ReMarkable — my girlfriend won't let me play with it
I came across the review of Ilya Naryzhnyy on the ReMarkable. At the end of his review, he says: “I do recommend to find a friend who already owns this tablet and JUST TRY to write on it.” Sure. But let me tell you my story.
A few months ago, I decided to buy the ReMarkable for my girlfriend’s birthday. As I am cheap and I did not want to spend all that money (but she REALLY wanted it), I secretly contacted all her family to chip in (NOTE that in Canada the ReMarkable costs 900$ CAD). Believe me, it was a huge thing — secret texts and all that, with me totally unable to keep a secret or say a decent lie.
In any case, I managed to keep the secret, I don’t even know how. The big day came, and we (her family, she, and I) all went out for brunch and gave her the thing. OMG, she was so happy! Really, I cannot even say how happy she was — she even cried! (And I cried too).
You should know at this point that my girlfriend hates technology. You know that feeling of excitement when you receive or buy a new toy (like a new gadget or the latest release of your favorite video-game)? Yes, precisely that one! Santa Clause has come, and you really can’t wait to unpack your gifts and start playing! Yeah, well… my girlfriend does not know what that excitement is.
She looked at the ReMarkable for two days without even touching it — just smiling. I knew she was happy, but I was also kind of creeped out.
After two super long days, when she was all alone with no one to disturb her, she finally opened it and connected it to the cloud and her computer. NOTE: the fact that she was able to do it all herself testifies how easy and intuitive getting the ReMarkable started is.
First day of use: nothing. I mean, she drew stupid things and took a few notes to try the text converter (that, by the way, works really well if you remember to select the correct language — she says), but really nothing else. She was still smiling, though, so I did not ask questions.
After an entire (!) week, she finally came and said: “Look my love, do you know what I can do with my ReMarkable??” “Tell me my love,” I replied. “I can have all my PDFs, read them, and take notes as if it was paper!” “Well yes, my love, I guess that’s the point” “No but look — she continued — when I then resave them as PDFs on my computer, my notes are still there!” “Oh, that’s great! I am happy you are happy.”
Now, if you can’t understand her excitement (as in fact I don’t either, but I fake it pretty well), you should know that my girlfriend is a scientist and a researcher. I still don’t understand exactly what she does, but apparently reading others’ papers is a thing. Again, no questions — especially when she said at one point: “Look, it is really true how they say Better Paper Better Thinking! I really think better with this thing, I read faster, and I remember more things!”
“Sure, that’s great my love!”
Long story short, another month passed. And it was all filled with random comments like “Look my love, today I drew a diagram with my colleague to test an idea” or “Look my love, I can read my newspaper — because it is in PDF!” or again “Look my love, today I made a list for packing for our trip while I was in the metro”… and all these “Look my love, this and that” — you got the point, right?
Finally, we get to today. I come back home from work, and apparently she has spent the entire day to set up her ReMarkable for her next trip. She found a bunch of ebooks and put them on the ReMarkable. Well, another thing you should know about my girlfriend is that she really is a compulsive reader! If there is someone dying and an investigation follows, probably she read that novel, or she is about to. Seriously, she ignores me for hours when she is into a book!
So, I come back from work and she is all excited about this ebook thing. And here is the conversation we had:
“Look my love, I bought 6 ebooks and I put them on the ReMarkable!”
“That’s great my love.”
“No wait, but you don’t understand: now I have 6 ebooks, something like 20 PDFs, plus all my random notes — and look at the storage!”
“What about the storage?”
“Look: I still have something like 5 GB of storage! I could put other ten ebooks and it wouldn’t make a difference!”
“That’s really great my love! Look, I am happy you are happy — but I am curious now. Do you mind if I try it?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do you mean? I want to try it! Like trying to write something or I don’t know.”
“No, you can’t.”
“What do you mean I can’t?”
“You can’t. I don’t think you deserve it.”
(No, I am not kidding — she literally used these words. That’s why I love her: she is crazy like a cow…)
“What do you mean I do not deserve it??”
“Well my love, you don’t understand… This is the perfect device for me. I can read, write, and think — I do not need anything else. Do you understand? It replaces all my other devices as it has all I need.”
“Well my love, but this does not explain why I do not deserve to even try it.”
“Well it’s easy. This is not for people like you: you and your phone, your ebay bargaining, your computer, and your huge nonsense excel files. Come on! You are a programmer! This is not for people like you. This is the perfect device FOR ME, not for you. When they invented, they were thinking exactly of me!”
Here the conversation clearly ends as I am speechless (something that happens quite often with my girlfriend). This is why I wanted to share my story with you. In his review, after suggesting you go and try your friends’ ReMarkable, Ilya Naryzhnyy also says: “it’s really hard to explain, but that’s exact “aha-moment” when you understand that this product is just for you!”
And that’s it: I will never know how that “aha-moment” moment is. I sincerely hope you all will.
Best regards,
Anthony
(Actually, my girlfriend Francesca wrote this piece herself — using my name and a little bit of my contribution. And I am not as stupid as she makes me sound!)
Written in July 2019.
