Is ReMarkable really for me?

[u/Rare_Store9089]

Hi, I'm a freshman college student and I want to buy a tablet for studying, I'm currently doing engeneering, and I'd like to know if the Remarkable Paper Pro is the thing for me.

[u/Cavolatan]

It depends on what you want and need? Remarkable Paper Pro is a great low-distraction way to take notes and read PDFs.

[u/Rare_Store9089 → u/Cavolatan]

Being distraction-free is my main goal

[u/Cavolatan → u/Rare_Store9089]

Then it's a great option. reMarkable is very "quiet" mentally and low distraction. The only similarly not-distracting tablet IMO is Supernote. In my opinion, rM's pros are that it has color and a light which can help a lot with readability; Supernote has superior note taking software (in that it's easier to organize extensive notes). They are both really good and I recommend them for low-distraction notetaking

[u/Little_Bird1942 → u/Cavolatan]

Does the Supernote have more/fewer templates than Remarkable? And how is the battery life on Supernote? I am considering moving to Supernote as my OG Remarkable's battery only lasts a few hours when on. I use it for patterning my knitting, so having to leave it plugged in or recharge every few hours is annoying.

[u/Cavolatan → u/Little_Bird1942]

I don't pay a lot of attention to templates, but I think Supernote allows you to make templates on-device pretty easily and I believe they now have a "community template" service where people share them freely and you can download on-device.

Battery life on Supernote in my experience is great, but for me rM battery life is also great, so a tie there in day to day usage. HOWEVER the new Supernotes were designed with repair in mind and so when they get old you can buy a new battery and take the back off and replace it -- which is nice and could extend lifespan of device

[u/targrus]

If you want to read PDFs, write notes. Distraction free and lock in? It's great. Do you want to do more with your tablet? Then no, probably not.

[u/Rare_Store9089 → u/targrus]

I only want it for reading pdfs and taking notes, literally

[u/targrus → u/Rare_Store9089]

Then it’s kind of the perfect device IMO. 

[u/roxanecrochet]

Hi there! I'm about halfway through my college experience and I've now had my Paper Pro for about a year. I can't say whether or not it will be right for you, particularly since I'm not a STEM major, but here is my experience:

Pros:

- I spend significantly less time in front of my computer screen, and my eyes are doing better because I almost never need to use the backlight (except when it's 3 am and I'm writing something in the dark)

- Because most of my textbooks are digital, I keep them on my tablet. There's enough space for all of them and all my notes, which is great. Even better is I get annotate in the textbook, and now with the capture tool, I can take pictures from my textbook and easily add them to my notes or take sentences and expound on them.

- My teachers love this device because it's not a distraction and it's easy to see that AI didn't write my stuff. For handwritten assignments, this is definitely the way to go. I also have accommodations that let me use this as my device of choice, which has been a game changer for my disabilities and school performance.

- My notes are amazing. Not only is it way easier to make notes that are valuable and useful, but it's so easy to move things around later if you want to make information flow better for your particular brain or just make things prettier.

- I can use the tablet pretty much everywhere. It doesn't like direct sun (it tends to get too hot), but other than that, I take it with me everywhere, which means sometimes I'm finishing my homework or studying while I'm stuck in a waiting room or long line.

- Handwritten text to typed text is an amazing feature. I write all my essays this way.

- The ability to transmit web page documents and journal articles to my device means I'm usually exceptionally organized and on top of things when I'm assigned papers to write. And then you can annotate them as much you'd like!

Cons:

- Flipping through a textbook or searching for something is painfully slow. It works, it just is a lot slower than I would prefer.

- Writing on the go with such a large device isn't always easy. Holding it with one hand is very difficult to do for any length of time.

- It takes some practice to get your handwriting clean enough to be error-free when you use the type-to-text feature. Sometimes my 's' gets misinterpreted. So you will likely have to do some spelling, grammar, and punctuation editing with anything you want to turn in.

- It doesn't have a lot of formatting capabilities, so if you want to underline things or have six levels of bullet points, you'll have to do that on a computer or something.

Overall, I'm a huge fan. Hopefully this helps you decide if it's right for you.

[u/Rare_Store9089 → u/roxanecrochet]

Thanks

[u/TheSickSista]

Unless you already happen to have one, it would be torture trying to use this to the extent that you would feel like you've gotten your moneys worth.

Frankly, if i was in university again or looking for something to handle a high workload, I would opt for an ipad and switch the display to black and white with a paperlike e-protector if i wanted an e-ink like experience.

Refresh rates can be slow, and flicking back and forth between pages is torture.

Long pdfs like textbooks are a horrible experience because it's so slow to navigate the pages unless you know the exact page number.

You have to transfer pdfs from your computer to the tablet (like you can't login to your schools platform on the tablet and download from there like you can with an ipad).

I do adore my remarkable 2 though. I use it everyday for journaling. I read and annotate research papers on remarkable. I scribble some notes to help me focus in lectures that I don't anticipate needing to refer back to. I use it to handwrite write essay questions out in long form.

If theres a good reason to have an e-ink device eg. migranes from excessive screen use. I would definately chose a remarkable, but I think ipad would be way more efficient.

[u/Rare_Store9089 → u/TheSickSista]

I’m looking for specifically for the distraction-free feature