So I love the iPad Air 2020, which I believe to be the best tablet of all Apple programming. But it works mainly because it’s an iterative remix of iPad Pro features at a lower price. My favorite tablet of the year, however, comes from a company you’ve probably never heard of and doesn’t run any of your favorite apps.
Despite these peculiarities, the ReMarkable 2 it’s my choice for the best tablet of 2020. Don’t worry if this is the first you heard of the reMarkable brand, reMarkable 1 was a cool device, but it didn’t prove to be as cool or successful for some reasons, which I will see below. ReMarkable 2 has totally earned its name and has become an essential part of my life during this year of adjusted workflows.
The completely unique look of reMarkable 2 is part of its appeal, and it starts with its astonishingly thin 0.2-inch frame. This is 50% less thick than the 0.3 inch reMarkable 1, and many of these changes are found in how it has a brand new body. The white and thick plastic frames and moldings are gone, replaced by a smooth sheet of machined aluminum that houses a 10.3-inch digital paper screen, in what looks like an engineering miracle.
Comparatively, the new iPad Air is really just the iPad Pro, but with new color options. They are cool, but not exactly a revelation.
ReMarkable 2 follows Apple’s path when it comes to buttons, removing its physical back, start and forward buttons, all replaced by taps on the screen. And that makes reMarkable 2 a lot cooler – it’s basically a giant Kindle, but thinner.
The writer’s tablet
But the reason why reMarkable 2 still looks more – wait for it – remarkable than the iPad is that writing on it looks natural. Of course, I’m not going to envy the new iPad scribble tool, which lets you turn handwriting into text, but not yet to feel right.
And that’s where reMarkable wins. Writing with your Marker pen is like pressing a pen or pencil against paper, not dragging plastic against glass. And that natural feeling makes all the difference in the world when you’re writing. Writing with reMarkable 2 is so easy that I just used it constantly.
From remote presentations of upcoming products embargoed at night from Dungeons and Dragons, I notice that I am always withdrawing reMarkable 2 when I need to take notes. This notebook with unlimited pages is my new favorite device.
Paper, but smarter
I could use just a pen and a pad – I have a lot of both – but reMarkable 2 offers two things that my notebooks don’t. Firstly, synchronization in the cloud means that I can always access my virtual notebooks on my laptop or phone, as reMarkable has applications for Mac, PC, iPhones and Androids. This means that I am not struggling to find out which of my many small field notebooks I was using.
Second, and even cooler, reMarkable recently added a text conversion tool, so my notes scribbled on product briefings can be translated into text shared with my colleagues who were unable to attend. Its accuracy is similar to the iPadOS scribble feature mentioned earlier.
In addition, reMarkable tablets have a ton of built-in models, so you can choose the type of paper you want. They even have templates for storyboard and musical composition.
Single-use devices can win
In the end, I love reMarkable 2 for a number of reasons why people prefer to use Kindle Paperwhite about, say, the iPad. Sure, it doesn’t do much, but the Kindle’s e-ink backlit screen is better suited for reading than the iPad’s LCD screen: it’s just more pleasing to the eye.
So, if you love writing, but feel completely bored with the tablet world – Apple’s are the best overall, I’m not going to discuss that – you need to take a look at reMarkable 2. It’s made for what you love, no 100,000 things you might like.