GoKawiilreMarkable has spent the last few years building out its high end line with the Paper Pro and Move. It's never said anything, but I get the sense both were far pricier than the company planned thanks to everything else going on right now. The flagship Paper Pro, after all, costs more than the higher-end MacBook Neo. The reMarkable Paper Pure sees the company taking what it learned from the high end and bringing it down to the rest of us.
The Paper Pure is a monochrome e-paper writing slate with a 10.3-inch display, built and priced to tempt newbies. But, the company has also got one and a half eyes on cornering the enterprise market. It measures 7.4 x 8.9 x 0.2 inches and weighs 0.79 pounds, with the left side bezel thick enough that the slate will rest comfortably in your hand. And while it's ostensibly the cheaper device, it carries the same visual design language as found on the Paper Pro line.
Inside is a 1.7GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A55, 2GB RAM, 32GB storage and a 3,820mAh battery. reMarkable says the device will last for three weeks on a charge, based on using the slate for an hour a day, every day. The 10.3-inch "Canvas" display is a customized version of E Ink's Carta 1300, which is whiter and has better contrast than the reMarkable 2.
A surprising carry over is the new Marker, which was a passive stylus on the first two reMarkable slates. They were redesigned for the Paper Pro and Move as active units, talking to their respective tablets to reduce writing latency. And, like the Pro models, the Marker wirelessly charges when magnetically connected to the right side of the slate. The textured top layer is here too, ensuring a consistent, paper-like writing experience on the display. There's also full disk encryption and secure boot to appeal to enterprise users and their IT teams.
Flip the device over and you'll notice the exposed plastic Torx screws on the back plate. This is part of the company's push to make the hardware more repairable ahead of the EU's directives on the matter. Even the Markers are now repairable, easy enough to access to swap out the batteries should something go wrong. However, the company doesn't yet have the parts infrastructure in place to enable it, and it would still much rather handle repairs itself.
reMarkable is intentional in its design and sweats details far more than others in the industry. The chamfering around the edges is harder to achieve in plastic than metal, but the company went the extra mile to find a solution. It sourced recycled magnesium for the core inside the frame to make it strong but not heavy. And there's no flex or bend in the hardware, hell it's almost impossible to even see the join lines between the corner components such is the tidiness of reMarkable's design and manufacturing.
Unfortunately, there's one omission which isn't just vexing but offensive at this point in time. Unlike the Pros, the Pure lacks a display backlight, giving it the same flaw which dogged the reMarkable 2. The lack there was painful if understandable, but here after so much time, it's unforgivable. As soon as the light levels fall, you'll struggle to use this thing, which is fine if you're working in a brightly lit office. But if you're a normal user who wants to organise their thoughts at the end of a long day, you're screwed. reMarkable said the lack of a backlight is "an intentional choice to provide the most paper-like experience for those who prioritize deep thinking, primarily in well-lit office environments."
The reMarkable 2 and Paper Pro both had pogo pins to enable the use of Type Folios, but neither the Pro Move or Pure do. I asked if this was a sign the company was going to open up the on-board Bluetooth, as many in the hacking community have done, to enable third-party keyboards. But the response was very much a non-committal gesture about how typing isn't one of the company's priorities right now. Perhaps reMarkable sees keyboards as a distraction from the pen-and-paper device it's trying to sell the world. Or maybe, since I last worked for a Fortune 500 company, nobody types anything anymore.
Another thing you won't see on the Pure is a wraparound tablet folio as found on all its other devices. Instead, you get a cute carrying sleeve in a choice of colors (green, pink and dark blue) for when you're moving between meetings. The color and design is solid and precise; there are magnets inside the case to hold the flap in place and trigger the Paper Pure to wake up if you pull it out of its sleeve. The lack of a proper folio isn't great, but I do appreciate the effort made to craft a carrying case that you don't feel ashamed to use.