Pen, Paper & Digital Ink

Are the gadgets worth it?

I am finally back in action, the man-flu really hit hard this time, but I am feeling 100% now so back to posting…

I take notes almost every day. My go-to tools are a Moleskine notebook, and a LAMY Safari fountain pen. I have been using Moleskine notebooks for over 20 years now, and although there are probably better alternatives, it is kind of a habit.

Over the years I have tried almost, if not every digital alternative. Every handwriting pen, every digital notebook, every over-hyped solution, every home-brew hack…

Within a few weeks I ditched every one.

But just before Christmas this year I decided to buy the new Remarkable Pro, and the new Kindle Scribe 2. I though, over the holidays I would get chance to test them out, pick the best one and return the other, and once and for all… move to digital.

The Remarkable Pro with its colour screen was a delight to use, the ink flows nice, the tools are great, and the distraction free environment meant I could just sit down and make notes, create sketches, write scripts and do everything else I do in my paper notebook.

The reading light on the Remarkable Pro is also great, that was the one issue I had with the previous version that I eventually sent back, I sit in a mostly dark office all day and with my crappy eyesight I just couldn’t use it as often as I wanted to.

The main reason though why I chose the Pro was to test out the colour capabilities and getting to experience an eInk display with colour is something to behold. I mainly use three colours in my notetaking, I use a dark purple ink in my LAMY pen, and have a blue and red gel pen for highlighting, underlining, and drawing shapes. That means on most occasions I carry two extra pens with me. No big deal.

However, setting up the pens on the Pro and just having one pen with me was a bonus. Simple things…

A week or so after getting the Remarkable Pro I received the new Kindle Scribe 2. I got to play with a friends original Kindle Scribe when it first came out but for me it was too slow, you couln’’t really annotate books and you were kind of locked in to the Amazon eco-system.

But the new Scribe was a whole lot better, the screen, although not colour it was crisp and quite responsive and being able to read my existing Kindle library on it was perfect. To be honest, the Scribe offers the best reading experience I have ever had on a digital device.

As for writing, you can now annotate PDF's and any book in your Kindle library and it inserts your notes inside the text of the book which is pretty useful. The drawing tools are very limited but the coating on the screen is amazing and fells exactly like paper.

The pen that comes with it is by far the best pen I have ever used on a device, much better than the Apple Pen, and as a bonus, it doesn’t require charging.

The other feature of the pen is a built in eraser that is actually rubber, when you erase it feels just like a traditional eraser on paper, you almost want to brush of the bits with your hand after you have used it.

At half the price of the Remarkable Pro the Scribe is a great bit of kit for taking notes, and to be honest you really don’t need the colour to achieve that, and the bonus is you have access to everything you have previously bought right in the palm of your hand.

Digital ink has made huge leaps forward in the last couple of years, the technology is relatively light-weight and the batteries last for weeks between charges which is a bonus…

But.

I will be sending both of the devices back this week.

The reason I take notes on paper is to get ideas out of my head or to write distraction free. I like to regularly go over my notes, flicking through them, using a system I have built over the years for organizing and indexing them.

Both of these devices are too slow for that, that just short of one second refresh between pages become an eternity even when you are moving through say thirty pages. Yes you could organise more, create lots of different notebooks for different things, but that requires more screen presses and holds, going back out of folders, loading a new notebook etc.

The joy of a notebook for me is just being able to open it and take notes, being able to have a few tactile tabs for certain sections, being able to wander over previous notes with ease. Digital for me, for now just doesn’t do it.

I can also take my notebook anywhere. Yes both these devices are pretty light, but if you add on a folio cover to protect the screen it starts to get heavier, and neither of the devices fit into a pocket.

I often go to an old library reading room (see above) when I am trying to work distraction free, and I also use it for research. Being able to turn up with a notebook in my pocket and not have to have a bag with a tablet or digital device in is freeing.

Being able to pull out my other tiny reporters / police style Moleskine notebook at a café and just jot down a few notes whilst having an coffee is simple and quick and I always have this either in my coat or my jeans pocket. Sure I could use my phone, but I still prefer writing.

Technology is great, I use my phone for dictation when it is not practical to take notes such as when I am walking Doris, and I soooo much wanted to go digital with my notes, but for now technology isn’t quite there. Nothing beats the tactile feel and the convenience of ink on paper.