Thinking of Buying the reMarkable 2? - The Pros and Cons

this is a remarkable too and I'm going to be returning it hey Mark from the spark here and yes you heard that right I will be returning my remarkable two I've had a good time using it playing around with it um but there are some things that are missing from it or some things it doesn't do as well as my Kindle scribe that make it not a long-term thing I'm going to be using um at this point I would have transitioned to an overhead shot looking down on the remarkable tablet and I would have gone through some of its various different features however in a little peek behind the YouTube creation curtain I've got to confess to you that I spent a good few hours creating the aforementioned video together with an outro own to discover I hadn't checked my audio was working that's something I normally do as a you know a habit but for whatever reason this time I didn't so all that video had no audio and because it wasn't scripted there's no way of going back over the footage with a voice over and making it look authentic now you might just say We'll record it all again and yes I would have done that yeah in the time between recording that video and beginning to edit it I did what exactly I said I was gonna do and I returned the remarkable so painful lesson learned and I'll try to never make the same audio mistake again so where does that leave this video well I still remember some of the key features that I liked and disliked about the remarkable so I present to you in this video three reasons why you should buy it and three reasons why I returned it with the final reason being the one that I didn't really want to compromise on so let's try that again three reasons to buy the remarkable number one the remarkable has a gorgeous design aesthetic and it's one that still holds up in 2023 despite the fact that the remarkable 2 was released way back in 2020 seems so long ago doesn't it 2020 um it's Sleek it's thin it's very portable and it's robust with its light aluminum frame and has these bezels that are so similar in color to the screen that you think the whole thing is available to writing of course you can't but this design Choice really helps create the illusion that you're holding a sheet of A4 paper ready to be scribbled on now compare that to the bezels of the Kindle scribe which are so obviously well there both remarkable and the Scribe need somewhere for the electronics to go I guess and maybe most of those components are here on the side of the Kindle scribe while the remarkable has a bit of a chin but again which is more noticeable now I've read online that some folks quite like the larger side of the bezel as it gives them something to hold while reading and writing and while this is almost certainly true I can't argue with it I don't think the remarkable was that difficult to hold either as it has this black strip on the side with a power button on the top a charging point at the bottom and it gives you enough space to hold it it's a bit thinner but it's it's okay however despite all that I generally don't hold the Kindle up and you know to write or to read actually generally right lay it on a on a table and it's got these uh small rubber feet here to stop it from moving around and I did the same with the remarkable which has those same kind of rubber feet okay number two the remarkable two has a feature that transcribes your hand written note into typed text and I guess that's really beneficial for students or professionals who want to handwrite their notes while they're in a lecture but might need them in a typed format for sharing or digital archiving later on now while the Kindle scribe does offer the same feature now didn't offer it when it was first released there is a lot of online praise about the accuracy and convenience of the remarkable 2's text conversion now my handwriting is pretty bad it's almost like I'm writing in a code that oh now I have the cipher too so it's no surprise that both the conversion feature of the Scribe and the remarkable struggle with my handwriting however if I had to choose I'm going to say the remarkable just about edged it over the Scribe and it generally did a better job despite that almost impossible task but the other quite important thing to mention is that the remarkable converts to text within the note itself whereas with the Scribe you need to export your note as a DOT text file so again ease of use in this feature goes to the remarkable with my handwriting I should have probably been a doctor or a solicitor okay final Point number three the writing experience on the remarkable is for most people Second To None it's got a high friction surface which really does mimic that of pencil on paper more so than the Kindle scribe which has a smoother writing experience and I think for most people that would be a winner however I confess that for me I prefer the slightly smoother feel Of The Scribe I reckon I'm in the minority there as I think most folks but it would appear really appreciate that grippier sensation now don't hear me wrong both of them aren't a million miles away but there is definitely a difference now it could be that I was using the premium pen designed for the Scribe and maybe with the pen design specifically for the remarkable might have given a different experience I don't know if you've got a remarkable marker I think they call it under remarkable let me know how you're getting on do you like it rough or smooth so that's three reasons why you should buy a remarkable too based on my few weeks of using that device now there are loads more features that might persuade you too such as the impressive battery life the distraction free design the eye friendly screen and that cloud syncing across devices PDF and ePub support and more however here are three reasons why I returned my remarkable 2 with number three being My Line in the Sand as it were so number one quite obviously it doesn't support Kindle books I knew that before I purchased it but I didn't think it would be a problem as I've got the Kindle Oasis and I thought this might help separate my reading from my work but I didn't realize just how much I used my scribe to read my books during the day when I'm out and about and carrying two devices around just seemed well it seemed like a silly idea when the solution to just one was already with me and I'm heavily invested into the Amazon Kindle ecosystem so not having any way to get those same books onto the remarkable just got more and more annoying again I knew this when I bought the remarkable but you live and you learn if you use Epub file format books say from from Google Books then that would be an issue for you if you read a lot of PDFs this won't be an issue for you either but it is a bit of a faff getting those things onto the remarkable wearers with the Scribe One Tap on the device and I bought a book admittedly I've still got to import PDFs but then as far as I can tell I can also import a multitude of other file types onto the Scribe compared to the remarkable 2 which I think is just ePub and PDF though I think I did read somewhere that it can also import PowerPoint and Word files correct me in the comments if I'm wrong on this and finally on that point there is no Bluetooth audio support on the remarkable so no audio books either but I can listen to them on this okay number two I think that the remarkable 2 is quite expensive if you're just starting out and you don't have a pen or a case the remarkable two is 477 pounds when you include that marker plus which is sold separately there is a cheaper one but that price also includes a basic folio case and it has eight gigabytes of internal storage but you'll also need the yearly subscription Cloud syncing service and that's just under 36 pounds a year although admittedly the first year is free now remarkable the company is also pushing of late its Folio keyboard which might be an attractive opposition for some and that would set you back another 180 pounds now the Scribe starts at 360 pounds rising to 460 quid including the premium pen which is sold with it though you can save 30 quid and buy the cheaper version and I've included in that price a fabric cover case and the Scribe has options of 16 32 and 64 gigabytes of internal storage so the Scribe has a cheaper initial outlay and doesn't expect you to pay for a yearly Cloud syncing service though admittedly you can't export your notes easily to places like Dropbox and Google Drive you can only email yourself the notes though with a bit of fiddling I think you can email to Dropbox for later sorting again let me know in the comments if you've got any experience of this okay number three my big one the one that really was like I said that Line in the Sand the remarkable doesn't have a backlight there I've said it I've said it before on a YouTube show and made it as a comment on the video I did about the Kindle scribe a number of weeks ago but it is worth repeating because I simply hadn't realized how used to this feature I got on all my Kindle devices so much so that when I unbox the remarkable and I switched it on I momentarily looked for a backlight setting before realizing it didn't have such a thing now for note taking lovers who've transitioned from paper to an electronic device this probably isn't a big deal for you you're used to finding a lump switch a reasonably lit room or finding that one table that's under the light in your local coffee shop but for me I admit I come spoiled and as I said earlier my handwriting is terrible and it's only in this last year that I've actually decided to start using my iPad and pencil to handwrite my notes as I've been told this helps with memory retention over typing and then I moved on to the Scribe with it backlight and I didn't think about the room light level now with my eyesight it needs that bit more light to see suddenly shifting to a note taking device without any such help came as a bit of a shock first world problems I know but a problem nonetheless I love the warm glow that emanates from my Kindle Oasis and my Kindle subscribe and this means that any device without a backlight like the remarkable is one step behind before I even begin to check out the other features so that's it there are my three reasons to buy or not to buy or even return the remarkable two now I'm absolutely sure there are those of you watching this who love your remarkable and you wholly disagree with me but that's okay I only hope we can play nice for everyone else what did you think are you looking to buy a scribe or remarkable has this video helped in any small way let me know in the comments below and by the way if you want to check out a deep dive review I recorded about that Kindle scribe the video I mentioned earlier you'll find that at the end of this video go check it out and if you'd like to support me through buy me a coffee or signing up to my newsletter where I write about many more things in and around Tech Innovation and communication you'll find those links in the description box of this video or scan the QR code which should appear on the screen let's say about here folks watch YouTube on their telly now and can't tap the links so I hope that helps until my next video Drops make sure you switch on your audio and keep talking [Music] foreign

Channel: The Spark!

Views: 54,875

Keywords: Remarkable 2, Remarkable 2 2023, Kindle Scribe, Note-taking, Scribe, Kindle, all new digital paper, e-ink tablet, eInk, remarkable 2 drawing, remarkable 2 note taking, remarkable 2 review, remarkable 2 tablet, remarkable 2 tablet review, remarkable paper tablet, remarkable tablet, remarkable tablet 2, remarkable tablet review, review remarkable 2, using remarkable 2, Mark Kelly, The Spark

Id: A7NQpG2rO4Q

Length: 15min 18sec (918 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 24 2023