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Its wild to think the reMarkable 2 debuted in March 2020, a time now more famous for other reasons. A lot has changed in the four-plus years since, and now its time for its successor, the reMarkable Paper Pro. The third-generation, distraction-free writing slate gets a color e-paper display as well as a raft of other equally notable improvements. That includes a bigger screen, faster internals and an active stylus for a more paper-and-pen-like experience. But this much more tech comes at a higher price, so lets answer the question: Is it worth it? reMarkable is the standard bearer for devices straddling the gap between the analog and digital. Its an e-paper slate with a stylus (and optional keyboard) that lets you read, write and edit your own documents and PDFs. The focus is on giving you a tool thatll act like paper and pen or a word processor rather than anything more fully-featured. That way, you can focus on whatever youre doing without the distractions a full computer, tablet or phone offers. If there was a way to make medium tech sound not like an insult, Im sure reMarkable would wear it proudly. Hardware The new reMarkable Paper Pro measures 196.6 x 274.1 x 5.1mm, making it roughly an inch taller and a quarter-inch wider than its predecessor, the reMarkable 2 (188 x 246 x 4.7mm). But it doesnt feel that much bigger, thanks to plenty of effort made to shrink the bezels around the display. And the left band (the chin when using the device in landscape mode) has been eliminated altogether here. All of that room has been made to accommodate the Paper Pros headline feature: an 11.8-inch Canvas Color screen. I prefer tablets that have a slightly more austere design than where the industry has been for the last few years. The reMarkable 2 was one of many slates aping the then-current iPads rounded off corners and sides that never felt right. The Paper Pro is a delightful correction, with sharper lines and squarer corners that gives the device some much-needed visual rigidity. The edge band is also inlaid with grooves that, designer Mats Solberg explained, has two useful benefits beyond looking good. First, it evokes the idea youre holding a sheaf of paper in your hand, and second, it adds some grip to a device thats surprisingly thin. The inside of the Paper Pro has been given a thorough upgrade as well, with a new 1.8GHz Cortex A53 processor paired with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. This is underpowered compared to any smartphone from the last decade, but dont forget the reMarkable doesnt need that much grunt. Its still a big leap ahead of the rM2, which was packing a 1.2GHz dual-core chip with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. The batterys a lot beefier, too, leaping up from the 3,000mAh of the rM2 to 5,030mAh here. It needs to be, given this is also the first reMarkable with a backlight, making it the first model you can use in dark rooms without a lot of grief. Daniel Cooper for Engadget To be clear, the new size and the switch from a passive stylus to an active one means none of your existing reMarkable accessories are compatible with Paper Pro. The accessory connector is on the backplate rather than the edge, and the new stylus is magnetically charged. So when youre pricing one of these up, bear in mind that youll need a whole new set of extras, too. In use As soon as you turn on the Paper Pro, youll notice the leap in performance compared to its predecessor. At the risk of damning this thing with faint praise; If the reMarkable 2 felt like a fancy ereader, then this feels more like a slow tablet. The faster internals and display mean the experience is a lot more responsive and snappy, with far less delay between action and result. There are even little animations during the setup process and unlocking the device with a six-digit code feels like youre unlocking a phone. The Paper Pro uses a modified version of E Inks Gallery 3 technology called Canvas Color. Each pixel in the display holds a series of particles: White, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. These can be combined to make eight solid colors (Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, White and Black) or, with dithering, up to 20,000 different shades therein. The analogy the company uses is in the CMYK inks found in most printers and newspaper presses. Daniel Cooper for Engadget The end result is a display with visible, if muted, color reproduction with some limitations youll need to work around. If youre making handwritten amendments to a document, youll need blue, cyan, magenta or red. Because yellow, green, gray and cyan are irritatingly faint when you write with a thin nib on existing text. The inverse is true for highlighting, where the gentler colors are better. Theres no big difference in readability between the Paper Pro (229 ppi) compared to its predecessor (226 ppi). But I cant quite shake the nagging feeling that the smaller, older device has sharper text when Im looking at it. Your mileage may vary. Because of how much new tech has been crammed inside the Paper Pro, youll find scrolling speeds are much faster. When I used the reMarkable 2, I felt I could see its processes taking place in real time. You know, Identify input, process input, send command to screen, refresh screen, with a notable delay. Here, any lag feels more like a result of the e-paper displays natural limitations and slow refresh rate rather than slow processing speed. Plenty of work has been done by the reMarkable team to reduce the latency between the pen and the display. Even after the addition of the color screen, which necessitated some compromise, the input lag was cut from 22ms on the rM2 to 12ms here. Similarly, theres no lag when youre typing as there could sometimes be when you were using the older slate. If theres one thing Im still not sure about, its that when writing in color, the text doesnt initially render in the color youve chosen. Your first blast of scrawling pops up in gray and its only after the screen refreshes that it reloads in the correct color. Daniel Cooper for Engadget Theres one other thing that I want to draw attention to, and its a subtle thing but well worth pointing at. A lot of time and effort has gone into ensuring that handwritten notes and highlights can work seamlessly with text inputs. For instance, if Im typing something and feel the need to highlight, underline or draw a ring around the word with the pen, I can. If I then have to go back and amend that text later, its easy enough to expect the handwritten additions to become unmoored from the text. But reMarkable has done the hard work to ensure that it all remains in place its a subtle piece of engineering, but one I deeply appreciate. Backlight Paper Pro is the first reMarkable with a backlight, and its inclusion here is very much better late than never. Ive often enjoyed writing notes with the reMarkable 2, but found it frustrating that its unusable in darker environments. That both the slate and the new Type Folio are now backlit activated by tapping the top right corner of the screen means thats no longer an issue. The light emitted from both is in my experience gentle rather than eye-searing, even when I pushed everything to maximum. Fundamentally, youll be able to use this in a dark room or on an airplane with the cabin lights dimmed without any stress or eye strain. Marker Like its predecessors, the Paper Pro comes with a choice of stylus. What separates the Marker and Marker Plus is that the latter, as before, has an active surface on top, allowing you to use it as an eraser. Make an error, and all you have to do is flip it over to get rid of your boo-boo, whereas with the Marker youll need to select the erase tool from the menu. Daniel Cooper for Engadget But while you might not notice much of a difference at first blush, plenty has changed on the inside. The older reMarkable styluses were passive, enabling you to use a number of compatible third-party styli in their place. This time around, both versions are active full of technology to help orient the pen and communicate with the tablet for faster processing. It connects magnetically to the right hand side, wirelessly charging from the slate like the Apple Pencil. Ironically, a lot of effort has gone into ensuring that, despite the raft of changes between this model and its predecessor, youll struggle to notice the difference. Ive seen some folks saying that the new Marker has a harder tip and that as the display is rougher, its less fun to use. Im not sure my experience matches that, and every time I compare the two, I feel like its more or less the same. As for the Markers battery life, no matter how hard I tried, I couldnt get this thing to run out of juice under what Id describe as normal use. An hour or two a day for more than a week and I never managed to run the stylus flat hell, I barely got the Paper Pros battery to half in that time. Type Folio reMarkable has launched a new Type Folio for the Paper Pro, which is about 1.1 inches wider and deeper than its predecessor. That extra space affords you a palm rest and a bigger margin around the outside of the keyboard, but nothing too dramatic in terms of changes to the keys. You do now get an Escape key, which exits a document and goes back to the homepage. Theres also a new Icon Toggle, which when activated will remove the icons from the screen to further reduce distractions. Daniel Cooper for Engadget Now, Im a big fan of the old Type Folio, finding that it made the right compromises for a travel keyboard. Its main keys were properly sized and spaced so my muscle memory carried over from my regular keyboard to this one and back again. The compromises, like the half-height function row and narrow non-character keys, were the right ones to make. Given the Paper Pros bigger size, its Type Folio can spread those extra keys out a little further to give the whole thing room to breathe. Its better than it was before, but what we had before was no slouch. Price and availability The reMarkable Paper Pro is available to order today, priced at $579 with the standard Marker and $629 if you want the Marker Plus. You can add a case from $89, but a full leather version will set you back $179. If you want to add the Type Folio, which Id say is a key way of making the reMarkable truly useful, youll need to pay an additional $229. The company has, however, decided to keep the reMarkable 2 around as a lower-cost option, selling it for $379 with a standard Marker. Given the reMarkable 2 has topped our e-ink tablet buyers guide for several years, its still a solid choice if the Paper Pro is too rich for your blood. The competition There are a decent number of e-paper tablets floating around the market right now, with the majority of them offering monochrome screens. In our e-ink tablet Buyers Guide, we named the reMarkable 2 the best option for most people. If youre looking for a slate with a color display, your options are the Paper Pro, or the Kobo Libra Color and the elegantly named Onyx Book Tablet Not Air 3 C. Kobos device is much more portable than the Paper Pro, but thats because the Kobo is primarily designed to be an ereader. Its smaller seven-inch screen is squarely in ereader territory, and while theres a notebooks feature that allows you to write freehand as much as you want, its never going to be able to compete with the Paper Pros 11.8-inch screen on that front. The Libra Color will be a better option for those who primarily want to take notes in and mark up ebooks Kobos library is nearly as robust as Amazons Kindle library, and you can digitally mark up any book you buy from Kobo without restriction. Onyxs Boox Note Air 3 C is more akin to the Paper Pro in size, but its decidedly not suitable if you want to work in a more distraction-free environment. The Note Air 3 C, like most other Boox devices, are full Android tablets with E Ink screens, so nothings stopping you from going online or even attempting to watch a YouTube video. Even if distractions arent an issue for you, the Paper Pros streamlined interface makes it much easier to use for both newbies and those familiar with these devices. Boox devices will appeal more to tinkerers and the most tech-savvy among us because there are a lot of settings you can play around with to make a device like the Note Air 3 C as capable as you need it to be. The Paper Pro keeps things relatively simple, making it more approachable overall. Wrap-up Daniel Cooper for Engadget Look, you just know that there are some folks wholl look at the Paper Pros price and spec list, compare that to a base-model iPad and laugh themselves into a coma. The point is that this isnt a generic tablet but a device thats been consciously designed to do fewer things better. So, were going to judge this thing on and by its own merits, rather than as a typical tablet. Im a big fan of reMarkables devices because they offer a way for me to focus in a way that my ADHD brain struggles to do otherwise. If Im feeling overwhelmed and need to eliminate distractions, then stealing myself away with a device like this really can help. Theres no easy way for me to swipe away from my work to check Reddit or YouTube, helping me stay on track. And given how popular these devices are, Im sure Im not the only person who feels this way. If, however, youd still like to dip a toe into this water but dont want to spend that much, then there is good news. reMarkable is keeping the 2 around as an entry-level unit, priced at $379 with the standard marker and because for all of the good things the Paper Pro does, none diminish the long list of good qualities the reMarkable 2 has. On one hand, you have a device thats whip-fast, eminently capable at the things that it can do and now has a bigger screen that renders colors. On the other, I cannot pretend that its not a pricey piece of kit, especially when you bundle in the Type Folio. Naturally, if your budget can stretch to that sort of cash and you really do need a way to work without distractions, I think its worth it.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/remarkable-paper-pro-review-writing-in-color-is-nice-but-itll-cost-you-173024590.html?src=rss
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Bose launched a new wireless portable speaker on Tuesday. The SoundLink Home is a relatively small addition to the lineup with premium sound and around nine hours of battery life for $219. The SoundLink Home is quite mini for a home-branded speaker: 8.5 inches high, 4.4 inches wide and 2.3 inches deep. It weighs 1.93 lbs (0.88 kg). It shouldnt be hard to tote it from room to room or find an open spot on a desk or table. A small size often means compromised audio, but Bose promises its dual passive radiators will produce deep bass that fills any room. The company also says it has premium sound with great acoustics. The company can squeeze surprisingly powerful sound into small packages, as evidenced by its SoundLink Flex lineup (more on that in a second). Bose The SoundLink Home forgoes Bose app access, so youll need to tweak your source audio if you want to adjust EQ levels. In addition to Bluetooth 5.3 (including multipoint!), it lets you attach a USB-C cable for wired input. The speaker also has a built-in mic to use for voice assistant access or as a speakerphone for calls. You can use its bundled USB-C cable for charging, too, and Bose says it will go from empty to full in around four hours. You can link it wirelessly with a second unit for a stereo setup. As its photos indicate, its a snazzy-looking little speaker. Its body is made from anodized aluminum, and it has a high-quality fabric grille and a built-in stand. The Bose SoundLink Home is available now exclusively on the company website. You can buy it in gray and silver colorways. The speaker costs $219 and (at least for me) shows shipping available immediately. Bose SoundLink Flex Bose The company recently updated its SoundLink Flex, a pill-shaped portable speaker thats one of Engadgets picks for the best Bluetooth speakers. Unlike the first version (and the SoundLink Home), this second-gen model now connects to the Bose app. There, you can make EQ adjustments and store stereo pairing connections with other compatible Bose speakers. The new version supports AAC and aptX audio codecs and comes in a new Alpine Sage colorway. The new model also gains a shortcut button (similar to the one on the SoundLink Max). Like that model, the button on the Flex is customizable through the app. The second-gen SoundLink Flex is available now for $149. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/the-bose-soundlink-home-brings-premium-audio-to-a-small-and-portable-package-171006213.html?src=rss
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While there's a much bigger title coming to the service later in the month, Xbox has revealed the first five Game Pass additions for October. Among them are some newcomers to the new Game Pass Standard tier. Baseball sim MLB The Show 24 and the enjoyable narrative game Open Roads were already on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Game Pass for Console (which is no longer available unless you were grandfathered in). They'll join the Standard library on consoles on October 2 alongside Sifu. That captivating brawler is also coming to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Two other games will hit all versions of the service save for Xbox Game Pass Core in the coming days (have we talked about how needlessly convoluted the Game Pass setup is lately?). Physics-based party brawler Mad Streets will join the lineup on October 7, followed by Inscryption on October 10. That creepy roguelike deck-builder is one of our picks for the best horror games you can play right now. Inevitably, Xbox will be removing some games from the library in the coming days to make way for the newcomers (and also because various licensing deals will be coming to an end). On October 15, it will yank Dyson Sphere Program, Everspace 2, From Space, F1 Manager 2023 and Scorn. As ever, Xbox will add more titles to Game Pass in the back half of the month, including a lil' under-the-radar one a few people might have heard of called Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. That one will not be on the Standard tier any time soon, however.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/the-first-new-game-pass-titles-for-october-include-inscryption-and-sifu-165518640.html?src=rss
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