3 ms·

I have found that my Galaxy Note 2014 is pretty much hands-down the best note taking tablet in my opinion. It's better than the crap that Microsoft and Apple ar

I have found that my Galaxy Note 2014 is pretty much hands-down the best note taking tablet in my opinion. It's better than the crap that Microsoft and Apple are trying to hawk off. It doesn't have as many fancy apps but for _strictly_ note taking, sharing notes via email, and book reading, it's pretty awesome. I just wish its price would come down. It's still full price from four years ago :| and even getting more expensive because it's so old

rripken 9y ago
You are referring to the 10.1 tablet? I know its not the same but I had a Note4 and was pleased with its note taking ability. I imagine that with the extra screen real-estate the tablet was even better. It looks like they are $453 on Newegg! I agree that does seem crazy for an old device. If you can put up with a used device there are two on swappa for around $200 https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-note-101-2014-wifi https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-note-101-2014-wifi If it truly is the hands-down best note taking tablet you might as well buy them both and standardize to the platform.
- inetknght 9y ago
  Yes, this is exactly! However, I prefer the Wifi-only model. I neither need nor want cell service on my tablet. Not only that, but cellular providers end up installing complete garbage for their software. I recently broke my first device. I bought a new one that was advertised Wifi-only. The received device was branded for Verizon and was literally and completely unusable without a Verizon SIM card. I ended up getting it replaced with a T-Mobile one which... while isn't not completely unusable, there's still tons of crapware from T-Mobile that I cannot uninstall. It makes me really sad. I'll have to check out your link at home. Thanks!
WalterGR 9y ago
Why is the Galaxy Note 2014 good for note taking? What app(s) do you use for note taking? What's bad about Microsoft's and Apple's offerings?
- inetknght 9y ago
  As far as Apple's offerings: no idea. The last Apple device I used was an 4th-generation iPod back when that was the new thing. Coming from a desktop-power-user background, iOS 4's UX was extremely offensive. So is Android's, by the way, but at least Android's horrid UX cheaper. Technicalities: 1) the S Pen's sensitivity is much closer to the image. Microsoft Surface, in contrast, feels and appears about 1/4" above the image: that causes me to mis-write a lot since I feel the stylus at a different location from where the drawing is being applied. I don't know about you, but I don't write with my pen/pencil/stylus straight up 90 degrees from the surface being written upon which is the only way I could reliably use a Surface for writing. 2) the Galaxy Note 2014's resolution is higher than the Surfaces I've used even though it's on a smaller form factor. That means that the image simply looks sharper. 3) the S Pen uses a different tech so that the Galaxy Note is able to recognize the difference between my fingers (or my palm) resting on the tablet's surface vs the stylus writing whatever's being written. 4) Both of the Galaxy Note 2014s I've used have had a battery life of about a full week from a full charge. It does depend on how much you use it, of course, but typically it's about 4.5 days, dying right at the tail end of Friday. That's with writing notes for about 2 or 3 hours during every workday. Contrast with Surface 3 and Surface Pro ... one had lasted a day and a half on average while the other lasted about 10 hours. 5) S Note translates my handwriting with about a 90% accuracy. But OneNote translates my handwriting to literal garbage text for about 50% of the time. When it doesn't translate to garbage text, there's of course the common typos from thinking I->l->1 B->0->O->o->D->etc (which S Note also has trouble with, but not as much). Opinions: I absolutely despite Microsoft's and Apple's OS offerings these days. I don't like Android, either, but it's the least hated of the three. I use Windows 7 at home for games but otherwise Linux the whole way. Linux allows me to actually customize the UI the way I want; when it doesn't, there's the good ole' command line. I've found the S Note app to be fairly intuitive and straightforward. It's really easy to export notes to PDF or email, eg to share with coworkers. If you can get around OneNote's shitfest version of OCR, I'll admit that the rest of it pretty intuitive. I really didn't care to learn (yet another) different way of doing things though. If I had _one_ complaint about the Galaxy Note, it's that I have yet to find a way to have it require Active Directory to unlock; so if that's a requirement then ~~your company sucks~~ you're SOL for using it at work. If someone knows of a viable way to login to an Active Directory account on Android, that'd be awesome. I also have to say that I actively use Google Play Books. Good luck getting that to work on Surface or iOS outside of ~~Chrome~~ a browser; I never could anyway. If I have to log in to a site using a browser and use the browser to use the site instead of using native apps, then why not just use a Chromebook?
nekopa 9y ago
I have to say that I love the galaxy note 8.0 for note taking. So much so that I'm trying to buy up as many as I can find so that I will always have one. There are 2 main reasons for this: 1st: I love the size. The 10s are a little too big to cart around in a jacket pocket, and the note phones are too small to be a decent notebook. (I must admit though, I'm rethinking this point, as I used to be a huge moleskin fan) 2nd: The Samsung s-note app from that time is awesome! Honestly, every time samsung comes out with a new pen based tablet or phone, I always check it out. And I'm looking for 2 features: a: the ability to import a pdf file & b: goddamned smart shapes! I suck at drawing, and so I love that on my 8.0 I can draw a shitty square or circle and the software will make it look all ship shape. But they seemed to have removed that feature from newer versions of s-note, and I haven't found a 3rd party app that can do just those 2 things. Any pointers to an app that will allow me to import pdfs and draw on them using smart shapes would be awesome!

rripken 9y ago

You are referring to the 10.1 tablet? I know its not the same but I had a Note4 and was pleased with its note taking ability. I imagine that with the extra screen real-estate the tablet was even better. It looks like they are $453 on Newegg! I agree that does seem crazy for an old device. If you can put up with a used device there are two on swappa for around $200 https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-note-101-2014-wifi https://swappa.com/buy/samsung-galaxy-note-101-2014-wifi If it truly is the hands-down best note taking tablet you might as well buy them both and standardize to the platform.

inetknght 9y ago
Yes, this is exactly! However, I prefer the Wifi-only model. I neither need nor want cell service on my tablet. Not only that, but cellular providers end up installing complete garbage for their software. I recently broke my first device. I bought a new one that was advertised Wifi-only. The received device was branded for Verizon and was literally and completely unusable without a Verizon SIM card. I ended up getting it replaced with a T-Mobile one which... while isn't not completely unusable, there's still tons of crapware from T-Mobile that I cannot uninstall. It makes me really sad. I'll have to check out your link at home. Thanks!

WalterGR 9y ago

Why is the Galaxy Note 2014 good for note taking? What app(s) do you use for note taking? What's bad about Microsoft's and Apple's offerings?

inetknght 9y ago
As far as Apple's offerings: no idea. The last Apple device I used was an 4th-generation iPod back when that was the new thing. Coming from a desktop-power-user background, iOS 4's UX was extremely offensive. So is Android's, by the way, but at least Android's horrid UX cheaper. Technicalities: 1) the S Pen's sensitivity is much closer to the image. Microsoft Surface, in contrast, feels and appears about 1/4" above the image: that causes me to mis-write a lot since I feel the stylus at a different location from where the drawing is being applied. I don't know about you, but I don't write with my pen/pencil/stylus straight up 90 degrees from the surface being written upon which is the only way I could reliably use a Surface for writing. 2) the Galaxy Note 2014's resolution is higher than the Surfaces I've used even though it's on a smaller form factor. That means that the image simply looks sharper. 3) the S Pen uses a different tech so that the Galaxy Note is able to recognize the difference between my fingers (or my palm) resting on the tablet's surface vs the stylus writing whatever's being written. 4) Both of the Galaxy Note 2014s I've used have had a battery life of about a full week from a full charge. It does depend on how much you use it, of course, but typically it's about 4.5 days, dying right at the tail end of Friday. That's with writing notes for about 2 or 3 hours during every workday. Contrast with Surface 3 and Surface Pro ... one had lasted a day and a half on average while the other lasted about 10 hours. 5) S Note translates my handwriting with about a 90% accuracy. But OneNote translates my handwriting to literal garbage text for about 50% of the time. When it doesn't translate to garbage text, there's of course the common typos from thinking I->l->1 B->0->O->o->D->etc (which S Note also has trouble with, but not as much). Opinions: I absolutely despite Microsoft's and Apple's OS offerings these days. I don't like Android, either, but it's the least hated of the three. I use Windows 7 at home for games but otherwise Linux the whole way. Linux allows me to actually customize the UI the way I want; when it doesn't, there's the good ole' command line. I've found the S Note app to be fairly intuitive and straightforward. It's really easy to export notes to PDF or email, eg to share with coworkers. If you can get around OneNote's shitfest version of OCR, I'll admit that the rest of it pretty intuitive. I really didn't care to learn (yet another) different way of doing things though. If I had _one_ complaint about the Galaxy Note, it's that I have yet to find a way to have it require Active Directory to unlock; so if that's a requirement then ~~your company sucks~~ you're SOL for using it at work. If someone knows of a viable way to login to an Active Directory account on Android, that'd be awesome. I also have to say that I actively use Google Play Books. Good luck getting that to work on Surface or iOS outside of ~~Chrome~~ a browser; I never could anyway. If I have to log in to a site using a browser and use the browser to use the site instead of using native apps, then why not just use a Chromebook?

nekopa 9y ago

I have to say that I love the galaxy note 8.0 for note taking. So much so that I'm trying to buy up as many as I can find so that I will always have one. There are 2 main reasons for this: 1st: I love the size. The 10s are a little too big to cart around in a jacket pocket, and the note phones are too small to be a decent notebook. (I must admit though, I'm rethinking this point, as I used to be a huge moleskin fan) 2nd: The Samsung s-note app from that time is awesome! Honestly, every time samsung comes out with a new pen based tablet or phone, I always check it out. And I'm looking for 2 features: a: the ability to import a pdf file & b: goddamned smart shapes! I suck at drawing, and so I love that on my 8.0 I can draw a shitty square or circle and the software will make it look all ship shape. But they seemed to have removed that feature from newer versions of s-note, and I haven't found a 3rd party app that can do just those 2 things. Any pointers to an app that will allow me to import pdfs and draw on them using smart shapes would be awesome!