<p>I was thinking about getting a tablet PC (I had huge organizational issues in HS using standard binders and notebooks and need a new strategy for college).</p>
<p>Anyone who has had a tablet PC...is the writing smooth and legible, like writing on looseleaf? How does the screen hold up against continual "note-taking?" And does the tablet pen --> text conversion work well?</p>
<p>I'm using in right now. I'll leave any typo's that come up and you can judge for yourself!</p>
<p>I don't convert text much. I leave it in handwriting fain, or use a lot of" forms".</p>
<p>Not bad...I've pretty much decided on trying one out. The only significant barrier now is battery life. It seems like it would be annoying trying to find an outlet in every class (I like to sit up front). The Lenovo Thinkpad X41 tablet has a 5 hr+ battery life, but even that wouldn't stand up to a heavy day of classes.</p>
<p>I bought a new tablet from HP in mid-April. The touch screen stopped working & I'm currently in a battle with customer service. Anyway, while it was working, I loved it. I don't think it was responsive enough to touching for me to be able to write as fast as I do on normal paper. Have to push a little bit harder than I'm used to. I've used it for taking notes when I meet with my research advisor, but I never bothered to attempt class notetaking. Microsoft OneNote is an awesome program for organizing notes.</p>
<p>The "convert to text" feature is neat, and it will actually learn your handwriting the more you write & correct it. A lot of the time though, I just leave it in handwriting form.</p>
<p>I've got a Fujitsu stylistic with the larger battery. Supposed to get 6 or more hours.</p>
<p>Yeah, I looked around and some newer models have more than enough battery life, especially the 8-cell ones. </p>
<p>Thanks for the tip about the HP. Sorry it broke! I'm about 90% decided on the newest Thinkpad, whatever it is (x61?). Responsiveness is really important to me...I can barely write fast enough during a lecture on regular paper. Does One Note learn your handwriting, or is it built-in software on the tablet that does that?</p>
<p>Allow me to refer you a thread that will answer many of your questions regarding Tablet PCs.</p>
<p>By the way, I found the tablet PC to be really helpful for classes in which I had to draw diagrams or graphs. The average computer user will always type notes faster than s/he will be able to write them by hand. So even if you decide to get a tablet I don't think you're going to want to use the pen to write your notes, especially if you have a lot to write.</p>
<p>Personally I like the Gateway CX210 that I received a year ago. To me it's like a laptop but with the writing capabilities. That's what I was looking for at least. I didn't care so much about size or weight. I haven't had much of an issue with my tablet either.</p>
<p>By the way, Microsoft OneNote 2007 will become your best friend when taking notes. If you want to organize your notes, look no further.</p>
<p>Also take a look at this article from Wikipedia ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_pc%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_pc</a> )</p>
<p>The following are popular Convertible Tablet PCs (I'm assuming this is what you're going for, not a slate or a hybrid)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Convertible</p>
<pre><code>* Acer TravelMate C200/C300/C310
* Asus R1F
* Averatec C3500 Series
* Fujitsu LifeBook P1510(Slim, Ultra-portable, Small)/T4020, /T4210(Latest)
* Gateway CX210/M285/S7200
* HP Compaq TC4200/TC4400
* HP TX1000/TX1020
* Lenovo ThinkPad X41
* Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet (known popularly as "X60t")
* Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet
* LG XNote C1
* LG LT-20-47CE
* Panasonic Toughbook 19
* Toshiba Porteg
</code></pre>
<p>Thanks for the link (ah, search functions...).</p>
<p>I'd type my notes up, but I heard that the keyboard sounds can be annoying to other students, especially in smaller, discussion-based classes. Also, I am taking a math class and tend to like to draw diagrams just in general. The advantage of using a PC to take notes for me is 100% organizational. I had a big problem with not clipping papers into notebooks, losing important pages, and my binders generally overflowing and becoming trash heaps with eight different subjects in them.</p>
<p>For study purposes, can you print out an entire "notebook" in One Note?</p>
<p>Yes you can print out notebooks in OneNote. You can even save them as webpages and send them to friends. And don't worry about the keyboard disturbing other people. It only disturbs people if it sounds loud. I typed on my keyboard but I got to used to keeping my fingers close to the keyboard so as to make as little sound as possible that I could barely hear myself type sometimes. There was this one annoying kid however who felt like slamming each key he hit. It sucked because there was like 5 kids typing notes and everyone else barely made noise except him.</p>
<p>Btw I'd like to add that for Math classes I found it much easier to just use pen and paper because there were just too many formulas and examples to write down. I would be messing around too much with OneNote trying to get things to fit, look organized, and not overlap if I took my time writing the Math examples I got in class. For Economics it worked wonders though. I had so many damn graphs in that class it was great how I didn't have to deal with writing all those notes PLUS graphs by hand. Sometimes I even had notes written down before the professor would write them on the board because some tend to say aloud what they're writing.</p>
<p>Yeah, I considered just using a notebook for my math class. Good point about getting things to fit. </p>
<p>On a tangent, I never took notes in math class in high school. I always found it easier to read the text. I'm obviously going to change that, but it'll be weird...</p>
<p>Re: math and graphing on a Tablet PC</p>
<p>Xthink has just released their Tablet PC based MathJournal 2.1 (<a href="http://www.xthink.com/)%5B/url%5D">http://www.xthink.com/)</a>.
The program allows you to write down your math problem on your Tablet and get a solution. You can also save your work in the HMTL format and post it on the Internet or as an e-mail attachment to be sent to your professor or friends. Even better, the latest version allows you to take your handwritten math problems and export them to the LaTex format!</p>
<p>Tablet manufacturers: Dell has quietly announced (<a href="http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/05/18/15193.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/05/18/15193.aspx</a>) that they will be releasing a Latitude Tablet PC later this year. Hopefully Dell will drive down the price of Tablets to make it more affordable for students.</p>
<p>Earlier this year on the Parents Caf</p>
<p>umcp11, the first thing you'll find in college is that not all professors are the same. i know it's stating the obvious but you'll see what I mean when it comes to note taking. some classes you're going to have to write down everything the professor puts on the board, other classes you'll just want to listen and jot down some important things he says, etc. You'll adjust to each class and know whether it's worth using the tablet or not.</p>
<p>michuncle, the idea behind cursive writing was to be able to get words down faster on paper. at least that's how i've always understood. in today's age of technology, most things that are long writings are typed up because it's faster than cursive writing. i still print for everything, aside from my signature and other minor things, and i had no problem taking advantage of the tablet.</p>
<p>Yeah, BP, I know how useful the tablet is will depend on the professor...but I need to know whether it'll be good overall, because it's a bit pricier than similarly powerful laptops.</p>
<p>GoBinder looks almost better than OneNote (don't need Outlook for the calendar function). I'm downloading a free trial now to see how it works. Getting Microsoft Office w/ OneNote and then adding Outlook really adds up. Whereas it seems a bit cheaper to go the standard Office + GoBinder route.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight Michuncle. I can write in both print and cursive, but prefer print because my "speed cursive" is near illegible. If I ever needed to write so fast that print hindered me, I'd just type.</p>
<p>GoBinder was GREAT. Definitely beat OneNote out in terms of ease of use and organizational quality. It is definitely geared towards the student w/ course sections including staff contact info, tasks, and notes. Also, I like how the calendar is integrated rather than outsourced to Outlook.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have the boon of being able to easily record a lecture and store the audio file with class notes...that alone would force me to buy OneNote, I think. But I'll have to play around with it more to be sure.</p>
<p>most tablets you'll buy will come with a bunch of software to optimize your experience with your tablet. for example on my tablet I got OneNote 2003. Is just came included in the package for the computer. So long around, I'm sure you can get a deal for the computer to have the software included in your computer at very little cost or at a discounted price.</p>
<p>For writing term papers, typing is the way to go. For general note-taking, I prefer cursive. Either way, working with a Tablet PC allows you to link your notes to other notes and files on your computer. You can also link notes to information from the internet. </p>
<p>Say you’re in an American History class studying the War of 1812. You can create a link to a Wikipedia article while taking notes in class (if there’s WiFi available) or back in your dorm. When you read your class notes for that day, you can immediately pull up relevant internet information. </p>
<p>If you like using flash cards for studying, there are Tablet PC programs that allow you to create them. If you like to doodle while taking notes, I believe Gobinder and OneNote have different stylus colors available in their tool bars. It’s like having a box of crayons. Tablets give you a lot of options…</p>
<p>Re:OneNote 2007</p>
<p>If you buy a new Tablet PC, OneNote 2007 should come installed along with MS's Vista.</p>
<p>Re: Class audio recording</p>
<p>I e-mailed the Gobinder people three years ago about this feature. They thought about implementing this, but never got around to doing so. There's a Gobinder forum at: <a href="http://www.studenttabletpc.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.studenttabletpc.com/</a> (a student driven Tablet PC site). I understand there are issues with the current release of Gobinder. You should go to the site and read through their forum.</p>
<p>Have fun!</p>
<p>The link to the forums was very helpful! It seems like the main problem with GB is that it hogs memory and is generally less reliable than OneNote, which is unfortunate, because I'm really more of a fan of GB's set-up. OneNote is overwhelming and busy-looking, has more features than I need, and generally just feels more cluttered and less organized for straight note-taking and scheduling. I wonder if the problems with GB are still apparent with 3 GB RAM, since most people seem to stick to 1 or 2. I also wonder when GB 2007 is going to be released and if that version will solve any problems.</p>
<p>About built-in software: I like costumizing my computers via the manufacturer. It really speeds up the whole process, and the prices are usually pretty comparable. Of course I check around Best Buy, CompUSA, and the usual for really good deals, too.</p>
<p>A little further research confirmed that there are definite issues with lost notes using GB 2006 :/. NOT cool. Also, it's likely Agilix won't pick up GB for a 2007 version. Ah, what a bummer. I totally got teased with that trial...it was fabulous. I was almost 100% ready to switch to Tablet.</p>
<p>Now with One Note being the best option...things are still up in the air.</p>