I am brand new to this forum, and do not own a Tablet PC (but owned and LOVED an Apple Newton 130). My daughter is now about to enter Law School and is looking for a new laptop. She is considering getting tablet for note taking flexibility. I am wondering what kind of positive and negative experiences people have had using Tablets for this purpose. For example, I often took meeting notes with my Newton, but tired hands and sore wrists were a real problem after writing for long periods. The quality of current handwriting recognition programs is also an issue (I found the Newton recognition to be quite good, but only after I had worked at it for a while).

In advance, thanks much for comments

Rich

The short answer is ABSOLUTELY ! Hopefully that is a strong enough of an answer that you will not hesitate.

The long answer:

General Software Available
OneNote 2003 allows the user to capture notes from the internet, directly handwrite notes, and/or type. The user can draw graphs, diagrams, and even import documents so that everything is kept in one place that is easily searched.

GoBinder is built especially for students. It has note capability plus is a calendar for organizing the day, week, and month. Actually, it has does a lot more than that ... it is a student's dream.

Handwriting Recognition
The handwriting does not need to be trained. Service Pack 2 has approximately 99% accuracy (based on MS statements) right out of the box. It can be improved by adding words to the dictionary. You'll be amazed!

Hardware
She'll want to consider a convertible, in case she wants to just type papers quickly. These are notebooks with the ability to switch to Tablet PC mode. There are several leaders in the market; Toshiba has the best screen resolution, Averatec is the least expensive, Acer and Gateway.

The negatives are usually exaggerated. Most people who have a single problem will use inductive logic to extrapolate a huge problem with hardware. Instead look at percentages. All the companies who offer the Tablet PC work hard to support their product. The hardest part will be deciding which one to purchase.

Good luck - check out the Vendor Discussion Forums and have a great time.

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Thank you for the thorough and fast reply. The Averatec does seem to be most close to her price range - I'll look in the forum for use experiences - I had read a few negative comments on reliability and support for that system (on epinion, I think). I assume prices for ohers will come down signficiantly in the near future.

Rich

Dear LPH

One more followup, if I may. My daughter is looking for a low cost option - but of course we would hate to waste money on a bad or unsupported machine. Looking around, I have seen some great prices for Fujitsu LT-c500's (under $400). Is this worth it? Is the machine, while not the latest thing out there, a good option & would it have any support from the manufacturer? Also, I have seen ads for the Wacom Graphire, but have not been able to figure out if adding a free-standing graphics tablet like that to an existing laptop could provide handwriting functionality.

Thanks Again.

Rich

I had the same promblem where my hand just cramps up while notetaking its really painful. I was wondering if there are any programs where you can record the lecture and then it will type it out for you?

OneNote will allow you to record the audio of the lecture. You can alternate between typing and handwriting, thus relaxing the wrist and hand.

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What happened to good old fashioned note taking in the classroom? (lol) These options seem like more of a fuss and making the task more time consuming.

But, I'm curious about that price tag 400.00 dollars seems at least double of what I'd want to spend for this purpose. Are there any others?

Actually, reminding high school students to take out a piece of paper is a good five minute exercise of futility if not approached in a good manner. Students who are unmotivated will never take out paper. Yet, they love to tinker on a computer.

I suspect you mean $1400 because a good Tablet PC costs just as much as a good notebook. After all, Tablet PCs are full computers. Besides my dissertation, the Tablet PC is used for my class notes, writing papers, writing daily responses for the class, completing library research, and keeps iTunes organized. I keep finding more and more uses for the Tablet PC. Thus, spreading out the cost. In fact, my Tablet PC is on almost 18 hours a day now.

Best of luck.

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Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

Please do not send private messages requesting technical support. Place your request in the proper forum and hopefully someone can help you.

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In One Note you can flag key items with flags as being an important fact or formula. Later you can click one button and create a new page of just important facts or formulas.
I bought my Motion 1600 just last month. It hasn't been a completely seamless transition. One Note will save notes every 30 sec. and can easily translate my scrawl to text as long as you are asking it to translate a few lines at a time. Paragraphs tend to choke it under formatting problems. I found that leaving it in edit made and writing one sentence at a time is most accurate for me without screwing up my train of thought.