This comparison is unusual because the specification sheet is not just unhelpful, it is actively misleading. The iPad is faster, brighter, more capable, and better supported in every measurable way. Plenty of people still return theirs and keep the reMarkable.
The reason is that these are not competing devices. One is a computer that can take notes. The other is a notebook that runs software.
(We make a notes app for iPhone, so we sell no hardware and have nothing riding on either. Treat us as the referee.)
At a glance
| reMarkable | iPad | |
|---|---|---|
| Display | E-ink, matte, no backlight glare | Backlit LCD or OLED |
| Writing feel | Textured, close to paper | Glass, unless you add a matte protector |
| Battery | Weeks | About a day of heavy use |
| Distraction | Nothing else runs on it | Everything else runs on it |
| Colour | Limited, and slow | Full |
| Apps | Essentially none | Everything |
| PDF annotation | Excellent, the core use case | Excellent, plus more tools |
| Handwriting to text | Yes, good | Yes, good, and better integrated |
| Reading | Comfortable for hours, sunlight fine | Fine indoors, tiring for long sessions |
| Also does | Nothing | Video, email, drawing, browsing, work |
| Rough cost | Around $450 to $600 with a pen | $600 to $1,100 with an Apple Pencil |
Prices move and configurations vary, so check both before buying. The gap is smaller than people assume once you add a Pencil to the iPad.
The case for the reMarkable
It cannot interrupt you. This is the entire product, and everything else is detail. There is no browser, no notification, no app store, no way to check something for a second. In practice that means writing sessions that last as long as your attention does rather than as long as your restraint does. If you have ever opened an iPad to take notes and surfaced twenty minutes later somewhere else, you already know what this is worth. The relevant background is mind wandering and attention residue.
Writing feels correct. E-ink with a textured surface, low latency, and no parallax to speak of. The iPad plus a matte protector gets closer than people expect, and it is still not the same, largely because the surface does not glow.
Battery in weeks. You stop thinking about charging, which sounds trivial and changes whether the device is genuinely always available.
It is comfortable for long reading. Papers, PDFs, textbooks. No glare, no eye strain in the evening, readable in direct sun.
It ages slowly. A device that does one thing does not become obsolete when the one thing stays the same.
The case for the iPad
It replaces several devices. Notes, reading, video, email, drawing, light work. If you are choosing between owning one device or two, this is decisive and nothing else on this page matters.
Colour, and instant colour. Diagrams, art, anatomy, anything where colour carries meaning. The reMarkable's colour is limited and noticeably slower to render.
The app ecosystem is the real gap. GoodNotes, Notability with its audio-synced handwriting, PDF Expert, Procreate. The reMarkable's software is competent and closed, and you get what they ship.
Handwriting integrates with everything else. Notes flow into documents, presentations, and messages without a sync step. On the reMarkable, getting content out is a deliberate act.
It is a much better reference device. Split View with a PDF and a note is a genuinely superior study setup, and the reMarkable cannot do it. See how to take notes on an iPad.
The thing both are equally bad at
Handwriting does not become part of a knowledge system. On either device, handwritten notes are images with a search index attached. They do not link, they do not paste, and they do not connect to anything you write later.
If your notes are a semester's study material, this does not matter and handwriting is likely the better choice, for the reasons in digital versus paper notes. If they are the beginning of something long-lived, the ink is a dead end, and you want typed text you can link. Neither tablet solves that; the workable habit on both is to handwrite in the room and type the conclusion afterwards.
Which one, honestly
Buy the reMarkable if you already own a laptop and a phone, you handwrite a lot, you read long PDFs, and the thing standing between you and focused work is the device itself. It is a deliberately limited tool and the limits are the feature. People who love it use it daily for years.
Buy the iPad if you want one device, you need colour, you use apps alongside your notes, you study from PDFs while writing, or your handwriting is occasional rather than central. It is the correct default and the safer purchase.
Buy neither if you are hoping the hardware will fix a note-taking habit. It will not, and the failure is not the device's fault. What actually changes outcomes is whether you review what you wrote, which is how to review your notes and costs nothing.
The evidence on handwriting, briefly
Both devices are usually justified with Mueller and Oppenheimer's finding that longhand note-takers outperformed laptop typists on conceptual questions. It is worth knowing what that study actually implies.
The proposed mechanism was not the pen. It was that handwriting is slow enough to prevent transcription, so writers had to select and rephrase, and the selecting is where the learning happened. The finding has been debated and replication has been mixed, and the mechanism is the durable part.
Which means: any method that forces you to compress gets the benefit, and any method that lets you transcribe loses it. Fast handwriting on a tablet, copying slides verbatim, is not better than typing. The device is not doing the work.
More in the best note-taking app for iPad, the best handwriting notes app, GoodNotes vs Notability, and the wider note app comparisons section.