Preferred note taking method?

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Preferred notetaking tool?

  • Tablet with a stylus

    Votes: 8 40.0%
  • Laptop

    Votes: 12 60.0%

  • Total voters
    20
I think everyone in my class that actually does take notes uses their laptop and types them out or annotates the pdfs/ppts.

Surface Pro is solid though if you want the best of both worlds.
 
Tried onenote for Mac last semester, too glitchy and slow, back to just typing in the notes section of ppts now. Some teachers speak so quickly that I end up watching the recorded lecture and pausing it frequently in addition to or replacement of in class attendance.

Because you asked, my wpm is probably around 90 with 90% accuracy, but that obviously goes down when I'm trying to type out microbio notes.
 
Take a look at the lenovo yoga pro think pad !
 
What makes Surface pro 3 superior to regular tablets for note taking and is the difference significant? Surface pro is ridiculously expensive and my school gives a Lenovo thinkpad tablet which works both as a laptop and tablet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...kShypsf1cjP-RQVI3gs-4aAvV28P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

The surface has a digitizer when combined allows for greater accuracy speed and pressure sensitivity when writing. Most regular tablets work through capacitive touch which just doesn't compare when taking notes.

Its easier to understand if you actually try it or look at some YouTube videos of writing using the surface pro 3.
 
I use the notability app on the iPad Penn gave us.

Ive considered iPad+notability for a long time before I went with SP3, simply because it was much cheaper and lighter. Luckily Yale Med gave my friend iPad+wacom pen to use on notability, so I had a chance to try it out. He and I agreed that the lack of palm rejection was a deal breaker, this isnt accounting for the fat strokes on a capacitive screen .

He eventually went back to typing his notes on notability and I bought the SP3
 
Ive considered iPad+notability for a long time before I went with SP3, simply because it was much cheaper and lighter. Luckily Yale Med gave my friend iPad+wacom pen to use on notability, so I had a chance to try it out. He and I agreed that the lack of palm rejection was a deal breaker, this isnt accounting for the fat strokes on a capacitive screen .

He eventually went back to typing his notes on notability and I bought the SP3

Any particular reason you like writing more than typing? Can't you keep up with the professors better with the speed advantage of typing?
 
Any particular reason you like writing more than typing? Can't you keep up with the professors better with the speed advantage of typing?

Maybe it's because I'm weird, but I've always found my typed notes very unreadable. My brain probably doesnt work like most people. I need things to be highlighted on the fly and add little footnotes everywhere. Over the years, I have not found a perfect way to do it by typing. The only method that worked for me was to print out all of my powerpoints and write my footnotes on them.

Sure typing is faster, but I find that I spend more time deciphering my notes than studying. Plus, I learn better listening to the professors and jotting down important concepts than blindly typing down everything they say. And my school records most of the classes, so I can always go back and watch the parts I didnt catch.
 
Notability has palm rejection now with the last update. Haven't really played around with it yet but it's there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Notability has palm rejection now with the last update. Haven't really played around with it yet but it's there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well thats a great direction for the app! Hopefully it'll work well.

But I doubt it work as well as 1st party software from Microsoft.

Too bad they couldnt get rid of the fat stylus.
 
Any particular reason you like writing more than typing? Can't you keep up with the professors better with the speed advantage of typing?

I have found that I retain more information if I hand write it. The more that stays in my brain on the first pass, the better.

And there is a decent body of research suggesting this is almost universal. Hand writing tends to force you to be a bit more thoughtful about the information that gets recorded. If you type quickly, you can just about shut off your brain and be a conduit for the lecture content to make it onto your notes.

I've also found that because OneNote reads my sloppy handwriting, I'm still able to search my notes electronically to find information.
 
Those of you using Surface Pro 3, do you you see the 12" screen size being an issue. Would having something 15" or greater be better, especially for taking exams on the Surface Pro?
 
12" seems like the perfect size for tablet and okay for a laptop.

Anything bigger and I feel is too hefty to carry around and use as tablet.

There is rumored that Surface Pro 4 has both a 12" and 14" option.
 
I have an iPad and a rMBP

I started off exclusively doing notability + iPad. For some classes it was great, but for others where the professor added a lot of additional information that wasn't on the ppt I couldn't keep up. Plus, I have awful handwriting and it seems like the stylus, no matter what brand I use, makes it even worse. So some stuff comes out illegible.

I eventually transitioned to typing on the ppts with my laptop and that's been a good system for me. My class seems pretty evenly mixed with typers and tablet users. With the odd 1 or 2 people thrown in that print out the powerpoints and write on them --> which would honestly be the preferred method for me, but I don't want to print a million pages of paper per year and some of our professors aren't very good about uploading the ppts with enough time to print things off.
 
With the odd 1 or 2 people thrown in that print out the powerpoints and write on them --> which would honestly be the preferred method for me, but I don't want to print a million pages of paper per year

Exactly why I went with Surface Pro 3. So far I have close to 200-300 pages of powerpoint slides and probably another 100 pages of personal notes from Gross Anatomy. And I can carry all of that in a 1.7 lb laptop/tablet.
 
Exactly why I went with Surface Pro 3. So far I have close to 200-300 pages of powerpoint slides and probably another 100 pages of personal notes from Gross Anatomy. And I can carry all of that in a 1.7 lb laptop/tablet.

If I wasn't a devoted Apple snob I would have gotten a surface. One of my best friends has one and she loves it for taking notes on.
 
If I wasn't a devoted Apple snob I would have gotten a surface. One of my best friends has one and she loves it for taking notes on.

I love my Surface Pro 3. When I first started using it, I had a very amplified version of that "wow, this is an incredibly well-thought-out piece of technology" I had when I got my first iPad and MBP. I like it enough that I even made a fancy new case for it.
 
I love my Surface Pro 3. When I first started using it, I had a very amplified version of that "wow, this is an incredibly well-thought-out piece of technology" I had when I got my first iPad and MBP. I like it enough that I even made a fancy new case for it.

That's a slick case!

I totally accept that there's companies doing just as good, or even better things than Apple. But, I just can't get over the whole ecosystem of Apple (typical snob response). I don't see myself ever buying anything different.
 
My brand loyalty goes as far as the product's ability to fulfill my needs.

Had Apple came out with something better than the surface pro, I would've surely bought that.

I bought the iPhone 6 because both Samsung and HTC were taking their sweet time with the release and i needed the phone by a certain date.
 
That's a slick case!

I totally accept that there's companies doing just as good, or even better things than Apple. But, I just can't get over the whole ecosystem of Apple (typical snob response). I don't see myself ever buying anything different.

Thanks! Being a leather worker pays dividends!

I agree, to a point, IRT Apple. I've loved all my iPhones and for pure tablets, I don't know that I'd consider anything running Android. I gave my iPad a shot for note taking a while back and found it really lacking. Laptops with typed notes fell short as well. Being able to hand write and mark up presentations by hand helps me learn so much better, and this is executed so well on the SP3.
 
Thanks! Being a leather worker pays dividends!

I agree, to a point, IRT Apple. I've loved all my iPhones and for pure tablets, I don't know that I'd consider anything running Android. I gave my iPad a shot for note taking a while back and found it really lacking. Laptops with typed notes fell short as well. Being able to hand write and mark up presentations by hand helps me learn so much better, and this is executed so well on the SP3.


Since you're a leather worker, do you make any items like that for purchse? 🙂
 
Since you're a leather worker, do you make any items like that for purchse? 🙂

Not items like that usually. I'm capable of it. But I generally don't do custom stuff because I'm so slammed for time. Especially for gadgets I don't own/don't have a pattern for already, it takes a lot of extra time to put together a case that I know will fit properly.
 
Not items like that usually. I'm capable of it. But I generally don't do custom stuff because I'm so slammed for time. Especially for gadgets I don't own/don't have a pattern for already, it takes a lot of extra time to put together a case that I know will fit properly.


What was I thinking??? You are a medical school student after all! Silly me, LOL!
 
Notability is excellent app for MacBook pro and GoodNotes is excellent app for iPAD. I use both.
 
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