reMarkable 2 10.3" RM114 Gray

The reMarkable 2 is a premium digital notebook with the best paper-like writing feel we've tested. It's distraction-free by design, with excellent build quality and up to two weeks of battery life. But it's expensive, has no backlight, and requires a subscription for full cloud sync. Buy it if you want a focused writing tool, not a general-purpose tablet.

Let's be clear about what "performance" means here. There's no CPU benchmark to run, no GPU to push, no RAM to flex. The reMarkable 2 is a purpose-built writing device, and on that front it's excellent. The latency between the Marker Plus tip and the e-ink display is low enough that writing feels immediate. The paper-like texture is the star of the show. It's not glassy like an iPad with a screen protector. It has a slight drag that makes handwriting feel natural.

Battery life is advertised as up to two weeks, and in practice most users report getting well over a week of regular note-taking. That's a huge advantage over an iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab, which need charging every day or two. The trade-off is that the screen refresh rate is slow by modern standards. Scrolling through long PDFs feels sluggish compared to a 120Hz LCD or OLED panel. But for writing, flipping pages, and marking up documents, it's more than adequate. Our database puts the screen at the 60th percentile, which is about average for e-ink devices, but the writing experience itself is best-in-class.

The Kindle Scribe is the most direct competitor, and it's cheaper while adding a backlight and a larger ecosystem. But the Scribe's writing feel isn't quite as good, and Amazon's software is more reading-focused than note-focused. The reMarkable 2 is the better pure writing device. Against the iPad Pro M5 or Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, there's no contest on specs. Those devices have better screens, faster processors, and actual app stores. But they're also full of distractions. The reMarkable 2 wins on focus and battery life, and loses on everything else. The Microsoft Surface Pro 11 is a full Windows PC, which makes it overkill for someone who just wants a digital notebook. If you're deciding between a reMarkable 2 and a traditional tablet, ask yourself one question: do I want a device that does everything, or a device that does one thing extremely well?

At $543 USD for the Essentials Bundle, the reMarkable 2 is expensive for what it does. You can buy a Kindle Scribe for less, or an iPad with an Apple Pencil for around the same price and get a full tablet experience. But value here isn't about feature count. It's about focus. If you're a student, lawyer, therapist, or anyone who takes pages of handwritten notes daily, the reMarkable 2 pays for itself in saved paper and reduced distraction. The recurring gripe about the Connect subscription is fair though. You get a 100-day free trial, but after that you're paying monthly for cloud sync and handwriting conversion. That stings on top of an already premium price. The 8GB of internal storage is also rough. It's enough for thousands of pages of notes, but if you're importing large PDFs regularly, you'll feel the squeeze.

The reMarkable 2 is a weird product to review in 2025, because it's not really trying to be a tablet. It's a digital notebook that happens to have a 10.3" 1872x1404 monochrome display and 8GB of storage. At around $543 USD for the Essentials Bundle with the Marker Plus and Book Folio, you're paying iPad money for something that can't browse the web, play video, or run a single third-party app. And honestly? That's the point. reMarkable leaned hard into the "paper tablet" idea, and for a specific kind of person, this thing nails it.

People searching for "best tablet for note taking" or "paper feel tablet" keep landing here, and the 4.5-star rating across 719 reviews tells you the people who buy it mostly love it. But the people who buy it are self-selecting. They want a distraction-free writing surface, not a do-everything slate. If you're asking "is the reMarkable 2 good for reading?" the answer is mixed. It's fine for PDFs and documents, but there's no backlight, so reading in bed is a no-go unless you've got a lamp handy.

The bundle includes the Marker Plus with a built-in eraser, nine spare tips, and a gray polymer weave cover. The whole package is 4.7mm thick and weighs about 1400g with everything included. It feels premium in a way that's hard to describe until you hold one. The magnetic pen attachment is strong, the build quality is excellent, and the writing surface genuinely feels closer to paper than anything else we've tested.

Skip the reMarkable 2 if you need a backlight for nighttime reading or writing, want to watch videos or browse the web, or expect app support. It's also a poor choice if you're on a tight budget, since the Kindle Scribe offers similar core functionality for less money. If you need a general-purpose tablet for work, school, or entertainment, the iPad or Galaxy Tab line will serve you far better. And if you're a heavy PDF user who needs lots of storage, the 8GB limit will frustrate you quickly. This is a focused tool for focused people, not a do-everything device.

The reMarkable 2 is not for everyone, and that's okay. It's a niche product that executes its niche flawlessly. The writing experience is the best we've tested, the build quality is excellent, and the distraction-free philosophy actually works if you're the kind of person who gets pulled into notifications mid-thought. The 4.5-star rating reflects a user base that knew what they were buying and got exactly that.

Should you buy it? If you take handwritten notes every day, read and mark up PDFs regularly, and want a device that feels like paper without the clutter of a full tablet, yes. This is the one. If you need a backlight, want to watch videos, browse the web, or run apps, look elsewhere. The reMarkable 2 is a luxury tool for a specific job. It does that job better than anything else on the market.