Distraction-free Writing

Remarkable II has a buddy. A keyboard.

You whip your digital notebook onto its side and slot it into the Type Folio. A clever folding mechanism allows you to slide the screen up, revealing a minimalist keyboard. 59 keys. The alphabet, the digits, punctuation and a few function keys. A load of function keys, actually.

CTRL, opt, alt, alt opt, shift. What for? Not a Scooby-do.

The keyboard is quite nice to type on, and the screen updates fast enough. There is something quirky and analogue about the e-ink screen. It’s a typewriter, reimagined.

Just like a typewriter, it has no spell-check and its output is a bit awkward. There are formatting options, and I daresay that I could get used to them, but they’re not instinctive.

I don’t think that Remarkable intends their tablet to be used as a typewriter. They intend it to be a digital notebook. They envisage someone jotting some notes with a stylus, and then opting to turn those notes into five bullet points for a memo or meeting agenda, using a keyboard. They might even amend the note on their phone app on the way home.

I have been considering whether I might want to use the Remarkable as writing machine. A place that I can draft an article or a chapter. I don’t tend to draw flowcharts or idea bubbles with links. Seldom do I add a doodle. I just start typing.

It works. There’s no browser, no other apps. Just a keyboard and screen. It’s essentially the same (although a lot more portable) as the Amstrad word processor that I had at University in the early 1990s. Formatting is, for me, too much of a faff to learn. As the output is going to need to be manipulated anyway, I’ll “fix it in post”.

There’s no doubt that the small form factor is going to look great on the train table or plane tray. If I’m looking to bang out a draft, Remarkable will do the job. It will create a PDF. Mostly unformatted, and full of typos.

That’s...ummm...not very useful, actually. I don’t want a PDF and I’m not desperate to have loads of typos, either.

On my laptop, (any platform), I can use one of many applications to tap out a first draft in multiple outputs. I’m drafting this article on IA Writer, which is spell-checking as I type. If I wanted to, I could have it run various style rulers over the writing as well. With various focus modes and views, I can create an equally distraction-free mode. When I'm finished drafting, I'll send it to my website as a draft.

I don’t want to be unfair to the Remarkable 2. I’m trying to make it fit a use-case that it’s not intended to fit. However, for typing a draft of something, it’s not very good. The absence of a spell-check and the limit of output formats just makes it awkward. For someone who finds distraction irresistible on a laptop, then I guess there is a case for using this machine, but for me, if I’m typing a draft on it, then I’m performing. I might even be wearing a turtleneck.

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