As an avid E Ink user I'm more than impressed with reMarkable Paper Pro's new color screen
by Matthew Sholtz · Android PoliceI've tested and used more E Ink devices than I can count. I started early, with the very first Nook, soon graduating to Kindle 3 (the one with the keyboard), and from there, I've used just about every generation from the three big e-reader brands (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten), for fun as well as this job. I've also tested and reviewed devices from Boox and BigMe, so I'd say I have a good grasp on the screen tech each brand uses, from Carta to Kaleido to Gallery 3 across all of our favorite E Ink tablets.
These screens certainly offer different experiences; some refresh faster than others, some offer color, and others are designed for black-and-white text. But at the end of the day, the tech moves at a leisurely pace, with advancements slowly dropping in new devices. The latest reMarkable, the Paper Pro, goes above and beyond, as the company cooperated with E Ink to design something no other E Ink device offered. Let's dig into why that is, as I'm very impressed with what E Ink and reMarkable have created with the newly tweaked Gallery 3 screen, better known as Canvas.
Read our review
The Remarkable Paper Pro offers a curious mix of improvements and compromises
As limiting and freeing as paper, now in color
A customized screen makes for a unique experience
reMarkable's Paper Pro can do what no other E Ink device can
reMarkable says it worked closely with E Ink to customize the Gallery 3 screen used in the new Paper Pro, and the results of this are quite evident when using the device. You see, most color E Ink screens use E Ink's Kaleido, and this uses layers to offer both color and black and white content, with the color layer separate from B&W, like in the recent color Clara and Libra Colour.
But using layers means a device has to be so thick to fit those layers, and this also can create issues, such as screen door effect, making for images that don't always look great when Kaleido screens often offer a lower resolution for the color layer on top of the higher res B&W layer.
Gallery 3 also offers color E Ink, but on a per-pixel basis, with no need for layers, while also avoiding Kaleido's other shortcomings. That's not to say Gallery 3 is perfect; BigMe took an early chance on the tech with the Galy that was incredibly expensive and lacked responsiveness, but with the recent changes made by E Ink and reMarkable for the Canvas screen used in the Paper Pro, it's easy to see Gallery 3 is the future of color E Ink screens.
That's not to say all of this happens in a vacuum. E Ink announced earlier this year that it created a new Timing Controller to improve its screen's responsiveness, including its color tech with Kaleido and Gallery 3. So it stands to reason this tech helped with reMarkable's vastly improved 12ms refresh times for its color content, but at the end of the day, the only one selling a Canvas screen that offers these notable improvements is reMarkable.
When using the Paper Pro to read color content, the improved refresh times ensure you can turn pages without much of a delay (some delay is inherent to all E Ink screens), which means reading color comic books is totally viable, a first for a Gallery 3 device.
Also, the improved refresh rate means drawing with color is also a joy, and while some improvements could be made here where the screen refreshes a few times after taking your pen off the surface, the drawing experience on the Paper Pro is easily the best any color E Ink screen has to offer, leaving Kaleido and its layered screen in the dust.
There are some downsides to consider before diving into a Gallery 3 screen
Contrast is an issue thanks to the dark background
Not everything is perfect, however. reMarkable's new Canvas screen is pretty gray, much more gray than a Carta screen you'd find on the Kindle Paperwhite, which makes dark contrast trickier since the background is already on the darker side. So, when it comes to black and white text, there are better E Ink screens out there.
reMarkable tries to make up for this by offering its first device with front lighting, which certainly helps to make the background look more white like paper, but this just brings another issue into play where the LEDs don't get bright enough to read in dark environments.
So, even though the Paper Pro will be used to read and annotate tons of PDFs filled with text, I'm not sure I'd use the device for casual reading like a Kindle, as the Kindle still offers a better black and white contrast, same as any device with a Carta screen.
With so many E Ink screens to choose from, it's hard to know which is best
Thankfully, having options means you can find the perfect device for your needs
In the world of E Ink, it's easy to lose track of the tech on the market, which company and device is using what specific screen tech, what that means for the consumer and their specific needs. The good news is there's no shortage of tablets and readers that behave ever so slightly differently. So, if you only want black and white text at its best contrast and lightest background, the new Carta 1300 is available with Kobo's Clara B&W.
I'm much more impressed with what reMarkable's Canvas screen brings to the table for color content. After all, there's no shortage of worthwhile e-readers out there, but there aren't many note-taking devices outside of Boox's stable that offer color, and even fewer that take advantage of Gallery 3's per-pixel color like in reMarkable's tweaked Canvas screen. In my opinion, the future of E Ink is already here.
reMarkable Paper Pro
The reMarkable Paper Pro introduces the next version of the company's Canvas screen. The display is a customized E Ink Gallery 3 screen made specifically for the Paper Pro, and the improvements make a difference compared to the competition.