paper-like experience it provides me, yet it comes with a premium metal casing and substantial weight. This device isn’t light, but considering the focus it brings me, the writing experience it offers, and the reading experience it delivers, I’m willing to bear its weight. I even carry the reMarkable Paper Pro around to let friends who love reading try it out (in an attempt to get them hooked).
Like Ernest PKM, the reMarkable Paper Pro isn’t for everyone. It’s all good as long as people find what works comfortably for them, solves their problems, and meets their needs.
Further Reading
- Let’s build a knowledge system : Ernest PKM Personal Knowledge System Workflow
- Taking group photos side by side: 📦 2024/Q4 Unbox Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro in Las Vegas (40P)