Ask Engadget: best note-taking tablet / laptop for under $200?
By Darren Murph 
posted July 15th 2010 11:01PM
posted July 15th 2010 11:01PM
Max isn't even opposed to buying second-hand, but we just know someone out there has a delightful option on the new market as well. Don't bother putting off your answer in comments below -- that Fall semester is just about the bend, you know?"I am a student looking for a second portable computer for taking notes in lectures, as I am ridiculously unorganized at the moment. The thing is, I only have a very small budget, and I need a tablet / touchscreen computer. I have at most £150 ($228) to spend."
Simple. Logitech IO2 digital pen (or equivalent). Just take the pen into lectures and upload / convert afterwards. 1/3 of your budget. Quite a few in use in the Uni of London :)
The aspire one is a great netbook in most of it's incarnations - battery life does tend to be an issue, though, so it won't run you over a full day at uni.
I hear the Dell Mini 1210 has a 7 hour battery life, and is often offered free on 3G plans through three.co.uk and others... currently (I know because I'm considering one myself) it's £17pm on Three.
a used asus t101 mt or the 91mt should do the trick..they retail at 499 for new..so may u need to extend your budget by a little bit.. Google for the review video..the note taking ability is pretty good.
The answer is obvious, and has been exactly the same for the last decade:
A Psion Netbook (or Series 7)
10 hour+ battery life
Word processor
Spreadsheet
Graphing
Sketch program
Database
Audio recording
Modern netbooks are only just beginning to reach its level of functionality, and still can't beat it for ease of use.
@nemo20000 LOL I had a Psion 5mx in school. It was the perfect device.
Thanks for bring up old memories!
You can get something like the dell d410 for just over 100 pounds. From one of the computer markets
Agree with the LiveScribe pen. Just tried one and it seems to work great (i.e. written notes and audio recording tied to notes)
@exNewt
I second that, with your budget it doesn't get better than a LiveScribe pen.
ePad straight from China. Runs Android - costs nowhere close to $200 bucks. Enjoy.
I prefer the Stylistic ST4xxx and ST5xxx series devices. I used a ST4110 in college that I bought for about $250. I now have a ST5022 that goes for between $180 and $250 on ebay. I threw linux on it and with a little customization it makes a great note taking/homework tablet.
Instead of a notebook/tablet, consider the Pulse pen notetaking system - you do the writing, it records the lecture. Best of both worlds and under $200.
Android Incredible $199 with rebate, then install Swype and Evernote.
The best new, currently available, near your price range notetaking computer is probably the Asus T91MT. It's small and light with a good battery and a resistive screen. It's also almost twice your price but you might be able to find a used one in your price range.
The best old notetaking computer would be a slate with an active digitizer. Motion made a large slates (the m1200, m1300, and m1700 come to mind) and an iPad sized slate (the LS800). You can find them on eBay and I would look for the LS800 for your uses. But keep in mind that it's several CPU and OS generations old.
In taking notes, I would stay with light weight software. Windows Journal or Windows InkSeine (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/inkseine/index.html) rather than Windows OneNote or Agilix software (if the latter even still exists). Evernote came out after I got rid of my m1300 so I can't say if that would run well.
As far as looking through specs for possibilities, the key will be the screen. The iPad uses a capacitive screen which is the worst type for notetaking. The other screen you will see on touch screen tablets is a resistive screen which responds to a stylus (like old Palm PDAs used). This is better for notetaking but you need to limit the size of the screen because if your palm touches the screen at the same time as the stylus you mess up the "ink" line (this is called vectoring - the computer continues the ink line from the stylus in a vector towards your palm). In general, if you can, stay away from touch screens.
The other type of screen is called an active digitizer. This only works with a special stylus (which has inner components I don't understand). In your price range the only active digitizers were from Wacom and the key word if you ever need a replacement stylus would be "Penabled" because Wacom also made other types of active digitizer screens whose stylus is not compatible. With an active digitizer there is no danger of vectoring. It is also more accurate, takes less pressure, and can even interact with the PC with buttons built into the stylus and by hovering over the screen (which it interprets as moving a mouse with no buttons pushed down).
Good luck.
Like most engadget readers I'm wired to the teeth with gadgets, despite this I still think the most efficient way to take notes is with a pen and paper.
On the other hand I have a friend who (no joke) uses an iPod Touch to take ALL his notes. He has dozens of pages of notes on his iPod that he syncs through ever note. Brave.
Why not try the livescribe. It is a own and paper that records the lecture while you write your notes. Then you can play back whatever was being said when you were writing. Works great for me. You can also upload to your pc later and have your notes transcribed.
Pen and paper
@ecafkid this make sense
Http://WWW.livescribe.com
Honestly, dude, you don't want a tablet for taking notes. I'm assuming you're starting college in the fall -- if this is wrong and you know what you need, dammit, then of course disregard. But software keyboards are absolutely atrocious for serious work, and you're going to get a hell of a lot more mileage out of a netbook's physical keyboard. At your price range, you'll get more bang for your buck, too. I'd recommend looking at Asus's eee series.
a mobile phone with a blue tooth keyboard is okay
a mp3 player which has the function of recorder
or but a recorder like sony pcm d50 or pcm m10 :P
Get an Aspire One or equivalent (you can get a refurbished for about $220). Remove the hard drive (160GB) and sell it on ebay (about $40). Take your windows sticker and also sell it (about $40 for xp, you'll get more if it is a win7). Get a 2GB sd card and install Ubuntu netbook remix on it. Boot from your sd card. Your battery will last longer (no HD) and Ubuntu has all the tools you need for note taking (tomboy, openoffice) and internet browsing
I haven't read through all the comments to see if anyone else has mentioned this, but as far as note taking, I would highly recommend the Pulse smartpen from Livescribe. It's well under $200 and you can use it perhaps with your existing desktop/laptop.
Although I am for a laptop that I can type as fast as a professor speaks, there is nothing that provides as much freedom to write as a pen lets say for a chemistry or math class. So how can I merge the two in this price range? Well, for one thing: adding a better way to take notes by record what a professor says, being able to play back what he/she said as soon as I wrote a particular line on the page, sharing notes (including the drawings the professor provided on the board), and being able to recreate those notes easily led me to one option outside of a laptop. Sorry, I guess it goes outside the question but there seems to be nothing better or as close as (and it connects to a laptop to store all your notes and convert it through optical character recognition if your handwriting is bad) the LiveScribe pen ( http://www.livescribe.com/ ). I am not affiliated with them, but I sure wish I had it when I was in class.
For best results:
Use your $2 pen and$2 notepad. If you need to send someone copies - use your FREE printer-scanner. Repeat whenever necessary. Bingo!
I used an ebayed TC1100 until its motherboard crapped out on me. That worked fine with tablet XP and journal.
So I upgraded to a motion computing LE1600 - a bit more processor. I got the keyboard/cover and a bump case, even the extended battery.
Recently I saw a TC1100 with out a hard drive on ebay, got that, took the old TC1100 hard drive and had a working machine. I put Ubuntu on it (there's a wiki for ubuntu on TC1100) and gave it to my girlfriend. She's digging it for her engineering classes.
@redgeek is there a newer model of the HP TC1100?
is the HP TC1100 easily upgradeable[ram, hard drive, cpu etc.]?
I wonder how a core i series intel processor wud run on this tablet
I have the perfect solution for people too cheap to buy a decent product -- Just take your camera phone and take pictures of your neighbors notes. There, now you have your notes, digitally and you haven't spent any extra money.
Im also looking to buy a tablet pc for note taking in class but with more focus on the using the pen input instead of the keyboard, so I was lookin at the HP TM2, has anyone here bought that laptop, Im lookin for an honest opinion on how comfortable it feels writing on a flat screen as well as the performance of the laptop in general...
You want to get a Lightscribe Pulse Pen - http://www.livescribe.com/smartpen/index.html
I have one myself which I've used for over a year to write scripts and books with. It also has recording features. $150 and you can print your own paper for it if you have a printer capable of it. (Works best if you have a computer/old cheap one ;) Or I bet you can figure out a way to use it on a school computer with some maneuvering and a usb stick.
Pick up Apple's first iPad -- the 1998 Emate 300 -- on Ebay for about $50. Full keyboard, terrific touch screen with extraordinary handwriting recognition built in, PCMCIA slot for wireless card, excellent built-in software, active developer community. Built like a brick sh*thouse (originally designed for elementary school kids!). Translucent green, art deco curvy case looks MUCH cooler than the totally square iPad, too!
Second choice: TRS-80 Model 100. Not sure if you can find these for such a low price, though.
I also am looking for a dual core netbook to use in an accelerated BSN program. Can anyone suggest something with long battery life? Thanks.
I would consider a LiveScribe device. You can take notes on regular paper and record the audio. then save it to your computer. Very inventive device combining traditonal note-taking with current technology. It meets your $200 budget.
http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/