This product was provided by Remarkable for the purpose of this review and the embedded videos.
I’ve spent two decades as a sales professional, over ten years as a university professor and online educator, and countless years as an entrepreneur and consultant. All this to say, I fall squarely into Remarkable’s target demographic of professionals, students, and creative folks. For years, I championed taking notes on paper or a tablet during meetings, finding that using a laptop felt distant and unprofessional. I bounced between Samsung Galaxy tablets, the Surface Pro line, and various iPads, always searching for a comfortable, convenient solution for taking, searching, and preserving notes that I truly loved. While I never found that device before, I will say Samsung’s devices had the best stylus and writing experience of the bunch.
Then, early in 2024, my cousin, a business owner with a lot on the line, showed me his Remarkable 2. A very thin device with an e-ink display that promised weeks of battery life and a distraction-free note-taking environment, I was intrigued. For someone like him to drop full internet access on his note-taking device and lean heavily on it, I knew I had to do my research. Having used most similar devices, and considering my long journey, I can now share my experienced review of the Remarkable Paper Pro – a device I genuinely cannot work without.
I first received the Remarkable Paper Pro in February 2025, already owning a Remarkable 2. Setup was incredibly simple, just a few taps, and I was off. I treated it like a brand new device on a flight shortly after receiving it, creating new folders for all my professional activities: consulting, sales, teaching, and tech reviews. Within those, I made sub-folders and notebooks, doing a complete “brain dump”. This not only built a foundation for future notes but also made for an oddly therapeutic flight.
Now, you might be wondering, what’s the difference between the Paper Pro and the Remarkable 2? Doesn’t it do all the same things? Mostly, yes. The Paper Pro builds on the fundamentals of note-taking, synchronization with cloud services like OneDrive and Dropbox, and file management. But it adds some significant upgrades: a backlit color display, double the RAM (2GB), and 8x more storage (from 8GB to 64GB). It’s also slightly larger than the Remarkable 2, giving you more room to work with, which is a big delta. Battery life is still measured in days, and it charges even faster (90 vs. 120 minutes). Overall, it’s faster, with lower latency, meaning the “ink” writes to the screen much quicker than on the Remarkable 2. I actually returned my first Remarkable 2 when it initially came out because I felt it was too slow for my needs, but this is much faster.
While these upgrades aren’t strictly requirements for my workflow, they make for a more comfortable and dynamic writing experience. For me, the biggest improvements came from the new color screen and backlighting. On an evening flight, with my new Paper Pro, I could gently increase the backlighting and continue my work without needing an overhead light. This lands neatly into my desire to be discrete, much like my switch from paperback books to Kindle years ago. The color screen has been a game-changer for my sales notes. I’ve created a system where different colors have different implications: black for general notes, red for notes I need to validate, and blue for good news to inform leadership. I only need a few colors—blue, red, and black, really—but they help me highlight and prioritize critical information.
The Paper Pro also brought compatibility with a fantastic new accessory: a TypeCover Keyboard. It doesn’t add too much weight or size over a standard folio cover. The design is brilliant; it’s hidden away, so you don’t have to worry about keys scratching your display or getting finger oils on it, which is a common pain with other keyboard cases. This keyboard has been particularly helpful for me on airplanes and after meetings when I need to type some notes, perhaps expanding on what I’ve read or transcribing articles. The keys are even backlit, with adjustable brightness. It offers flexibility, allowing me to switch seamlessly between typing and marking up pages with my pen. While I mostly prefer handwriting, if I were typing more, this keyboard folio would be a must-have.
The handwriting experience itself is top-notch. It offers a true paper-like feel. I love the way shapes automatically correct to perfect forms when you hold the pen down, whether it’s a circle or a triangle. There are tons of templates, from lined paper to planners, music sheets, and engineering grids. I mostly use lined paper now, gravitating between medium and small lines. The ability to create layers is also super cool, especially for artists, but I even find quirky uses for it, like mapping out complex video games.
For my various jobs and clients, the magnitude and types of notes I need to take are immense. Handwriting conversion is very important to me. Even with my “crappy handwriting,” it converts perfectly, allowing me to quickly copy and paste notes into emails. You can even convert specific selections, and I found it intelligently formatted a dash into a bullet point when I moved converted text.
As a sales professional, the Remarkable Paper Pro makes my job easier. I can take notes, sync them, and access them anywhere. I’ve developed a technique for mentally organizing customer information: noting customer names, key people, their problems, problem priorities, and which solutions address them. This practice, done in quiet moments like on a plane, significantly improves my recall when speaking with managers, co-workers, or even the customers themselves. It’s been a game-changer for me. Plus, taking notes with a stylus and an e-ink tablet in front of a customer looks much more professional than typing away on a laptop, which can seem distracting.
The device itself feels incredibly premium, right up there with Apple’s Pro products, with a cool metal touch and a beautiful design. The leather case, with its subtle magnetic clasp for the pen, is a thoughtful detail that prevents the pen from shifting in a travel bag. The interface is simple, with folders, notebooks, tagging, and quick sheets for immediate notes.
While the Paper Pro was provided to me for review, I can genuinely say that I highly recommend either the Remarkable Paper Pro or the Remarkable 2, depending on your needs. If you’re a traveling professional, a business person who deals with many people and accounts (like in customer success or sales), something like this will be great for your professional life. If someone in my position, a traveling sales professional, were to ask me which one, I’d say get the Paper Pro; it’s worth the extra $200. The color, backlighting, larger screen, and especially the faster performance and lower latency are key reasons why I prefer it.
The Remarkable 2 is still an awesome device and a great option if the Pro’s upgrades aren’t critical for you. But if you’re like me, juggling multiple jobs and clients, needing to organize vast amounts of information, and wanting a truly premium, distraction-free note-taking experience that enhances your professional image, the Remarkable Paper Pro is a must-have. And with their 100-day return policy, you can try it out yourself.