reMarkable adds a splash of colour to its Paper Pro tablet

When TV switched to full colour it brought the world to life in a way that would’ve blown the tiny minds of those used to watching everything in black and white, and while reMarkable Paper Pro won’t have quite the same impact on the human race, the addition of a colour screen to this 11.8in tablet is still pretty significant.

The Paper Pro comes with a Marker stylus, which looks a lot like a pencil but can do nine different jobs, from ballpoint pen to paintbrush, with a palette of eight different blendable, coloured virtual inks to choose from (nine if you include white).

What sets reMarkable’s tablets apart from the iPads (and its many imitators) of the world is the use of a Kindle-esque e-ink-based display, which isn’t just easier on the eye due to its lack of a backlight, but is textured to feel more like real paper when writing on it. There is a light here, but it’s purely for making the device usable after dark, so it won’t put a constant strain on your eyes.

Every stroke shows up before you’ve even blinked so there’s no pesky lag, and it’ll respond to the angle you’re holding it at and the amount of pressure you apply. You can even use it to rotate and resize stuff. Fork out an extra £40 and you get the Marker Plus instead, which is a touch chunkier and also has an eraser function built in.

Compared to an iPad Pro or the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra the Paper Pro looks like a pathetic weakling, with just a 1.8GHz Cortex A53 processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage – but drawing such comparisons would miss the point. You’re not going to use this to play games or gaze upon Vince McMahon’s weird face in that Netflix series, which is precisely why the 5030mAh battery lasts so long: two weeks with regular use and up to three months in standby.

It does have some optional iPad-style accessories, though, with the standard Book Folio cover (from £79) available in three materials (leather, mosaic weave and polymer weave) and two colours (black or brown), or the QWERTY-toting Type Folio adding £219 to an already fairly pricey proposition.

The reMarkable Paper Pro is available to buy now, with prices starting at £559/$579.

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