I really wanted to like the Remarkable. I saw people using them at a couple of conferences the idea seems so great.
So I tried it. Twice, for a couple weeks each. Had a couple of other people borrow in between and try it.
We all reached the same conclusion:
Solid implementation of a great idea!
... but ...
An additional object to carry? Nope. Get an iPad or a Surface Pro, if you need to both write/sketch and do other computing work. Carrying both a digital writing tablet and a separate general purpose device is very unappealing.
I know a board game illustrator currently using a reMarkable 2 for drawing his illustrations. Those illustrations are being used in final versions of games. They look extremely detailed. Not sure if he'd get the same level of detail on an iPad or Surface Pro. He thinks it was worth the purchase for him.
Also I think part of the appeal for this is you're not staring at a backlit screen like you would be with those devices.
Sorry, but have you looked at Procreate? There is absolutely no comparison to what you can do on an iPad. It’s basically a Wacom plus one of the high end art apps. Anything that you can do on a Remarkable can be done better on an iPad with respect to drawing, once you add a Paperlike to replicate the texture. I guess if you only did pencil sketches outside, the Remarkable would win.
I'm not the board game illustrator. My art skills aren't that great. I just see what he posts on Facebook in board game design/art groups.
I suspect eye strain was a consideration he had in making his purchase, though. He did all-digital illustration before this point (and I'm sure he still does, this is just a tool in his toolchain. He can't add color to his drawings on the reMarkable, for example). This guy had at least one game sold in Wal-mart and quite a few successful Kickstarters with his artwork (looks like he's done art for about 40 games in the past three years, he's been busy), so it can be used professionally.
This game in particular I know he did all the black-and-white versions using reMarkable, as he posted his in-progress pictures of it, on his device, on Facebook. You can see those versions in the video even, near the end of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4LOX55h-8Y
The iPad Pro is expensive, but with the pencil, it's far more versatile and can double up as an actual computer. I use it practically for all my note taking now. And it also doubles up as an entertainment device
For me the only exception to this was "reading long PDFs, often". It's not visually comfortable to do that with an iPad for very long (too bright, backlit) and you can't easily do it outside in sunlight.
This would've been a GODSEND if it had been available when I was a student... back then it was only the Kindle DX that came close, and that was hecka expensive and still smaller.
So I tried it. Twice, for a couple weeks each. Had a couple of other people borrow in between and try it.
We all reached the same conclusion:
Solid implementation of a great idea!
... but ...
An additional object to carry? Nope. Get an iPad or a Surface Pro, if you need to both write/sketch and do other computing work. Carrying both a digital writing tablet and a separate general purpose device is very unappealing.