Portable note taking devices..

[Kiwiblue 1]

 

Hi Evernote Peoples: 

 Was hoping some of you might know of a good little Note Taking Device which will interface heaps of random notes (using an e-pen/stylus) to 1 file in Evernote.

 I find myself watching Podcasts, TV, talking to people or other.. Then scribbling down very random notes, tidbits, recipes, advice, etc. (& occasional doodle) onto a pocket note pad for further reference if ever needed. 

In the end I have a lot of small pocket notebooks full of small lost notes. 

 So I was thinking that it would be nice to have a low cost ($20-$100) electronic note writer that would very easily send my random notes to cumulative file that storers this ever growing, random database of thoughts, references and ideas.  These written notes would be transferred to that growing file in Evernote so that I could search it at any time with a few key words. 

For the sake of portability and ease of use it would be nice if this pen-based screen was backlit (to see in a darkened lounge), very light (200-500g) and with a diagonal screen size of 8” to 10” (so my hand writing is not too cramped-up on the page). 

 I looked for info on this topic, but seemed to miss any reference to it.  So I hope I am note repeating someones previously answered question.

Thank you for any suggestions in advance and I hope others at Evernote find this topic useful.

[DTLow 5,736]

38 minutes ago, Kiwiblue said:

In the end I have a lot of small pocket notebooks full of small lost notes. 

Not sure there's any devices in you budget range

Personally I don't have a problem with pen and paper notes
I scan them to Evernote with either 
- a dedicated scanner
- my iPad/iPhone camera

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,950]

@DTLow's scanning suggestion (which works with an Android device as well) is a good option; since you have a Premium Evernote account, the handwriting in your scanned paper notes will be OCRed so you can search for specific items. The other possibility would be just to handwrite the notes in Evernote itself, since it includes that possibility. Again, they will be OCRed and searchable.

[Kiwiblue 1]

Thanks for that and good suggestions, though I’m really looking for a very light portable device with stylus/pen to do this with. 

Say I up the item cost from $20-$100 to $50-$250 – would that make the difference? 

The little paper note pads I am currently small and would be fiddly and messy trying to scan them.  I really need to be able to scribble something down in a digital format and so the device with stylus is really the solution.  I think the question is more likely – which 7.5”-10” very light device would do this function. 

I see items like iPad mini 5 and Samsung Note.  These items are quite dear and may be overkill for this function.  Plus, I have never used them before, let alone for taking written notes on them, so I am not familiar as to how easy this writing function would be. (though guessing, likely good)  Then you have other cheap 200g items like the Xiaome Mi LCD 10” Tablets for $17 which do not do the job, but cute all the same. 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

A long posting cut short:

1. An iPad that works with the Apple Pencil
2. The Apple pencil (gen. 1 is fine, gen.2 only works with iPad Pro)
3. An app like GoodNotes, Notability, Noteshelf or the like

With Tablets Android is simply not up to the job.

You will end up far over your price range, but it is the minimal config to do the job.

Below that I agree with @DTLow and @Dave-in-Decatur: Better do it by hand and Scan the result, having it OCRed by EN, than sparing money for something that will probably not do the job.

[Wanderling Reborn 185]

I had no problems using “dumb” felt tip stilii to take many pages of handwritten notes. While I strongly prefer iPads over Androids, there’s workable software in both environments. I do have an Apple Pencil now, and while it’s certainly a nicer writing device, it’s not a necessity, especially when using a zoomed area for handwriting that many note taking apps have. A short note can easily be taken on any iPhone or iPad. A used 6s is below $200 in the US, and would still be a perfectly serviceable phone even today (I’ve used one until spring). I’d couple it with Notability.

[Kiwiblue 1]

Hi Pink & Wandering,
Thank you for the info and encouragement. 
Thinking of the iPad mini.  In the meantime I might be able to use an iPhone 6S Plus.  Can I use a stylus on an iPhone 6s Plus?  and if so, would it be the same stylus I would use on an iPad mini?  (this way I could transfer the stylus to the mini at a later stage)
I see that the iPhone 6S Plus is likely to get the iOS 14 upgrade very soon.  So with this, would I still use Notability or is there another app I would use instead?  Will this app sync automatically and add cumulative notes to note tab/file inside Evernote? (to make it easy to constantly update my random note folder as they build up in the  Evernote file)

Cheers & thanks again.

[DTLow 5,736]

43 minutes ago, Kiwiblue said:

Thinking of the iPad mini.  In the meantime I might be able to use an iPhone 6S Plus.

An iPad is my device choice, but will be exceeding your budget   
The iPhone works for typed notes

>stylus

A stylus is an improvement over using your finger   
A cheap capacitive stylus (big mesh tip) can be used on both devices. I buy them in multi packs 
The Apple Pencil (expensive, iPad only) is the best stylus for handwriting and sketching

>would I still useNotability or is there another app

Evernote has a handwriting/sketch feature,    
but I prefer the Notability app for handwriting.  No automatic sync, but easy to save notes to Evernote

[PinkElephant 8,088]

With the iPhone 6S+ watch out for sufficient memory. Anything below 64GB hurts, the top 128GB model does fine even today.

If you can talk to take notes, speech to text got pretty good in last years. EN has that feature, Siri dictation is available in many apps, and my favorite is the app JustPressRecord. It makes the transcription and has a choice to save the text, the audio or both. By sharing the text can be send to EN for storage and retrieval.

[PlasticSiren 0]

On 8/16/2020 at 7:18 PM, PinkElephant said:

With the iPhone 6S+ watch out for sufficient memory. Anything below 64GB hurts, the top 128GB model does fine even today.

If you can talk to take notes, speech to text got pretty good in last years. EN has that feature, upsers account Siri dictation is available in many apps, and my favorite is the app JustPressRecord. It makes the transcription and has a choice to save the text, the audio or both. By sharing the text can be send to EN for storage and retrieval.

The little paper note pads I am currently small and would be fiddly and messy trying to scan them. I really need to be able to scribble something down in a digital format and so the device with stylus is really the solution. I think the question is more likely – which 7.5”-10” very light device would do this function.