<p>Does anyone have experience with taking notes on a tablet, particularly in biology and chemistry classes?</p>
<p>I am considering buying myself an iPad Mini 2. Last semester, my biology teacher would talk incredibly fast, and as I am a slow writer, I had a hard time getting everything down, and would literally have hand cramps every day after class. I am a much faster typer, but it would be difficult to take notes on my laptop because then I would have to use paint or something to draw the figures and graphs, and I have a really hard time drawing coherently when using a trackpad. I have tried this before, and it didn't work at all, so this is not really a feasible option for me.</p>
<p>I have heard the bio professors in the next two courses in the sequence talk even faster, so that is why I am considering getting a tablet with one of those keyboard cases, so then I can type my notes and draw in figures and graphs along the way using a stylus.</p>
<p>Would this be a worthwhile investment, do you guys think?</p>
<p>Also, do you guys think the iPad Mini would be too small to take notes on? Should I get the iPad Air instead? I prefer the iPad Mini because it is less clunky, but since I am buying this for primarily academic reasons (and also to use when I run on the treadmill, maybe) rather than for recreation, I want it to be a size that makes logical sense for my purposes.</p>
<p>If you take a smart device to class, how about recording the audio, then taking notes during playback later? Best of both worlds?</p>
<p>I found my tablet the most useful for annotating slides that the professor put online beforehand. That way I didn’t have to write down EVERYTHING, just what I wanted to add that wasn’t already on the slides. This was most useful for bio-type classes.</p>
<p>For chem I am not sure how much typing would help you, since there will likely be a lot of formulas/equations that you can’t just easily type in.</p>
<p>The idea of audio recording sounds good, though. I use an app called Notability for taking notes on slides (also has typing capabilities - all around a really nice app) on my iPad Mini, and it also has audio recording capabilities, so you could use something like that to take notes, record the lecture, and keep them together.</p>
<p>As for the iPad Mini, it is big enough for my note taking. If you get a keyboard case for it, the keyboard would be quite small, which may be problematic for you. However, you could just as easily get a separate bluetooth keyboard rather than a keyboard case, and you’d still be at less bulk and price than the iPad Air. I was a little worried that the screen would be too small to write on (as in, with a stylus), but there is also a nifty magnify feature on the Notability app, so it’s actually really smooth, despite the small screen.</p>
<p>great advice! Thank you nanotechnology!</p>
<p>I’ve been using tablets for years to takes in my science and math courses. I’d recommend you look at Fujitsu tablets. I’ve used a Fujitsu Lifebook T5010 throughout my undergrad years and I highly recommend it for note taking.</p>
<p>My daughter has a Samsung Note tablet which comes with a stylus with Wacom technology so she can take written notes in addition to typing. Of course she’s only a high school senior 
but she loves using it in her classes.</p>
<p>Convertible tablets are quite nice.
This is the one that I use:
<a href=“TechnologyGuide - TechTarget”>TechnologyGuide - TechTarget;
<p>It’s definitely better than any iPad for taking notes.</p>
