Could putting pen to reMarkable’s Paper Pro tablet make you more creative and less stressed?

In partnership with reMarkable

Tim Marlow likes to write things down. If the London Design Museum director has a plan to work on or an idea to flesh out, he immediately puts pen to tablet, releases creative flow from head to hand and watches his thoughts take shape on the page. A mental note, he believes, cannot develop into a structured concept until it’s written.

‘It’s really important to be able to make notes the second something occurs to you,’ he says. ‘Once I’ve written an idea down, there’s a sense of relaxation; that it’s right there, in front of you. That’s when you can start to think more creatively around it.’

Marlow’s method – jotting down lists, mind maps, inspirational flashes and skeleton plans, in black and white and full colour on his reMarkable Paper Pro tablet – lets him think with more focus, clarity and structure. ‘Scribbling, mapping, and drawing – whether it’s a note, a more progressive realisation of an idea, the working through of an idea or the reflection on that idea afterwards – I find all that stuff really important.’

There are proven benefits to this tactile, visual, immediate and manual process. A recent study found that working on a reMarkable paper tablet might actually make for a less stressed and a sharper, more creative human being.

Using electroencephalogram (EEG) brain monitoring, the study measured working professionals’ biometric responses and heart rate variabilities while performing the same tests on a paper tablet versus similar activities on a PC or laptop.

When focusing on a single task on a reMarkable paper tablet rather than the alternatives, test participants exhibited some extraordinary results; 35 per cent lower stress levels, 30 per cent lower cognitive demand and a 25 per cent increase in creative thinking. Focus was up 20 per cent. There was a 17 per cent uptick in deep thinking and a 17 per cent better memory. In a world full of distractions, the reMarkable Paper Pro is designed to help creative minds capture, refine, and elevate their thoughts.

An unmatched writing-on-paper-like feel is reMarkable Paper Pro’s signature feature. The pleasure of a smooth-tipped pen on quality stock is replicated using a specially designed electronic paper display with a textured surface. A precision-engineered, pressure-sensitive pen (Marker and Marker Plus, the latter with an inbuilt eraser, are the two options designed for the device) provides micro levels of friction that effectively mimic the tactile sensation of nib meeting paper. Every stroke has just the right amount of resistance, making writing, doodling, or annotating documents feel totally natural.

You can write, draw, and sketch in black and white or colour using pencil, paintbrush, highlighter or shader modes. With latency – the delay before pen strokes appear – as low as 12 milliseconds, the display sets a new industry benchmark for responsiveness, the distance between the Marker tip and the digital ink having been reduced to less than 1 mm. The reMarkable Paper Pro then stores your handworked files in its internal 64GB of storage or shares them to the cloud for export to your PC or Mac.

User comfort is also considered. Compared to LCD or LED screens found on laptops and smartphones, the device’s 11.8-inch Canvas Color display doesn’t use bright, flickering lights to produce colours, and reflects natural light for a more comfortable reading experience. In dim lighting conditions, an adjustable reading light illuminates the display, making it easier to work without eye strain.

‘reMarkable Paper Pro adds just enough technology to your workflow without getting in your brain’s way,’ says Phil Hess, CEO of reMarkable.

‘We’ve used advanced technology to recreate something unimaginably complex yet incredibly simple: the feeling of putting pen to paper,’ adds Mats Herding Solberg, the company’s chief design officer. ‘It’s perfect for anyone who wants to bring the focus and clarity you get from working on paper into the digital age.’

remarkable Paper Pro, from £599, remarkable.com