Ask Engadget: Best mobile note-taking device?
By Darren Murph 
posted April 24th 2009 2:54AM
posted April 24th 2009 2:54AM
Like it or not, the spiral bound notebook is going the way of the Dodo. Okay, so maybe that's absolutely incorrect and totally sensationalistic, but you catch our drift. If not, take a whiff of what reader Allan is cooking:"My boss is a prolific note taker, filling many spiral bound notebooks with notes. As I deal with more projects, I find myself moving in the same direction. I would love the ability to search my notes, something not available with dead tree software. Is there a simple relatively cheap device that would allow me to take notes (preferably using hand writing), and then search them later? Ideally, I'd like something the size of a small internet tablet, but no smaller than an iPod touch. I'm looking for something far cheaper than a full-blown tablet PC, by the way."
So, ladder climbers -- what's the deal here? What device would you recommend for wowing that suit in the corner office while making your note taking all the more efficient? When you're done answering, shoot us a question of your to ask at engadget dawt com.
Have you thought of using a touchscreen netbook, like the Touch Book (http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/)?
Then adding an open source handwriting application for Linux like CellWriter (http://risujin.org/cellwriter/)?
Good Luck
Palm OS Memos- I take all of my notes in Memo's on a Palm Centro. I also use BugMe for handwritten notes or pictures. There are also 3rd party apps that take notes and use graphics. All of them allow you to categorize and back up to your computer.
When I have serious graphics and equations, I've used paper, then scanned it into Evernote which can search pictures for text.
The other nice thing with Evernote and a smartphone - take a picture of the board in class and upload to Evernote. Why write anything down.
The iPhone has the WORST note taking app of any smartphone. I don't know who would think it is good.
Why not stick with the pen and paper and when you fill up a spiral notebook cut the pages out with a guillotine and feed them into a scanner, there are feeder scanners that can take over 50 pages at a time. OCR these days is pretty good from what i have tried. If you set the system up right you could pretty easily have each page with a date and or time it was started and be able to search them or browse them like that. That way while you are taking the notes you don't have to deal with any issues you just write and later when it is not as time sensitive you digitize them all.
OneNote + A Tablet PC, of course. It'll index your notes for you and everything. You don't actually have to convert handwriting to text, but you can still search it.
I've got to go with the livescribe pen. You can write on notebooks provided, or print out your own paper with special microdots. Then, you can transfer what you wrote to your computer as a pdf and do a text search that works fairly well. Another good thing about it is when you are looking back at your notes, you can just tap the pen on a spot on your paper and it will play back what whoever was talking about said as you wrote that note down as the voice recorder syncs with what you wrote. There is an attachment so that you don't even have to use ink if you really don't want to, just write down, remember what lines you've already used, and then sync to your computer.
A moleskin.
I use evernote...
I saw somebody's comment on how paper is irreplaceble, especially when it comes down to taking note of graphs and diagrams in classes...
Well, wait for the prof to finish his drawing and then take a photo from within evernote. First of all, your attention was always with the prof while he was drawing on the board, so you did not miss out on anything while copying the drawing onto your paper notebook, and the picture you took is an exact copy - no missing details.
Evernote is fully searchable and is able to recognize text in photo's...
It runs on Windows PC's, Macs, Windows Mobile powered PDA's, iPhones and if you're not using one of your devices: your notebook is fully accesible over a web based client (I even think the web based client looks nicer than the Windows client).
At work I have my Dell portable sitting in the docking. For a short meeting, I leave it in the docking, and take a small Lenovo X61 ultraportable notebook with me - if it would have been a X61 tablet PC it would have been even more convenient.
During the meeting, I take notes in evernote. When the meeting is finished, I press F9 to sync and voila - the notes are accessible on all above mentioned devices...
You can even share your notes, what makes it possible for you colleagues/friends to access them.
For me - the what application question is answered: Evernote !
How can have different answers - if you don't mind the typing, use a ultraportable laptop, so you still have a convenient size keyboard to work with.
A netbook with a decent keyboard and Microsoft Onenote. I use a Samsung NC10.
It's much faster than writing by hand, is searchable, and involves no faffing around with OCR.
I am very interested in this same issue.
I am very interested to see the final specs and possibilities for
Crungear's 12" Atom powered "Crunchpad"
and
Always Innovative's 10" (i think) ARM based "Touch Book"
both tablet and touch screen based
both seem to have some very cool opportunities in this realm. Getting OneNote on them may be more difficlut than i know, but getting some kind of writing notetaking function seem natural...
both shoudl be around 300-400 bucks... and shoudl be making waves in the next few months...i know i am going to be waiting for a good hands on review of both... get on it Engadget!
oh yeah...there is talk that the Touchbook could run Android and possibly do Iphone Apps ...some of the notetaking stuff for the ipod touch/iphone is cool...but the screen is too small...i especially like Tanzaku... bigger screen...add a capable stylus and i am in heaven...
sure i wont be able to sketch like i coudl on a WACOM but notetakin woudl be great...even if i couldnt OCR it
My old HP iPaq RX1950 was really nice. Very small thin device with around 10 hours battery. The stylus input was really good and could convert whole written notes to text.
I have that exact setup using my HTC Touch Diamond with Evernote installed. Granted, a touch diamond is a fraction smaller than an ipod touch but theres an Evernote app for the iphone too.
It accepts handwritten and typed notes as well as photo's an audio. You can even upload PDF files. all text, even in attachments is searchable. it even does an OCR scan of any photo's you upload so you can photograph a document and upload it and it'll have a go at making that text searchable too. I doubt OCR will work so well with handwritten notes but you can always tag them.
The best note taking device is the one that you always have with you. Is your active digitizer doing you any good if it dosent fit into your pocket, available at a moments notice?
For some people it might be the Iphone, for others it might be their Nintendo DS with some homebrew app. For me? It's a pen and the back of my hand.
I don't like to carry alot of stuff around.
What about the Pulse smartpen from Livescribe? You'll still be writing on notepads, but and sync to your computer and search through the handwritten notes - even convert them to text with a $20 add on.
http://www.livescribe.com/
believe it or not, I took more notes over the lifespan of my motorola Q9h than I have with any laptop, they were taken in microsoft word, and easily bluetoothed to my laptop. Now of course thats text only, but it's convenient and the keyboard is very nice for a phone, better than my HTC 8125 anyway lol.
Well, handwriting tech is out I think. That leaves you with typing. The limitation is the size and dexterity of your hands/fingers. I've seen a couple of students in my classes using psion netbooks. They're cheap and incredibly small. You won't have all the fancies that the rich kids do, but it can get the job done with a word processor, web browser, spreadsheet, wifi, and such.
Alternatively, be prepared to spend some bank on a new tiny laptop like the Adama (or whatever) or Apple's AirWidget (or whatever).
I'd say you're absolutely wrong on saying handwriting is out. Run EverNote on a convertible netbook and you can OCR your handwritten notes. The EEE T91 is a svelte machine, and due out any time now, or one can get a Gigabyte convertible. Because all your handwritten/audio/typed/photo notes sync to their server, it'll all be available to you wherever you are. Both are more portable than a tablet PC like Lenovo's but they lack the admittedly nice Wacom digitizer which makes the handwriting look better.
EverNote, to their credit, does a great job of anti-aliasing the handwritten stuff, even on a mobile device... speaking of which...
I like how OneNote mixes media better than EverNote, but of course one can have both pieces of software installed and choose accordingly. Even better is that both are available on Windows Mobile phones for the times when you DON'T have your netbook with you (and yes EverNote does a good job on the OCR of notes I've written on Windows Mobile). You can also run EverNote on the iPhone, but won't have the option to do handwriting because of the capacitive screen.
Other mobile devices with decent web browsers will also let you at least view/search your existing notes with EverNote as well.
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Other than that, as others have mentioned, the LiveScribe is pretty cool tech especially if you want a dedicated solution, with the added bonus of actually having the handwritten notes. A client has one of these, and let me try it out. Was very impressed, though the pen was just a smidge beefy for my tastes.
Hipster PDA and a bullet pen. Category search if pretty fast. Cheap, comfortable in your back pocket, and they don't break.
http://lifehacker.com/tag/hipster-pda/
The one I use:
http://lifehacker.com/159401/diy-ring+bound-hipster-pda
Hey, I'm dodo. What's the deal here? Which way did I go?
I use an iRex Iliad http://www.irextechnologies.com/. e-ink screen never fails to impress, is great for reading pdfs, and you can sync up with evernote for cataloging you stuff. They now have one that is basically letter size, which would be even more impressive, if not a little too large.
The main advantage over a tablet pc, it weighs around 1 pound, and will run all day.
There is only one device I know of so far that is close to perfect. The iRex DS1000S.
It is an e-ink book reader with an integrated wacom stylus pad. You can add WiFi and Bluetooth to it.
It is portable, instant-on, long battery life and capacitive touch. And it provides a single point of access for both entering notes as well as searching notes (this is more important than you may think).
The only two downsides are that the software is not (yet) as good as OneNote and the price is too high ($859) since e-ink tech is still pretty new.
The good news is that in a couple years these devices should be pretty affordable. I would not be surprised to see these replacing text books in classes very soon.
Search for digital notepads. lots of them have OCR software embedded and are pretty unexpensive. They come in A4 (~letter) and A5 paper sizes and most of them can be used with a real notebook on top of the device.
Looking at your requirements, I'd suggest Livescribe pens. Most of the advantages of a tablet pc with onenote, all in a pen. You need to use their paper pads, but they have small handheld ones now, and everything ends up in the computer; very small learning curve for your boss while still meeting requirements.
I had the same issue two years ago, and I picked a tablet pc + onenote (livescribe was not out at the time). Works well today - only difference I would make is to pick a tablet pc not using a 1.2ulv core2; it's more than enough to handle the handwriting processing but with lots of long pages (like 30-40 in a day or so) it takes the indexer awhile to go through the notes and slides I import; indexing the audio recordings from meetings and lectures for words makes it even worse. Still, very nice to have - it's great in a meeting and someone asks "what was that" and I can search the term and find where I noted it, where it was in the imported slides, and where/when we talked about it.
One Note plus docking pen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z0lBSKGnJo&feature=related
PULSE PEN
How about the GPEN200N - Mobile Digital Scribe from IOGear - between 99.00 - 120.00 US
Does both ink & digital on regular paper, usb download.
http://www.iogear.com/product/GPEN200N/
never used one but I am very curious and its not crazy expensive. I've review both good & bad, but I suspect that
varies proportionally to handwriting and OCR.
another option maybe
Use any hardware you want...so long as you can run Evernote and sync with the world beyond the devideyou are using.
Have anybody ever tried one of those Bluetooth pens that would let you take any notes and/ pics on some special paper and then automagically sync with phone and/or computer? Nokia had one maybe two years ago and it looked like really cool idea. There were even some character recognition software though it'd be probably good maybe for couple of words for searching and such...
I was just about to write the same. For momre information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_paper
http://europe.nokia.com/su-27w
I use a a Sharpie pen, the back of any 8X11 print out at work and take handwritten notes. I scan them at the end of the day and make jpgs out of them. Then file them in Evernote which allows me to search for text and refer to the notes from my iPhone.
Put XP Tablet Edition, Vista, or 7 on a Gigabyte TouchNote 10" netbook. (650 USD)
If you really need an active digitizer, go with the HP tx2 12" AMD-based notebook. (1000 USD if you shop around)
Otherwise, there are a bunch of nice USB Wacom tablets you can hook up to a netbook. (60 USD for a Wacom Bamboo and 199 USD for a Dell Mini 9)
There are also Bluetooth Wacom tablets, but I don't know pricing.
Go on ebay, pick up an HP TC1100 and throw the latest version of OneNote on there. Most of them come with a swee dock that allows it to sit in front of you in either vertical on widescreen mode, and they can be had for 300-400, which puts it on par with netbook pricing.
I have desperately tried to digitize my notes. I have tried OneNote, Evernote, tablets, iPhone, netbook, you name it. I keep coming back to paper and pen. While not searchable they never need to be charged, rebooted or reconfigured.
The Sony VAIO P, downgraded to XP and with the font size tweaked, makes an excellent, light and small note taker, especially with the extended battery... The keyboard is extremely usable!
iPod touch, definitely.
Pulse. It's MAGIC. It works exactly like all the advertisements say it does.
The Nokia Internet Tablet.
Have you and has anyone else thought about using a Internet tablet from Nokia - the N810 as a note-taking device ?
Its as small as an iPhone but has a lot of functions built in - has a hardware keyboard as well. Whoever in a sane mind will want to note down notebook after notebook on a soft keyboard.
There are some nice softwares for it for note-taking - Evernote, Liqbase - which is great and infinitely scrollable, and some more out there. Look at the Maemo software list under maemo.org.
I can't recommend liqbase, unless you've found more functionality than I have. I have been taking hand-written text notes and sketches, and now I want to move them out of the N810. Some I want to drop into corporate email, others I want to drop into a copy of Microsoft OneNote, which is where my notes from longer meeting are. So far it looks like I'll have to use the x11vnc package to display my N810 screen onto my laptop using VNC, and take snapshots of the displayed window...
I commented on liqbase, but not on the N810 hardware. I'd strongly recommend *the hardware*, but don't feel I've found the right note-taking software for it.
You may also want to try http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/xournal/.
If price and practicality are priorities as they should be, I would suggest a used thinkpad X41 tablet.
I recently picked up a Lenovo x200T and have to say that it's a great machine. I use a combination of onenote and Blubeam pdf Revu. I rarely carry notebooks with me, aside from a lab notebook.
Any good active digitizer tablet is a sweet setup. I get about 7-8 hours batt life on a 5 month old battery with wireless connectivity, enough for most days without needing a charger.
What about e-paper? Doesn't Sony's latest have a touch screen?
Definitely Microsoft's OneNote suite and a tablet pc.
Use syncplicity or one of the hundred other computer syncing utilities on the internet to keep your computers synced.
Alternatively, you can use Evernote, but i feel for large-scale notes, OneNote would do the job better.
Evernote is still a pretty slick app for remembering things, I would recommend checking it out regardless!
I've used three "digital notepads" in the last decade:
CyberPad by Addesso - LOUSY build quality.
CrossPad by Cross. Great quality, so-so software. Still wish my wife had not thrown it away while I was traveling.
Currently: Digimemo. Software is OK. You can even teach it "shorthand." The pen is mediocre and, as I have carpal tunnel, I cannot use it for a long period of time.
I'd like to try an iLiad, but don't have a spare $800 for experimenting.
How about a SolidTek Digital Notepad? It stores your notes, which you can later upload to any computer with digital handwriting recognition. This is a slightly better option than something like a LightScribe pen, which requires special paper. This won't recognize your writing on the spot of course, but it's great in form factor and in usability.