Once you turn on cloud sync, your notes are automatically backed up to reMarkable's proprietary cloud service. You can access the files via dedicated desktop and mobile apps. That's all fine, except that you don't have another backup option. No Google Drive, no Evernote, no Dropbox. Just the addition of yet another ecosystem to your already scattered work life.

Given the price, I'd like to see more basic hardware considerations. There's no waterproofing, for one. There's also no way to find the tablet or the stylus if they get lost, meaning I highly, highly recommend that you attach a Tile to your device and never let the Marker out of your sight.

While writing and drawing are smooth, there are a few little annoyances that make the tablet less than perfect. The strokes aren't always as clear as I'd like, despite the screen's resolution of 226 dots per inch. The invisible margins on the page make it awkward to write near the edges of the screen if the toolbar is open. Sometimes, some lag is noticeable in my pen strokes, though the palm rejection works well. There's also no quick-erase gesture, so to erase something, you have to open a toolbar and press "undo"—or physically erase it if you have a Marker Plus. There's no pinch-to-zoom either, though you can use a Zoom Selection tool to greatly magnify any onscreen notes or drawings. Not infrequently, I noticed some lag when trying to swipe to a new blank page.

One intriguing thing about the reMarkable 2 is its handwriting-to-text conversion, which turns your written scribbles into digital letter forms that can be edited on the tablet and shared as an email. It works in left- or right-handed modes and supports 33 different languages. I regret to inform you that it is ... not great. It does an OK job recognizing my hybrid cursive-print scribbles, but it fails often enough that my notes need significant editing before I can forward them along.

The worst part: Even though you can convert your handwritten notes to text and then edit that text on the fly before firing it off in an email, there is no way to search the text stored on the tablet, even after it's been converted. If you emailed your notes to yourself, you could search for text there—provided the reMarkable 2 converted your handwriting perfectly. But there's no way to search for a person's name, a date, or even a page that says "Grocery List." You'd have to manually flip through your notebooks to find that page, convert it, and then send it to yourself. Your organization skills had better be stellar.

There is the option to read articles and books on reMarkable 2. I don't use it. The free Pocket-like Chrome plug-in allows you to save articles for later consumption. The process is quick, but once the article shows up on your tablet, the formatting can be wonky. Features like external links, images, and supplemental information are lacking in plain-text articles, so I kept finding myself turning back to my computer to gain further context or look up something related.