Google's Fitbit gets an Edge (but loses its wallet)

Fitbit have been making trackers since 2009 and Google have owned them since 2021 (the $2.1bn deal was announced in 2019, the regulators took a while). Since then the Fitbit smartwatches have gone (replaced by the Pixel Watch), the Fitbit app has become Google Health and earlier this year the screenless Fitbit Air arrived for those that don't want anything lighting up on their wrist.

Fitbit Edge Stephen Curry Edition (screen off)

That left a gap where the Charge 6 (2023) used to be and Google have now filled it with the Fitbit Edge, which is a Charge 7 in everything but name. It was announced on October 12th 2026 and went on sale on October 27th.

Fitbit Edge showing screen on

The old Charge 6 had recently started failing, Google offered a sensible discount on a new device, so the Stephen Curry Special Edition of the Edge was purchased.

The Fitbit Edge range

It sits between the Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 5 i.e. more than a band, but not quite a watch.

Pixel Watch 5, Fitbit Edge and Fitbit Air

The Edge is a lozenge shaped aluminium unit that's 11.5 mm thick. Google don't quote the rest, but the leaked specs put it at 39.2 x 25.6 mm and 17.7 g. Google do say the case is 45% lighter than an Apple Watch Series 12 (though not many people are going to weigh them).

The display is a 34 mm (1.34") always-on backlit colour AMOLED (Google call it "Hybrid OLED") with 46% more viewing area than previous Fitbit trackers. It seems brighter and is larger than the Charge 6 with a more pleasant curved look. There's also a real mechanical side button, a single press wakes the screen, opens the app list or pauses a workout, and holding it for 10 seconds restarts the unit.

Stephen Curry Special Edition, side view with the mechanical button

NOTE: Google's design blog says the chassis is 100% recycled aluminium, while the footnote says recycled aluminium is at least 2% of the product by weight. Both can be true, but one sounds a lot better than the other.

It's rated to 5ATM and IP68 so it's fine for swimming. There are 4 finishes (Obsidian, Fog, Olive and Canyon) and the bands are interchangeable using a new mechanism that needs a firm push until it clicks. Google's support pages make a point of this, as otherwise the band (and Edge) may fall off.

Bands are the Active Sport (small and large in the box), Magnet, Metal Links and a fabric Performance Loop (coming soon). The Stephen Curry Special Edition comes with its own moisture-wicking band in rye and orange, the strap is very comfortable and is easy to fasten.

Onboard sensors are an altimeter (so floors climbed is back), accelerometer, gyroscope, red and infrared sensors for oxygen saturation (SpO2), multipurpose electrical sensors compatible with the ECG app (select countries only and not for under 22s), photoplethysmography (PPG) optical heart rate sensors, an ambient light sensor and a far field skin temperature sensor.

Positioning supports GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou and QZSS so the phone can stay at home on a run. Currently the device is set to dynamic, where it will use the on-board GPS when required. Google claim route tracking is up to 40% more accurate than the Charge 6 and sleep staging up to 15% better. Workouts are detected automatically and heart rate can be broadcast to compatible gym equipment.

Google have gone some way over to the Xiaomi side and now support over 50 sports: Run, Treadmill run,Walk, Treadmill walk, Track workout, Bike, Mountain bike, Spinning, Rollerblading, Pool swim, Open swim, Kayaking, Canoeing, Surfing, Paddleboarding, Snorkeling/Sailing (etc.), Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Field hockey, Football (Soccer), Golf, Padel, Pickleball, Rugby, Tennis, Elliptical, Rowing machine, Stair climber, Ski erg, HIIT, Bootcamp, Core training, Strength training, Weightlifting, Weights, Powerlifting, Circuit training, Yoga, Pilates, Stretching, Dancing, Aerobics, Boxing, Kickboxing, Martial arts, Hiking, Indoor climbing, Cross-country ski, Skiing, Snowboarding and Skating.

Workout screen (and yes it can get wet)

The new health features come under Health Guardian. High and low heart rate alerts are included, while blood pressure trends and insulin resistance trends need a subscription. Google are careful to say these are wellness features and not for diagnosis and they're not available in all countries.

Everything syncs to the Google Health app (Android 11+ or iOS 16.4+) over BLE 4.2, where the Gemini powered Health Coach turns the numbers into advice. As an existing user of Google Health with the Charge 6, there is little to change with the Edge.

The Edge still doesn't run Wear OS so there's no app store. Inside there's an Ambiq AP5 MCU and 64MB of NOR flash memory, which can store 7 days worth of data and 30 days worth of totals. The interface looks very Google though, with tiles and complications that can be tapped. Swipe left or right for tiles, up for notifications and down for quick settings (find my phone, torch, bedtime mode, water lock etc.). Covering the screen with a palm turns it off.

Watch face with complications

Google Maps turn-by-turn directions are mirrored from the phone, which is properly useful on a bike or on foot. Call, text and app notifications come through from the phone, though you can't interact with them (Google say there are preset quick replies on Android). There are also media controls, weather, timers and up to 8 silent alarms. 6 watch faces can be stored on the unit and swapped from the wrist.

Now for what's missing. There's no NFC, which is the only aspect where the Charge 6 gets the edge on the Edge (sic). Being able to pay for things while playing sports was useful and linking with Google Pay was trivial. There's no microphone or speaker either, Google talks about "call mirroring" but that just means it tells you the phone is ringing. No offline music (the phone has to come along for the playlists) and the EDA stress sensor has gone too.

Battery life is quoted as up to 7 days, or about 2 with the always-on display enabled. Though not used for exercise in earnest yet, battery life is very good with maybe 5% used while sitting working, sleeping and moderate walking during the day. Lots of GPS workouts will reduce that.

The charger is much nicer than the Charge 6's, it fits with magnets that snap on to the back of the tracker and make positive contact with the charging pins (it's the same charger as the Fitbit Air). 5 minutes gives about a day's use, though that's with a 30W adapter which isn't in the box.

On the magnetic charger

The really good news is that this is the first repairable Fitbit tracker, the insides are modular and the battery can be replaced. Trackers usually end up in a drawer after a couple of years when the battery fades, so if spares really are available that could be the best feature of the lot.

The prices below are from the Google Store. though they are available elsewhere.

The Fitbit Edge is £159.99 (€179.99 / $179.99), which is £20 more than the Charge 6 was at launch.

The Stephen Curry Special Edition is £189.99 ($219.99).

Google Health Premium is included for 3 months and then £7.99 per month.

It's available from the Google Store, Amazon UK and the usual retailers. For comparison the Fitbit Air is £85.

The subscription is the catch as the Health Coach and the blood pressure and insulin resistance trends all sit behind it, so over 2 years that's more than the Edge itself.

It's early days and it still needs some proper exercise, but so far so good. A bigger, brighter screen, a comfortable strap, a much better charger and a battery that can actually be replaced. For anyone with a Charge 6 on its way out it's an easy upgrade. Just a shame about the NFC.

There are still a few issues, recently when trying the Edge watch faces, apps and tiles, they disappeared from Google Health, saying "unavailable". They returned a day later, but annoying at the time.

Claude thinks like you

Claude is great helping to code (as are a lot of “AI” tools), especially for debugging stuff, it can ingest a huge amount of info much faster than you and read a lot of manuals.

Working on something for OpenStreetMap UK (mod_tile / renderd) there were some bugs including a big issue with memory leaks. If you can point AI in the right direction / they’re very good at fixing things.

Once fixed everything should run smoothly but the default config was also configured badly and once again Claude pointed out the problem, changed a parameter and everything was hunky dory, and you had a hoopy frood.

Left the session with “thanks and so long for all the fish” and Claude went ”good night don't forget your towel” …

Getting scary.

BAC - your friendly lobster from Nvidia

On Weds Oct 14th 2026 Nvidia held their Build a Claw event in London,

There were lots of Nvidia Spark DGX workstations connected to ASUS ProART monitors as well as ASUS Ascent GX10 systems (basically the same reference design with a different box) both with an Nvidia GB10 with 128GB of unified memory.

Nvidia Spark DGX

Though not demonstrated it’s possible to connect 4 together using high speed USB or 2 unified systems over Nvidia’s proprietary interface.

ASUS Ascent GX10

Internally there’s also an SSD which holds the operating system (Linux).

The whole point of the event was to demonstrate what local agents could do running local models, healthcare, controlling video feeds while doing local recognition, controlling local LED strips and robots.

Jensen Huang even made an appearance to give away a DGX Spark and Spark laptop.

Though unified memory is a good idea for speed - there are flaws and if the model consumed all the memory the systems would lock-up and require a hard reboot, which happened quite a lot.

The model that was running locally were quen variants (possibly nvidia/Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP4-Local) - response was reasonably good and someone asked it to build an HTML game and a few minutes later it did indeed come out with a (semi) working game - it was then asked to make a 3D variant and about 10 minutes later the system locked up.

For local models they are quite impressive though, if you can afford the 5 grand to buy a system.

The main advantage is keeping all your data local and not handed off to “the man”.

Nice if you can afford it, though there are other alternatives coming out.

Other vendors are Acer and Dell.

So long Microsoft and thanks for all the fish

October was a difficult month for various reasons and on the 24th it got worse.

Suddenly Word/Excel/PowerPoint and my Office365 email stopped working. I could still access MicrosoftOnline.com but nothing worked.

Checking licences showed an active PowerAutomate license was active, but that was it.

The checking expired licenses and there was the E3 developer license. Checking with support “oh you were emailed that the E3 developer licenses were going to be expired” - obviously that email went to Junk.

The only way to keep access was to upgrade to a business account. Turns out Business basic gives access to online tools and you keep email but no desktop apps. So you need Business Pro … that’s a big jump but for someone that relies on desktop apps, Microsoft basically holds a gun to your head. No choice if you want to keep using them.

So bang - credit card and 1 year’s subscription.

The E3 subscription was nice (arranged by an old Microsoft account manager when at Demon Internet in the 90’s) and it was active from 2015 so it’s really been a long time coming. 11 years of free service wasn’t bad.

But all good things have to end and eventually Microsoft get their dues.

Unboxing a Mac mini: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Install My Own SSD with Mac Mini(malism)

Recently it was time to upgrade to a new shiny M based silicon Mac (the old Intel one was on its last legs). As it was going to be used as the main system and for day to day use, the Mac M4 mini Pro seemed ideal.

The new Mac Minis come in a simple white box (it’s a shame that the strips have to be torn to open it).

Mac mini Pro box

Once the lid is removed the power chord sits on a thick card with a hole in, lifting this reveals the Mac Mini and that’s it. Apple minimalism to the maximum.

Power chord removed and cardboard with hole

Removing the Mac Mini reveals an aluminium case with nothing on the top and air vents and the power button on the base.

Top and base of Mac mini Pro

The back has a power socket, Ethernet socket, full sized HDMI socket and 3 USB-C/Thunderbolt sockets.

Rear of Mac mini Pro

The front has 2 USB-C/Thunderbolt sockets, a power indicator and a headphone jack socket (maybe the more professional audio types still use wired headphones).

Front of Mac mini Pro

Since this is a Mac Mini Pro it’s all Thunderbolt 5 and the Ethernet is 10G. There’s also 14 CPU cores, 20 GPU cores and 16 Neural engine cores, 64GB RAM and 512GB of SSD.

512GB of SSD may seem a bit low, but there’s a reason for that and that’s a 3rd party 4TB SSD upgrade.

M4-SSD box

Again the SSD upgrade from M4-SSD.COM is a simple box, the side indicates what model of Mac Mini (Mac Mini or Pro or various Mac Studios).

M4-SSD showing model

Opening the box the SSD is lying in what looks like conductive foam.

Internal SSD on conductive foam

Lift this layer off and there’s a card separator with a hole (similar to the Mac Mini packaging) and then instructions on how to install the SSD.

conductive foam removed

Below that is a bag containing a screw driver and bits to open the case.

SSD install instruction manual

There’s a metal strip that can be inserted into the Mac Mini case and a “spluger” to insert once the base has separated and can then be slid around to pop open the clips.

Screwdriver and tools in bag

There’s screw driver has all 3 heads that are needed to open the various screws in the Mac Mini Pro (slightly different from the Mac Mini version).

Screwdriver, metal separator and spludger

It’s nice that everything is included that’s required to open the Mac Mini unscrew everything and put it all back together and the instructions are very clear.

All the heads needed for screws

The Mac Mini Pro has enough CPU/GPU/NPU grunt to do the things you want when needed, is beautifully small and is more cost effective than going to its big brother the Mac Studio.

Memory is key (especially in the modern age of running LLMs locally) so the largest memory configuration is 64GB, that's built into the main M4 silicon, so no option there but to pay Apple's prices, however the internal SSD disk is removable and now there's a lot of 3rd party vendors who offer Apple substitutes (Apple buy standard NAND memory and then put them on their own proprietary SSD modules - why they just don't support standard PCIe NVMe SSDs making life easier for everyone?).

Apple charge £1200 for a 4TB SSD, while going to M4-SSD gets you an upgrade for a M4 Mac mini or M4 Mac mini Pro for a lot cheaper. The 4TB for the M4 Pro is $699.00, which is just over £530.00 (at the time of writing). There's shipping to add, but it's not a lot.

Opening a Mac can be daunting, especially for the uninitiated, but M4-SSD include the right tools to open it (a metal pry and a plastic picker and a screwdriver with the correct T heads for all Apple's screws). The metal pry is placed into the (thin) gap between the base and case, then the plastic picker is inserted and moved to where the clips are and just prise the base up with a bit of pressure, go around the case and repeat for all 4, allegedly a spudger works better (from someone like iFixit), starting from the opposite side of the power button is safest as you don't want to damage or disconnect the cable. The base is attached by a small cable, which connects the power button, be careful and rest the base on the side of the main unit, then remove the 8 screws around the edge of the next layer and again carefully lay against the side of the unit as this has the WiFi/etc antennas and don't damage or disconnect the cable. Then remove the screws around the fan and lay this against the side. This now exposes the internal SSD, unscrew it (it's screwed in tightly). Wiggle the SSD out and replace with the 3rd party SSD. Ensure it's fitted securely and then screw the screw back in.

Opening the Mac mini Pro

Then the whole process is reversed, fit the fan, the heat spreader/antenna system and then pop the case back on. Make sure all the screws are placed somewhere safe after they've been removed as they are very small and easily lost.

Closing the Mac mini Pro

The whole process took about 30 minutes, it would have been quicker but not having done this before there were a few niggles including doing the video stuff. Also ensure the camera will not just stop videoing after a certain time, the Sony RX100 m6 limits to 5 minutes.

The next stage requires another Mac as the new SSD in the Mac mini Pro has no operating system or anything else on it. The process requires putting the system into DFU mode, this requires powering the Mac mini down, then holding the power button on (while connected, preferably by a high speed USB C cable) to the other M series Mac. The power LED will go orange and then release the power button and the other Mac will recognise it and then go into DFU mode, downloads the latest macOS and transfer it to the Mac in DFU mode (that's why having a high speed USB cable helps). The USB cable must be connected to the USB C port at the back with the Thunderbolt icon (on the M4 Mac mini Pro it's the middle USB C port).

DFU in progress

This takes quit a while as it has to download a full copy of macOS and transfer between Macs, but it's not something that requires watching, either it will error out (and the process needs repeating or it could be that the SSD isn't fitted/seated properly and the whole opening the Mac needs redoing) or it will just work. Luckily all went smoothly so all that was required was unplugging the M4 Mac mini Pro and rebooting (with monitor and keyboard/mouse connected) and it will be in macOS setup mode and boom there's a 4TB SSD Macintosh HD.

The SSD is fast too (it uses the same NAND memory that Apple uses) and people have shown it operates as the same speed (some reports say improves vs Apple). No issues so far. Bigger SSDs tend to operate faster as they can spread the read and more importantly writes across all the memory so reducing SSD wear.

The M4 Mac mini Pro is fast, it runs programs really well, including large beasts like Fusion from Autodesk for 3D design.

The Mac mini will probably last quite a while, the Mac Studio was tempting with the greater RAM capacity, but it's a lot more expensive. If you want to run large LLMs the the Mac Studio is probably a better choice with 128GB+ RAM which will be able to run the larger models - the Mac Mini Pro can run Meta’s Llama but not the full sized one.

Real geeks will run multiple machines and link them through Thunderbolt 5 (using RDMA) as now macOS supports shared execution so a model can be split between them. Though probably real power users are still probably going to link multiple Mac Studios rather than Mac Mini’s. There's even software to support this now (EXO) which makes setup a breeze (well considerably easier with a nice UI to drive it all).

Going back to a simple one machine setup, the Mac Mini Pro is a great choice (especially as future releases of macOS are no longer going to support Intel Macs). Thunderbolt 5 is fast and adding a good USB Hub means that you’ll get great performance from peripherals that operate at high speed. Adding external USB disks also makes sense (especially fast SSDs). 

Unfortunately there seem to be shortages now (or long ship times) due to the popularity of using things like Openclaw (a local agent using ‘AI’ to monitor and control the Mac that can automate personal tasks. Memory prices have also drastically increased since this was started. NOTE due to RAM pricing increases the Mac Mini Pro now is only available with a max of 48GB of RAM.

Though this was for the M4 Mac Mini Pro (retail £1299), Apple have released M5 based systems, so there’s likely to be an M5 Mac Mini soon. It also included the Apple Magic Keyboard with TouchID (initially thought this was a waste of time, but it makes accessing passwords and paying for stuff so much quicker and easier).

The M4-SSD upgrade was $699 / £530.

This upgraded a 5K 27” i7 iMac and the performance difference is amazing. The only issue with the upgrade is that a new monitor is also required and Apple’s Studio Display is costly. There are good offerings from other vendors. As an aside, initially a BENQ 32" monitor was acquired and connected via HDMI. This worked well, though there would be occasional vertical red or blue lines appearing on screen and the monitor would occasionally (randomly) lose sync, the screen go black and a few seconds later turn on again. Replacing HDMI with a USB C / Mini DisplayPort made all those problems disappear and the HDMI port is now used for a second older HD monitor.

reMarkably, reMarkable have done it again (with the Paper Pro Move)

reMarkable have been making tablets for a while (see the last post for history and details of the reMarkable Paper Pro) and though the Paper Pro is a great device for note taking it's quite large and heavy (just under A4 size weighing 525g i.e. just under 1/2 Kg). It's not unmanageable and it's not bad if used to lugging a laptop around, but it's not really what you'd call portable so you can carry it around at all times.

Well now reMarkable have come out with a solution to your portable notebook needs, the reMarkable Paper Pro Move. It's small enough to put in a (large'ish) pocket and definitely small enough to carry in a messenger bag or a large purse.

The Move is 195.6 x 107.8 mm
, has a Canvas display supporting 20,000 colours, it's slightly thicker than the Paper Pro (6.5 compared to 5.1 mm) and it weighs 230 g. The 7.3" display has 1696 x 954 resolution (264 PPI).

note: why are displays always quoted in inches when the dimensions and everything else are metric?

The battery is 2,334 mAh supporting up to 2 weeks use and it charges to 90% in around 45 minutes. There's 64GB of storage which equates to around 800+ notebooks. The pen-to-ink distance 920 µm and there's a 12mS of writing latency. The system charges by USB (USB C to USB C cable included) and can also be used for data transfer (USB 2.0). WiFi is 2.4/5GHz.

When ordering the basic Marker is included and there's the option to get the Marker Pro which has the eraser. There's also a choice of Folio covers.

Again it comes with 100 day try after buy and includes 100 days of the Connect service.

reMarkable Paper Pro Move and folio cover

The packing is all paper/card, it looks nice and it's almost a shame to tear open the strip on the right hand side.

Side strips removed

 Once the side strips are removed the inner (cardboard) packaging can be slipped out.

Open Folio cover and reMarkable packaging

The packaging on the reMarkable needs to be torn open too.

open packaging showing reMarkable

The Move is protected with something like tracing paper which is removed.

Marker Pro, USB cable and spare tips

Under the Move is the Marker Pro, the USB C to USB C cable and spare tips. There must be different versions of the package if the Marker is selected.

reMarkable removed and asleep

The Move removed from packaging and not powered up.

reMarkable attached to Folio case and Marker Pro

The Move attaches (quite securely) to the Folio cover with magnets and the Marker Pro also attaches magnetically. When closed, the front side is also held down with magnets as is the flap holding the Marker when closed. No more losing the Marker in your bag.

reMarkable starting after pressing power

Press the power button and the system will wake-up. This is a soft button so the unit will still slowly discharge if not used.

Booting up

As the system is running Linux underneath, it really is booting up.

Instructions to start (with blue scribble)

The post initial boot screen (before the system has been setup). The screen shows a blue scribble.

Red scribble on screen

The scribble changes to red. Set-up involves setting a PIN, WiFi and the Connect service (a desktop/mobile is required to sign-in/sign-up to Connect etc.).

After set-up when the Move is powered on it will ask for a password (if set), then show the Home Screen/notebooks/folders etc.

This really is the notepad that that everyone will be using, though it's not the cheapest on the market, the reMarkable devices have always been known for the paper like feel and this one is no exception. The software is always being updated and there are now some great templates and folders make organising things so much better rather than just having notebooks (the name for a document) scattered on the Home Screen. It's slightly heavy, but much more convenient than a laptop and it really does go everywhere and isn't out of place.

An A4 screen is more usable for various sketches, but for portable note taking the Move's size is perfectly adequate.

The basic device costs £399. The Marker is included and Marker Pro is an additional £40.

The folios are

• Premium Leather (brown or black) £119
• Mosaic Weave (basalt, burgundy or cobalt) £89
• Polymer Weave £59

The Connect service is £2.99 per month or £29.90 annually which gives access to 

• Templates from reMarkable Methods
• Send to Slack
• Unlimited cloud 
storage
• Create and edit
 in the reMarkable apps
• reMarkable 
Protection Plan (3 years device protection)

reMarkable apps are available for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. The system also supports Dropbox and Google drive integration (there's also a developer mode allowing ssh into the system - it runs Linux under the hood and it is possible to develop apps that run on-device).

There are also Microsoft Word and Powerpoint "Send to reMarkable" add-ons.

If you hadn't wanted an electronic notepad before, now's the time to get one that can be carried with you at all times. Almost perfect!!! Once you've used a reMarkable, you'll not want another notepad ... (maybe not even paper).

How can something so reMarkable get even more reMarkable (Paper Pro)

reMarkable have been around since 2013, launching the reMarkable 1 in 2017 and then the reMarkable 2 in 2020. Those were both monochrome e-ink tablets, those lucky enough to purchase a 1 got the connect service for life which syncs the reMarkable to the cloud and desktop and mobile applications (with a live view possible). The connect service is now only free during the 100 day trial (during which the reMarkable can be returned) and then £2.99 per month.

The reMarkable 2 is a great way to take and store notes, it can use templates and it's possible to annotate PDFs (and read ePub books). It really does feel like writing on paper (it's not exactly the same but much better than say an iPad even with a grippy screen protector). Being e-ink is also very pleasant on the eye and easy to read in most lighting conditions.

Both of the above are slightly smaller than A4. The reMarkable 2 is 246 x 188 mm and weights 404g with a 10.3" black, white and greyscale display (226 DPI). It weighs 404g and is 4.7mm thick.

The new reMarkable Paper Pro is slightly bigger at 274.1 x 196.6 mm with a 11.8" colour display (20,000 colours) and 229 PPI. It weighs 525g and is 5.1mm thick with an adjustable reading light (e-ink display work well in sunlight).

All reMarkables come with a marker that is suited to the display so it feels like a pen/pencil and it comes with spare tips (which can also be purchased separately). Though standard EMR digital pens can be used, not all the functions (such as erasers) will work and some of the tips may damage the display. Of course there's a premium marker available with an eraser on the rear (in UK £40 extra).

Though a case isn't necessary, having one that fits well and securely holds the reMarkable is important to some and the reMarkable polymer Book Folio is good enough for £79 (other cases are available such as a leather (brown or black £169), mosaic (basalt, burgundy, cobalt £129).

There's also a Folio keyboard which is an extra £219.

The Marker Plus, Book Folio and reMarkable Paper Pro

The packaging is all paper/cardboard so can be recycled.

Ripped packaging

Ripping the strip opens the packaging.

opened packaging

The reMarkable inside in it's off state.

USB-C and instructions

Under the device is the USB-C cable and instructions, again all in cardboard.

Book Folio

Again the Book Folio comes in cardboard packaging that you rip a strip off to open. This is the grey polymer weave folio.

reMarkable in Book Folio

The reMarkable Paper Pro sits on the case and is held by magnets and knows when the folio is closed. The screen is pre-powering the device.

Marker Plus (inc spare tips)

The Marker Plus has a textured finish and comes with several spare nibs (though a lot of use is required before they wear out).

Marker Pro on side of reMarkable

The Marker (and Pro) attach to the side of the reMarkable Paper Pro and are held magnetically.

reMarkable Paper Pro with Marker Pro and flap

The new Book Folio has a flap that can be pulled from the back (again held magnetically) which is good when the device is in a bag or similar as it can't come off. The original reMarkables didn't have this and the marker would fall (or be knocked) off when moving around and then the hunt for it would begin. This is a much better design for transport.

Bootup - colour screen

When the reMarkable starts up it displays a nice colour graphic. The scroll bar at the bottom shows the progress (it's Linux underneath).

Start Screen

Now get the marker out and press start. WiFi and other details need to be entered. Then any system updates will be applied. As a new user there's 100 days of the Connect service for free (after £2.99 per month or £29.90 per year), this allows sync'ing with other devices. There's a Windows/macOS/iOS and Android reMarkable app, the device will show a code and this is entered on the reMarkable website. There's also live sharing which will update another reMarkable (app or device) in real-time.

reMarkable 2 and reMarkable Paper Pro

The difference in size between the reMarkable 2 (on top) and reMarkable Paper Pro underneath. Also shows the lack of marker holder on the reMarkable 2.

Opened book folios showing reMarkable displays

When the reMarkable 2 and reMarkable Paper Pro are opened, the Paper Pro has a significantly larger display.

While the reMarkable 2 is a great system and great for notes and sketches, the Paper Pro's colour display makes a huge difference. Being able to sketch in colour makes it more like sketching on paper and though the colours are never going to be as good as an iPad or such like the e-ink display is superb and the colour screen still maintains that paper like feel (yes you can get tips for the Apple Pencil and screen protectors that improve the feel - they are not as good as this).

With the Connect subscription (which is definitely worth it - though original reMarkable users still get their original subscription for free), as well as the sharing systems, there's also access to templates and workbooks - productivity, planning, community, strategy, note-taking and communication. There's also integrations with Slack and unlimited cloud storage. There's also a 3 year protection plan.

The reMarkable Paper Pro is £599 and includes the Marker.

The Marker+ adds £40.

The Books Folios are

• Premium Leather (Black or Brown) £169
• Mosaic Weave (Basalt, Burgundy or Cobalt) £129
• Polymer Weave (Grey) £79

The Type Folio (keyboard) £219

There's free shipping to UK.

There are also business Connect subscriptions which give different features like device management and single sign-on.

All in all recommended.