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Tablets · reMarkable

reMarkable RM2

19owners with an opinion
62%of verdicts positive
10/6positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for ease of use and software; criticized for display.

What owners wrote

Doesn’t like itOwned 1.5 years
I have the RM2 and it took them one and a half years of me owning it until I could draw straight lines. I still can't search in notes, even after converting them to text. If I don't annotate everything I write with tags, then I'll have a hard time finding it again. The screen is imprecise, sometimes the line appears 1mm away from the tip of the pen. Their synchronisation service costs monthly, I think 3€? I'm simply underwhelmed, especially for this price. The Supernote would have been a much better choice for me - now I'm looking at the Samsung Tab S9 series for real note taking.
Likes it
I'm personally extremely confident. Those Remarkable tablets are very hackable. I pay for their sub, but I've also whipped up my own app for syncing content between my RM2 and my home server so that I can send news articles to it, mark them up as I see fit and archive them.
Doesn’t like it
> I also have a fairly light touch normally, and the pressure curve on either the Remarkable 2 or Pro requires me to press too much for comfort to get any “width” in any of the tools. Yeah, this bothers me a lot with mine too (an RM2). I can't believe how heavily I have to press to get full line width on many tools, it's harder than I press when I use an eraser on a stubborn mark in real life. Responsiveness wise... the latency on common actions has increased incredibly in the past couple of years. Not pen drawing, that's still excellent, but general UI navigation and recognizing taps and long presses and whatnot have really gotten bad. At this point I've got it rolled back to 2.x almost all the time, which is also a whole lot more moddable than 3.x. I like many of the UI changes and additions in 3 (except infinitely vertically scrollable stuff, that keeps screwing up and interpreting taps and swipes as vertical scrolls when there's absolutely no additional content to show, so it just stops responding for a second while it scrolls three pixels down, and I would be thrilled if I could disable it completely), but not at the cost of responsiveness.
Doesn’t like it
> Again to be fair the rM2 is not sold as an _e-reader_ per se. But regardless I do find the e-reading experience weak. It's just such basic functionality that... why would you not, if even a small function of the device is indeed to read files? Honestly from what I'm reading in this thread I'm rather turned off by ReMarkable now, which is sort of disappointing. Still, I'm glad to see more and more e-ink options.
Doesn’t like it
I have one, and I used the ipad alternative that a friend has, and the ipad is just better. I haven't used the RM2 in over a year, since the functionality is just lacking compared to even a paper notebook - which is a ridiculous comparison.
Likes it
I'm using my RM2 as an e-Reader, after installing Toltec and KoReader. And it turned out to be the best e-Reader I've ever used, the sharpness of the text and the form-factor are perfect for long books. But their note-taking software is just crap. They have very weak language support, no Chinese, no Russian, or any other languages with non-Latin scripts. They don't even have software keyboards for them!
Neutral
I agree (as another RM2 user). It's great for writing stuff down, but for retrieval it's at best high-friction, sometimes just plain irritating. If a workflow for exporting my remarkable notes as SVG to obsidian but then also running OCR over them so I can search through them (without converting them to editable text because that's usually a formatting nightmare) existed, I'd be so happy as it would solve the retrieval problem.
Neutral
I am happy to be proven wrong but I’m shocked they believe there is a market for this size at all, let alone at $450! The sample text on the stock images looks useless. I wanted to love my RM2 so much. The write path is great. Writing notes on it during a meeting is a genuinely good experience. The read path: not so much. EInk UXs are so clunky especially when you’re used to how fluid phones are. Forget scrolling through your notes - It’s maddening. Pretty good ereader though.
Likes it
I have two of these devices (RM2 and the Paper Pro) and haven’t experienced anything of what you’re describing despite using them extensively for a few years. I would recommend getting in touch with support about that, or trying a factory reset to see if that improves anything.
Likes it
Most jobs I've had I use a macbook and I take daily notes in the Apple Notes app Ex: W22 D111 Wed May 28, 2025 (7) The (7) means hours since I'm a contractor and I do walks/subtracts time that I fill in with PTO I will probably get a remarkable 2 again at some point, it seems redundant if you have a tablet like device (I have a Surface Book 3) but that is rarely used funny. I used to use an RM2 a lot but had to sell it when I needed cash. It's cool that it's programmable.
Likes it
I had an RM2 it was great, love that writing texture feel and how you can program it yourself too that's nice. I never subscribed with mine or even connected it to WiFi. I'm still unsure if I will get one again as I think I would just use something like a Surface Book. My reasoning is financial mostly in the past when I was better off (like I am now) I bought so much crap like multiple G lenses (thousands $). Now I'm about avoiding being broke so just 1 type of similar device vs. multiple. I also had an iPad Pro which arguably their hardware is the best eg. built in lidar but I don't like the iOS ecosystem in an iPad so I got rid of that too.
Likes it
Source: RM2 owner I think you’re vastly overstating how hackable it is. Yes you have root, and yes that’s notable and praiseworthy. However, it’s not “dead simple,” practically speaking. The parts you actually care about (the display/touch logic, library management, annotations, etc.) are all inside a single, proprietary binary. A group of dedicated and extremely impressive hackers has done excellent work reverse engineering and packaging their work for others to readily use. But they’re always swimming upstream, having to work around the myriad issues surrounding this vital, proprietary blob. Case in point: the hacker community’s work on RM2 v3.4+ has been stalled for 6+ months now because of changes that Remarkable made to their proprietary system. Another example of how not-open the core functionality is: you can’t hack in your own two-way ebook sync logic because the remarkable’s blob one-way-converts all books to a custom binary format before the user can read and annotate them. Sure, you can hook into some of the sync logic by mocking their API (iirc) and doing some custom one-way-sync stuff (using tools from the truly impressive hacker community). But two-way sync? I’m not aware of anything. And it’s definitely not as easy as mounting some fuse filesystem that does two-way sync with some service that you can load with books. So yeah, the RM2 is just a simple Linux system only if you ignore the actual reading and writing functionality. It’s good to have root (I _never_…
Likes it
Yeah parent comment might have missed that. RM2 gives you root access to a dead simple Linux system running on the device. There's literally nothing better than that. There's also a whole community of app developers for the RM, RM2 and now the newest one, search for Toltec. There's tons of options for writing simple scripts to interact with the Remarkable. It's my favorite feature!
Doesn’t like it
It's definitely a different feel, but not bad. It feels like using a particularly smooth ballpoint on some nice heavyweight stationery. I don't find it particularly noticeable or distracting, but I also don't do much handwriting anymore. It has a pleasant amount of drag and has a very slight squishy feel, like if you're writing on a stack of two or three sheets. My problem is that I apparently apply quite a lot of pressure when writing and the nib in the stylus wears out after a few dozen hours. Some people talk about using titanium nibs, but I'd rather burn through nibs than tear up the irreplaceable screen. The handfeel is fantastic. It really is a wonderfully designed object. However, the writing experience is not great. The digitizer is quite simply bad. RM knows about it and seemingly don't care. The digitizer develops random calibration problems and it becomes impossible to accurately put your pen on any specific spot. You absolutely cannot ever continue a stroke after you've lifted the pen. There is no way to recalibrate. The working theory is stray magnetization inside the digitizer, some people claim that dragging a magnet over the screen helps. It also has some nasty quantization issues. Pen strokes are not vectorised and come out inexplicably jagged and aliased. If you are the type of person who can write quickly with very few mistakes, and without constantly looking at the page, you'd probably get good use out of the RM2. For me, I am abysmal at writing like t…
Likes it
Before I got my rM2, I carried two paper notebooks with me everywhere - one for work and one for everything else. I also carried a nice fountain pen in a sleeve for note-taking. After getting the rM2, I carried it. All of my notes are there, they're sharable from "the cloud", and I screen-share with it on Zoom calls for work when there's a need to diagram. > What is so good about ReMarkable? All of their products are, first and foremost, an "electronic paper notebook". They're designed to replace physical pen/pencil-and-paper. If that's what you want to use it for, you'll be happy with it. > I would never use it for writing only reading white and black text with no images I'd steer you toward an rM2 then, unless you absolutely need the backlight. They seem to be going for about $300 in like-new condition on the used market, so now is a good time to buy. As for using it as an eReader, they work well in some cases and adequately in others. PDF support is excellent - >90% of my eBook collection is uploaded to my reMarkable account in PDF format. It looks exactly the same on the device as it does printed, navigation works, and documents are easy to "mark up" using the pen. EPUB support is... well, adequate. I think it's running a script in the backend the first time you open an EPUB file that converts it to PDF. Changing the font size does the same. For the rM2, this process could take a second or so for most documents and up to about 15 seconds for 500-ish page books. I've not…
Likes it
My experience largely mirrors the OP's. I find reading and writing in darkness to be very pleasant with the new backlight, but YMMV. Lack of backwards compatibility with my existing RM2 styli is somewhat annoying, but I'll deal. The RM2 was a huge improvement over the original Remarkable; the RMPP is a smaller, but still substantial, improvement over the RM2. If you can afford it, I recommend it.
Doesn’t like it
> I'm sure there are use cases where the reMarkable works better, maybe PDF annotation I can tell you right now that taking handwritten notes and annotating PDFs are my primary use cases and my RM2 has not been in use for several months now. It's just not as good as even pen and paper, let alone a Supernote, for example. Few features, imprecise screen, no search, etc. It took them one a half years after I bought it to introduce drawing of straight lines, and besides that they're apparently focusing on their keyboard - for an expensive device that should primarily be used for handwritten notes, instead of trying to be a laptop.
Doesn’t like it
> What does the ReMarkable really excel at? I have the RM2, and my answer to that question is: nothing. Even when handwriting - which is their core feature - the screen is very imprecise at times - up to 1 mm. You can't search in notes, not even after converting them to text.
Likes it
Try checking for software updates? My RM2 got infinite canvas in an update some time ago. That said, I don't really use that feature and find it annoying when I accidentally move the canvas instead of turning to the next page. This whole paper tablet space looks like a place full of tradeoffs where it's hard to please everyone... IMHO overall remarkable is doing that balancing act quite well.
Doesn’t like it
> My needs are mostly note taking and reading technical PDFs, and for that the reMarkable is fantastic. I do both of those and I dislike the RM2. There's little space for notes above and below the PDF page, no infinite canvas. I have more space on the back of a printed PDF (to the left of the current text page) than in the RM2. So, all note taking in a PDF for me is just keywords, while I would much prefer to put text and drawing,s graphs, etc. all around the PDF page. So, for the last few months I have barely used the RM2 and have gone back to pen and paper.
Doesn’t like it
I've owned a rm2 since xmas 2020 and really used to love it. I even brought an old obsidian plugin for it back from the dead. But the power button gave up 13 months in and they were dicks about it, and then when the pen nib holder disintegrated and they insisted it wasn't a known defect, I just gave up and it's been sat on my shelf ever since. For anyone still into them though, a Lamy EMR pen coupled with the Wacom felt pen nibs (pn ACK22213) is an incredible upgrade which makes it feel like a real fineliner. Similarly, I found the various titanium nibs that you can get off amazon made it feel like a real ballpoint [0]. [0]: https://reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/1545mn9/excel...
Doesn’t like it
I figure I'll drop this here just in case. I don't really use my RM2 since keeping it in my backpack caused the cover to start getting destroyed. I wrote this as a "is this possible" type program. It ssh's into the tablet and then emulates a stylus through the windows api. Worked with things like blender and krita. Can't say I'm likely to update it again, but it at least worked last I tested it. Also note it doesn't install anything on the device it only reads out the device file for the pen. https://github.com/ookami125/Remarkable-Stylus
Neutral
I can access my RM2 with SSH via WiFi or USB-C, if that's what you mean. But the official reMarkable client is not available for Linux, which I find a bit odd, since it is a Qt-app and the founder of the company apparently is an avid linux user. I have got it working via Wine, but it keeps breaking after updates. I do not use it often though, as I mostly just upload new files via the website.
Likes it
> a problem that is solved pretty simply and cheaply by a good spiral bound notebook and a nice pen. You're right, but only mostly :) The paper and pen that it replaced for me certainly wasn't cheap. I bought the rM2, keyboard folio, and the pen, so I'm all-in for around $1k USD. My EDC pens are all around the $150-$400 mark. There are use cases that it does much better, though. I regularly use mine in Zoom meetings, and the desktop app allows me to screencast my rM2 to the call. It's super nice to be able to draw a diagram "on paper" and have everyone on the call see what I'm doing. > I can just carry this new device around with me and never lose deep focus! This is a net zero, at least for me. Before, I had two notebooks (one for work, one for personal stuff) and a pen. Now I have a single device that's the same height and width, but is about 1/3 as thick. The weight is a bit less. It's not distracting because all I can do with it is take notes and read PDFs/ebooks. Actually, I take it back. It's a net win. I no longer have a separate Kindle that I carry with me.
Likes it
I want to like this. I have a thing for epaper/eink. But I really don't know what I would use this for, for pretty much the same reasons I don't have any other tablet computer today. My sole "tablet" is a RM2 that I use exclusively for note-taking. It seems like most tablets it makes a lot of trade-offs that just make it inherently less useful than having a laptop. I'll just count this as me not being in their target market.