Remarkable Paper Pro is as extravagant as it is luxurious

You probably don’t need the Remarkable Paper Pro. It’s too luxurious. You know those sports cars that look like spaceships but run into streetlights if you sneeze? That’s the luxury I’m talking about. This is the hypercar of E Ink note-taking devices.

It has a front light! It has color! It has an 11.8-inch display! It has the best keyboard case available today! And it has a completely bold display choice. This isn’t a device for reading books or comics (although you can pull them off the side if you want), but for really, really good document marking and note-taking. (The operating system is identical to the one in the Remarkable 2.) Starting at $579 (available direct from Remarkable and Best Buy), the Paper Pro isn’t a practical device for most people, but Remarkable has pushed E Ink displays to their limits, and god, I love it for it.

I have to take a moment to complain about the display. The company hasn’t gone with the washed-out colors of the Kaleido display found in Kobo and Boox devices. No, Remarkable has decided to take the less popular Gallery display technology and then put its own spin on it (they call it the Canvas Color display). Gallery is praised because its color is richer and clearer than Kaleido. While Kaleido achieves its color by applying black and white pigments to the filter, Gallery bypasses the filter and transfers the actual color pigment. But transferring all that color comes at a price: Gallery displays have much, much, A lot slower refresh rate.

I mean, uncomfortably slow. So slow that you’ll be pulling your hair out in frustration writing anything. Except for the Remarkable Paper Pro. Writing on this device is buttery smooth. The experience is just as enjoyable as writing on the Remarkable 2. It’s only slightly better than the experience you’ll find on the Kindle Scribe or any of the Kobo and Boox devices I’ve tried over the years. Writing in black ink, I’m constantly amazed at how well everything seems to work—knowing the limitations of the Gallery display always clashes with the impressive reality that the Remarkable has created.

Then I switch to writing with colored ink. There are six colors to choose from: blue, red, green, yellow, cyan, and magenta. Choose any of them and start scribbling. Writing in color is as smooth as writing in black. The pen strokes start rendering in black, with the selected color taking away the black as you stroke. Then, when you stop typing, there’s a pause, and the entire screen refreshes, the new colors already in place. That’s one way Remarkable deals with Gallery’s awful refresh rate.

But is it annoying in practice? A little bit! Especially at first. But you quickly get into a rhythm and the irritation disappears. I noticed that after a few minutes I was less irritated. And I kept asking myself: “Does it really matter?”

Remarkable Paper Pro is not an artist’s tool (although it does support layers and shading). You shouldn’t be unlocking creativity. You’re using these colors, so move Business report decks and PDFs look nice when you circle the changes you want to make in red. You use these colors to faithfully replicate the artwork in your book or to spice up a headline you wrote in a brainstorming notebook. You use them to highlight all the numbers you need to remember for your Q4 profitability presentation. In these cases, a little flash is annoying, but not in the end times.

And for me, knowing how true it is to color makes me forgive the flash — because holy shit, they put Gallery in Remarkable and pushed it to the limits! That’s some crazy concept car from a company that makes note-taking devices.

But I’m surprised the boldness that inspired the display choice didn’t carry over to the front light. It’s… okay. It’s weaker than what others offer, and you can’t control the color light temperature, which is annoying in 2024. Remarkable apparently opted for a less powerful and flexible front light due to the design requirements of the Paper Pro. The front light needs to be incredibly thin so there’s no distracting gap between the glass you’re writing on and the E Ink display underneath. And there isn’t! But I also didn’t find that gap as distracting as you might expect on a Boox or Kindle Scribe. So while I respect Remarkable’s commitment to taking care of the gap, I’d prefer a better front light.

Luckily, Remarkable’s design finesse has revealed yet another winner: this company now makes the absolute best keyboard case you can get your hands on. The $229 Type Folio puts every other keyboard case I’ve ever used, for both tablets and computers, to shame. It’s so thin and light that I’m still surprised by the unique keyboard it’s packed into. It also has great stability when open on your lap, and a clever way to keep your pen out of the way. More than even the bold colors of the Remarkable Paper Pro, this keyboard case is a real head-turner. That’s exactly what every keyboard case should be. It really is that good.

Like the rest of the Remarkable Paper Pro, the Type Folio feels like the company is showing off at the expense of the price. Like a hypercar, most people don’t feel the need to own one, and they probably are too expensive, but it shows the future, and this future is much faster and more colorful than it might seem.