ReMarkable has created a fantastic tablet for people who like to use a Pencil. The writing experience is fantastic, you can write or draw multiple days without recharging, and of course you can share this data with your phone and PC.

A few months ago, I decided to buy one (tablet + cover + pencil/eraser) and leverage the 90 days eval ReMarkable is proposing, as they are almost sure you will keep it !… and I have been very impressed by this wonderfull device.

But as you can read in the title, I have finally decided to return it before these 90 days.

=> I do not quit this product “forever”, but just wait until they will add some features that are for me mandatory.

In this article, I will share with you quickly my experience during these tests, I hope it will be useful for you.

As I mentioned, I bought the ideal package: the tablet, the cover built by this company, and the pen with at the rear the eraser, also from ReMarkabe.

The ReMarkable package

First of all, let’s discuss about the different items I ordered. As a best practice, I always buy (if I can afford) the top product, and then expect to have the best experience possible.

Based on my experience, if one day I buy this tablet again, I will probably change my mind a little bit:

The Cover is very good material, but very (too) expensive for what it is, and the major drawback is that it does not protect the pencil (attached tablet via a magnet). As a result when traveling, in my bag, I am always searching for the pen which drops constantly.
1. I would probably go for a very cheaper cover that will provide good protection, BUT that will also protect the pen from falling.
The pencil is great and will probably not buy an other brand as I really like the writing experience.
1. I will not by again the one with the eraser. Frankly, I never used this eraser but always selected the “eraser” tool in the menu. Another way to save money.

At this level I think I will have a better package and save quite amount of money.

The roadmap and customer feedback: Please (for you) fix this!!

ReMarkable team you must change this !

I have been very surprised to see how expensive it is forReMarkable to offer this 90 days eval, and how they are failing in the way they value (in fact not value) customer feedback in general, especially when a customer return the device. There must be something to learn for the price of this loss !

As a classical habit, I always shared with ReMarkable (support ticket, feedback form, even wrote a mail to the CEO) my thoughts in a positive way and guess what : I had no feedback at all.

What I mean here is that I have never seen (or found) a way where there is interaction with the customer, where we can provide feedback, a Wishlist, and in return get some more details from the R&D team.

This is really something surprising as again, this 90 days eval is a super high cost for a company, a pure loss of money.

Hand writing is great, but no : everything can’t be done with only a pen !!!

If you search YouTube, you will find a lot of videos regarding this great Remarkable product. You will not only have videos regarding how to use it, but also how you can write/draw fantastic documents. This is very beautyfull… but not everyone is an artist! I am not !!

Quickly you can feel the limit of the “everything has to be done by a pen” statement emphasize by ReMarkabe and all youtubers. Going handwriting may take 10x times compared with another software dedicated to a “special need”. What I mean here is that :

To write, you need a pencil
To type, you need a keyboard… or leverage Voice Recognition products that will act as a keyboard… so far so good.. but :
To create a Diagram, there is nothing better than Microsoft Visio.
To create a MindMap drawing, it is not a pen that you need, but a powerful solution such as MindManager.

Unfortunately today, the ReMarkable software will “lock” you on this “nothing except a pen” logic, rather than giving you the opportunity – after taking notes during a meeting for example – to enhance these notes by inserting “images” : the logo of you customer, Diagram, MindMap, .. anything coming from another product that can’t be done by a pen.

As a result of this, the “exportPDF/SendEmail” feature is not useful. You are sending you a draft notes, not a finalized document.

ASK : It would be fantasticto have the ability – in the PC app – to leverage a feature that will allow you to “insert”, when it makes sense, valuable drawing coming from other products that are designed for this purpose.

The user experience could be very simple

You take your notes, 100% with ReMarkable and your pen
Then, post production :
Click the place where you want to insert a logo/diagram.
Move down the text, to have enough space to insert your logo.
And then finally insert the valuable logo.

Post production is another area where such tablet should play a magic role and unfortunately today, it totally fails.

TIP: insert text with voice recognition (AI)

Every day I use a software called Dragon. I use it to write mail and documents, even sometimes for chats. It recognizes my speech and just acts as someone typing on my keyboard, I save a lot of time, and ease my elbow tendinitis!

This software is a very advanced “voice recognition” solution that can manage multiple languages and can also “learn” from your voice.

With ReMarkable you can also value AI by just selecting “insert text”, and then you just need to talk. Solutions such as Dragon will just make the typing for you, so you enhance your document “afterward”.

=> This is a great example to prove that valuing external solutions can bring even more value to Remarkable solution and justtify the price, as productivity will go higer.

Conclusion: When will I buy it again?

I am looking frequently at their roadmap announcement, which is againtoo limited in my opinion.

I hope that one day I will see the enhancements I mentioned in this post, and if it is the case I will buy it again!