Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => Ctrl-Alt-Del => Topic started by: JonB on 11 October, 2019, 10:23:45 am
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I'm increasingly attracted to the idea of a tablet for notetaking at work with a long term view to replacing notebooks and random pieces of paper with important scribbles on. I've googled around a bit and remain uncertain.
- I'd like to keep the budget under £300
- I'm not interested in drawing capabilities
- Will any tablet serve this purpose or do I need to look out for certain types/screens etc and pens/styluses
- I will probably use one-note which is used at work for various things so it would have to be able to load this along with Word, Excel
- It would also be nice to use for browsing and reading books/online newspapers
- I'd like it to be quite large (the size of the original i-Pad would be okay)
- Would need to be Android (or maybe Windows), not apple
Any suggestions? Some come bundled with pens but these seem to start at around £500.
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As a faffless alternative (I used to use an iPad, got bored with it), I have a Rocketbook thing. It sounds swankier than it is (which is an expensive notebook, but a lot cheaper than a tablet).
Basically, it is a notebook and you treat it like a notebook and scribble and sketch away. But you can wave your phone over it and the notes automatically transfer to wherever you have configured (includes OneNote, email, most note apps). You could do this with any paper notebook, of course, but the pages are wipe-clean, so you swish away your notes with a damp cloth once you've done with them and reuse. You need a particular type of pen (Pilot Frixion), but they're cheap, also write on normal paper, and are available everywhere.
Suits my needs as an inveterate scribbler.
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If you're taking notes, it's going to be all about the keyboard. You need a keyboard case that holds itself open rigidly rather than relying on being placed on a flat surface. That's the major flaw in my Galaxy Tab S2 - the keyboard itself is pretty decent, but it's very awkward to type on when placed on my lap.
Chromebook?
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You can use a cheap stylus with just about any tablet. Would work fine for most things.
Those fancy pens can do extra stuff, eg pressure sensitivity, which may be good for drawing, but won't make difference for scribbling notes. Or palm rejection, or extra buttons to erase etc.
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I’ve never encountered anyone using anything but an iPad or a Surface (or laptop) as a portable note taking device.
I think you want a proper stylus if you’re planning regular drawing, not one of those simulated finger things.
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One of the benefits I've found for an actual physical notepad (and one the frustrations of using an iPad and pencil) is that I can flip easily between pages, cross-reference previous notes, bend a page and see both things etc.
(Plus I can draw Angry Alice with her hammer, making merry havoc during dull meetings.)
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As a faffless alternative (I used to use an iPad, got bored with it), I have a Rocketbook thing. It sounds swankier than it is (which is an expensive notebook, but a lot cheaper than a tablet).
Basically, it is a notebook and you treat it like a notebook and scribble and sketch away. But you can wave your phone over it and the notes automatically transfer to wherever you have configured (includes OneNote, email, most note apps). You could do this with any paper notebook, of course, but the pages are wipe-clean, so you swish away your notes with a damp cloth once you've done with them and reuse. You need a particular type of pen (Pilot Frixion), but they're cheap, also write on normal paper, and are available everywhere.
Suits my needs as an inveterate scribbler.
Moist. 👍
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If you're taking notes, it's going to be all about the keyboard. [...]
Ignore me. I've just realised that everyone else (including presumably the OP) seems to live in a weird parallel universe where they willingly take notes with a pen. ???
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If you're taking notes, it's going to be all about the keyboard. [...]
Ignore me. I've just realised that everyone else (including presumably the OP) seems to live in a weird parallel universe where they willingly take notes with a pen. ???
Yeah, for meetings it's pen and notebook ... I can type quickly and most of the time by touch type but there's a disconnect between thinking and being able to filter what I need to note down when typing that just comes more instictively with hand written notes.
Thanks for all the input, it's good to know that I don't actually need anything too special for this purpose, Rocketbook looks interesting but at the moment am still inclined to give a tablet a go.
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You can buy a Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite for £200, plus the M-Pen for £30. Probably the cheapest option for a decent tablet with proper pen support.
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You can buy a Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite for £200, plus the M-Pen for £30. Probably the cheapest option for a decent tablet with proper pen support.
Interesting I'd been looking at these, I've been pleased with my Huawei phone over the last couple of years.
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If you're taking notes, it's going to be all about the keyboard. [...]
Ignore me. I've just realised that everyone else (including presumably the OP) seems to live in a weird parallel universe where they willingly take notes with a pen. ???
I like writing and find it coalesces ideas better, there's something about forming letters and the time it takes that ensures things entangle themselves in your neurones. Plus you can sketch and diagram and doodle, add structure etc. that you frankly can't if you're just typing. I confess I don't understand the people who sit there and type everything as said (or try to) – it's unclear to me what purpose that diligence serves, do they go home and read it? Do they get a prize? I find jotting down or diagramming the import things usually jams it in my brain enough to forget about the notes themselves.
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Yes I've always been sceptical of the 'I can save my notes and come back to them later' line from tablet note-taker users.
Once you have a zillion hand-written comments in different files on different documents, I expect they get read about as often as my scribbles on papers (almost never).
Plus I strongly suspect the servers that store and distribute files into and out of the ether out very likely burn way more carbon alongside all the stuff that was used to make the fake paper thing than is wasted on my waste real paper and ink.
Apologies for my scepticism. Feel free to buy and ignore me while I grumble darkly in the corner :-)
Granted, might be a lower fire-risk than my paper-strewn desk and cork board ;)
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I type things into a mind map on an iPad. It means I can sort the notes out as I go along, and they are searchable.
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Outside your stated budget, but some people at my co have raved about the reMarkable
https://remarkable.com/store/reMarkable-and-marker
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I've been using a RocketBook for about a year now and it really is a low-tech high-tech solution if you like to scribble. It's one of those things that just works. I scribble all week, scan the pages I want to keep, and then wipe it clean and start again. No worries about batteries etc. Probably won't work if you're a lefty though, the ink takes a few seconds to dry (no different to a fountain pen) so you'd probably smear it.
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I've been using a RocketBook for about a year now and it really is a low-tech high-tech solution if you like to scribble. It's one of those things that just works. I scribble all week, scan the pages I want to keep, and then wipe it clean and start again. No worries about batteries etc. Probably won't work if you're a lefty though, the ink takes a few seconds to dry (no different to a fountain pen) so you'd probably smear it.
Bugger. I was fancying that until you mentioned the leftie thing.
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Soz. If you smear fountain pen ink when you write, you'll have the same problem because it takes several seconds for the ink to bind to the magic paper.
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Ah, that’s me out too.
No opportunity to try out the moist. >:(
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Outside your stated budget, but some people at my co have raved about the reMarkable
https://remarkable.com/store/reMarkable-and-marker
Wow, that does look interesting ... think i've got some thinking to do on this
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I have an Android tablet that I use all the time anyway. For notes at conferences and so on, I just take along a bluetooth keyboard as well.
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As a faffless alternative (I used to use an iPad, got bored with it), I have a Rocketbook thing. It sounds swankier than it is (which is an expensive notebook, but a lot cheaper than a tablet).
Had a gander at these on line. Looks just like what MrsT needs for her jottings. Main problem is that she's tech-oblivious so I'd better get one for myself first to be able to demonstrate...
Reckon you could cut pages out to clip into a Faber-Castell drawing board (http://www.faber-castell.eu/products/TKSystemdrawingboardDINA3/171273)?
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What's the security story with Rocketbook? Does the user have to trust the app and its host operating system in addition to the cloud storage provider and the means used to transfer data from the device to the cloud?
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What's the security story with Rocketbook? Does the user have to trust the app and its host operating system in addition to the cloud storage provider and the means used to transfer data from the device to the cloud?
It's the standard SSL to AWS for upload and processing. After that, you are, of course in the realm of the receiving application. No different to anyone else who uses the standard AWS APIs these days (Dropbox etc.). Of course, someone could just steal the notebook so if you're a diabolical ubervillain with a penchant for neatly detailing your nefarious plans for global domination you may want to keep the notepad secure. After all, if you're about the laser the 'nads of a secret agent, and preparing to describe your heinous plan, you don't want him saying 'yeah, I know' as soon as you start.
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If you're taking notes, it's going to be all about the keyboard. [...]
Ignore me. I've just realised that everyone else (including presumably the OP) seems to live in a weird parallel universe where they willingly take notes with a pen. ???
I like writing and find it coalesces ideas better, there's something about forming letters and the time it takes that ensures things entangle themselves in your neurones. Plus you can sketch and diagram and doodle, add structure etc. that you frankly can't if you're just typing. I confess I don't understand the people who sit there and type everything as said (or try to) – it's unclear to me what purpose that diligence serves, do they go home and read it? Do they get a prize? I find jotting down or diagramming the import things usually jams it in my brain enough to forget about the notes themselves.
Those are orthogonal issues. Verbatim notes have their place (generally when they're for use by other people), but it's rarely a good strategy for personal reference, unless you've lost the plot and are desperately writing everything down in the hope of achieving enlightenment later. That handwriting is too slow for verbatim notes isn't actually an advantage of handwriting.
I find drawing text by hand to be slow and concentration-intensive, so the idea of having enough brain-cycles left over to absorb the subject matter is completely alien to me. My education benefited greatly when I realised that it was better to pay attention than to diligently write things down (a skill that is strongly encouraged in the later years of primary school[1]), though that strategy didn't hold up to crap university lecturers dispensing key factoids through the media of droning audio or overhead projector scribble. For that (drifting vaguely on-topic) I discovered the Psion 5: A keyboard I could touch type on at over three times my handwriting speed, with the option of switching to inline scribbling on the screen with the stylus for simple diagrams (though the low pixel count meant that for anything complex or longer equations with scary integrals and things, paper was my preferred option). A modern tablet with non-shit backlight, decent keyboard, battery life, camera[2] *and* proper pen support would have been awesome.
If your brain can do the physical writing on autopilot (I assume it's like finding the keys on a keyboard or riding a bike or whatever) then great, I can see how that might help, just don't fall into the trap of assuming that's how it works for everyone. Indeed, some people have to use their entire brain just to do the hearing part (which is why they benefit from having someone else doing the notes for them).
[1] There may well have been prizes, but my chances of winning would have been about as likely as winning at sportsball.
[2] For backing up blackboards full of semi-legible mathematics. In my PSO days the Malaysian students with cheap (in relative terms) DSLRs had only just worked this out.
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I had a solution, that worked for a touch-typist. A small device, with a decent keyboard. I'd enter notes while discussing things in the meeting - basically I typed away everything that I thought needed recording, didn't make any attempt at organisation. That could be done later. Keyboard was rigid, so it would work on my lap if I didn't have a table in front of me.
Worked brilliantly, battery life was over a week.
That was a palm pilot with a belkin keyboard.
Not seen a tablet solution as good as that on the market. They are nearly getting there.
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The Psion 5 was good too...
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Z88 FTW
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Z88 FTW
Barakta used those for writing in primary school. We obtained one to play with in the early noughties, and while it's an impressive relic of its era, the keyboard leaves a lot to be desired.
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Microwriter? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter) A mid-80s cow-orker used to swear by his, though how he transferred his notes onto our WP system (running on a PDP) is a mystery.
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Reminds me of using a manual card-punch in the 70s.
(http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/001-mnras.jpg)
When I was a callow low-grade programmer I used to toddle off to clients with one of these in one hand and a briefcase full of cards in the other. I got a gold star for fitting a carrying-handle to it. We were all expert at fitting mispunched chad back into the holes.
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Microwriter? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter) A mid-80s cow-orker used to swear by his, though how he transferred his notes onto our WP system (running on a PDP) is a mystery.
I used one of those very briefly a very long time ago, and even I could get a decent typing speed.
I looked at some of the alternative Android keyboards at one time to see if it had been ported, but none seemed to quite match the elegance of the original.
Sent from my Moto E (4) Plus using Tapatalk
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Microwriter? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter) A mid-80s cow-orker used to swear by his, though how he transferred his notes onto our WP system (running on a PDP) is a mystery.
Those are one of the 'clever' suggestions occupational therapists like to make to barakta when they're so hung up on the arm and wrist bones that they forget to count her fingers.
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If someone is looking for a basic thingy thing, I scored a Chromebook (https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=5SX33EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB) what was being "given away" as a promotion when I had a clicky moment this morning and preordered a Pixel 4. When it arrives it will be available for, say, 50% of the RRP Not a tablet, mind.
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Microwriter? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter) A mid-80s cow-orker used to swear by his,
Tom Vernon a.k.a. Fat Man on a Bicycle used one for his general note-taking.
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(https://i.imgur.com/eoM3d2c.jpg)
If you go much further back in time you will soon be recommending the OP uses a tablet such as Moses had for note taking!
Yes, but you can only get five bullet points on a tablet.
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Thread necromancy:
I have been finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with my (paper) notes these days. I know I have them but I have multiple notebooks and trying to find the thread of 1 subject scattered throughout the book is starting to get difficult. I hate the loss of control so I have been thinking about getting an epaper notebook recently.
I was in a meeting with a colleague today, she has a ReMarkable and showed me how she uses it. Being able to store notes in segregated folders would be amazing and she can also upload pdf's and make notes on those as well.
I *really* want one.
I nearly spat out my tea when I found out the price. :o
I still *really* want one though. :-\
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Well, a day after posting ^this, a nice little bonus appeared. So I think I shall be investing in one.
Even though it doesn't have a web browser to allow you to login to networks with a captive portal, which is annoying as that's the only way to get on the guest network at work. I'll just have to use the phone as a hotspot instead.
Nothing else looks nearly as good. Several of the alternatives have issues with Chinglish interfaces, or have all their cloud backups in China. And it seems like ReMarkable have been doing lots of software upgrades since launch so...