Double the power, performance and triple the battery life at 2/3 of the price?
It's been well over 2 years since the reMarkable Paper Tablet entered my life. Remarkable have just announced that in June 2020 they will start shipping the 2nd device in their lineup, the reMarkable Paper Tablet 2.
For a more detailed look into what the pre-release marketing material is promising, check out my video below:
Whats New?
Remarkable 2 is being advertised as the "worlds thinnest tablet" and at 4.7 mm with nicely rounded edges and corners, it certainly is an appealing prospect, but I don't exactly remember users complaining that the reMarkable 1 was a particularly thick device.
On paper, it promises quite a bit of improvements over the original device:
Second-generation Canvas display technology that is supposed to be twice as fast as the original
Triple the battery life (while using the same 3000 mAh)
Double the CPU cores at a slightly bumped up clock of 1.2 GHz
Double the amount of RAM, now totaling 1 GB
Magnetic book folio cover
Magnetic pen (two types of pens, with and without an eraser)
And here is the kicker... It currently costs less than the original. The original retailed at $599 and Remarkable 2 is now on launch offer available for $399. This is a very considerable difference.
Remarkable tablet 2 (Image credit: Remarkable)
That sounds amazing!
These all sound great (especially the improved battery life and battery management, as that is still one of the weakest points of the original device), however, one thing is glaringly not mentioned anywhere. What are we to expect from the software side of things? Remarkable 1, while overall an amazing device and an achievement, was and still is plagued by some very strange decisions and limitations, such as:
Inability to bookmark pages in either EPUBs or PDFs
Inability to annotate either EPUBs or PDFs
Inability to access your device as a USB drive, when plugged in
Inability to EASILY add custom templates and sleep/off screens
There are plenty of other smaller improvements that a platform that had 2 years worth of customer feedback and time to mature and grow should most definitely have in place, but these would be the most pressing ones that I certainly hope we will see in Remarkable 2. It seems ludicrous that a brand new premium note-taking and reading device would be released in 2020 without the ability to bookmark and annotate your books and documents. Then again, they are sticking with just 8 GB of internal (non-expandable) storage, so anything is possible.
Remarkable tablet 2 (Image credit: Remarkable)
Conclusion
Either way, Remarkable 2 is coming this summer and I am very excited about it! It looks gorgeous and if the promised performance turns out to be true, this has a potential to be the next yardstick other devices measure up to, when pure note-taking performance and experience is in question.
Remarkable 2 is available now for pre-order at the company's website with the current pre-order batch estimated shipping time being August 2020 (June and July have been sold out already). Pre-order price is $399 and it includes a free pen (basic without an eraser) and a folio (again basic, not the flip-book type). There are no indications if the price will change after the pre-order phase, nor how long the pre-order campaign will last.