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I was deeply enthusiastic about epaper devices for awhile and I tried all kinds of things. Eventually, I decided paper is better. I used to like the idea of my

I was deeply enthusiastic about epaper devices for awhile and I tried all kinds of things. Eventually, I decided paper is better. I used to like the idea of my notes being capture automatically but you can just take pictures of them if you use a notebook.

codazoda 1y ago
I also got enthusiastic about them, but I ended up embracing the Kindle Scribe. I just completed my 12th monthly notebook, so I’ve been at it for over a year now. I was using regular notebooks but I was collecting too many and I was worried about storage and loss. I wrote about the experience a few months into it. https://notes.joeldare.com/handwritten-notes-on-the-kindle-scribe https://notes.joeldare.com/handwritten-notes-on-the-kindle-s... I do not read on mine, it’s exclusively for writing. Possibly because switching is too slow.
beeflet 1y ago
I've come to the same conclusion. It's just easier, especially for things that involve diagrams. $10 worth of notebooks and pens is a much better value than something that is more fragile, has to be charged, etc and orders of magnitude more expensive. Also, I tend to only write things down as a note-taking and memorization exercise, or to think out a certain idea. I usually don't have to read the notes again. So the archiving functionality of having digital paper-like notes is not nessisarially more useful, and it is often more difficult to search through than physical notebooks. Anything I really need to read later, I can write succinctly in a text file or something. I also don't like getting locked into a certain ecosystem. Xournal++ is the only open-source cross-platform app I can find, and it's not that good. Even for reading physical books, you can find a lot of used paperbacks for less than $10, which is very little when you consider the value of the time you spend reading them, the ease of flipping through pages and being able to dog-ear them, and the collectible aspect of the book covers covers. An eink tablet be nice for reading textbooks and papers that are more expensive and require pirating, however. But for now I just use a regular screen in portrait.
- rgoulter 1y ago
  > I usually don't have to read the notes again. Yeah. For several kinds of notes, the value from writing is in doing the writing to assist thinking. Once I write it down, it doesn't need to hang around in my head.
xattt 1y ago
OCR has also been getting incrementally better and has been surprisingly good if you have the handwriting for it.
- beeflet 1y ago
  Can you easily do keyword searches on your own handwritten notes?
  - packetlost 1y ago
    Sure, OCR can generate a plain text file.
oulu2006 1y ago
I like the remarkable paper pro -- been using it for 8 months consistently.
spaceisballer 1y ago
I’m in the same boat. My Boox Go 10.3 is collecting dust. I used it for a while, but I just find it easier to flip back through paper notes as opposed to tapping or swiping through files. I don’t want to connect to work WiFi either on it. So now I’ve found pens I enjoy writing with and decent notebooks with paper I like and it’s great. I actually spend time journaling on paper. But I do have both a Boox Palma for reading and also a Kobo Clara.
nvarsj 1y ago
I embraced an iPad w/ paper-like surface during my grad degree, simply because I needed the organisation (annotating papers, multiple subjects, project notes, etc.). It worked really well for that. Funnily though, professional life is a lot simpler. I just need a single paper notebook with my running todo list. Everything else is stored in google docs or obsidian. Having an eink or tablet for taking notes would feel like friction without much benefit.

codazoda 1y ago

I also got enthusiastic about them, but I ended up embracing the Kindle Scribe. I just completed my 12th monthly notebook, so I’ve been at it for over a year now. I was using regular notebooks but I was collecting too many and I was worried about storage and loss. I wrote about the experience a few months into it. https://notes.joeldare.com/handwritten-notes-on-the-kindle-scribe https://notes.joeldare.com/handwritten-notes-on-the-kindle-s... I do not read on mine, it’s exclusively for writing. Possibly because switching is too slow.

beeflet 1y ago

I've come to the same conclusion. It's just easier, especially for things that involve diagrams. $10 worth of notebooks and pens is a much better value than something that is more fragile, has to be charged, etc and orders of magnitude more expensive. Also, I tend to only write things down as a note-taking and memorization exercise, or to think out a certain idea. I usually don't have to read the notes again. So the archiving functionality of having digital paper-like notes is not nessisarially more useful, and it is often more difficult to search through than physical notebooks. Anything I really need to read later, I can write succinctly in a text file or something. I also don't like getting locked into a certain ecosystem. Xournal++ is the only open-source cross-platform app I can find, and it's not that good. Even for reading physical books, you can find a lot of used paperbacks for less than $10, which is very little when you consider the value of the time you spend reading them, the ease of flipping through pages and being able to dog-ear them, and the collectible aspect of the book covers covers. An eink tablet be nice for reading textbooks and papers that are more expensive and require pirating, however. But for now I just use a regular screen in portrait.

rgoulter 1y ago
> I usually don't have to read the notes again. Yeah. For several kinds of notes, the value from writing is in doing the writing to assist thinking. Once I write it down, it doesn't need to hang around in my head.

xattt 1y ago

OCR has also been getting incrementally better and has been surprisingly good if you have the handwriting for it.

beeflet 1y ago
Can you easily do keyword searches on your own handwritten notes?
- packetlost 1y ago
  Sure, OCR can generate a plain text file.

oulu2006 1y ago

I like the remarkable paper pro -- been using it for 8 months consistently.

spaceisballer 1y ago

I’m in the same boat. My Boox Go 10.3 is collecting dust. I used it for a while, but I just find it easier to flip back through paper notes as opposed to tapping or swiping through files. I don’t want to connect to work WiFi either on it. So now I’ve found pens I enjoy writing with and decent notebooks with paper I like and it’s great. I actually spend time journaling on paper. But I do have both a Boox Palma for reading and also a Kobo Clara.

nvarsj 1y ago

I embraced an iPad w/ paper-like surface during my grad degree, simply because I needed the organisation (annotating papers, multiple subjects, project notes, etc.). It worked really well for that. Funnily though, professional life is a lot simpler. I just need a single paper notebook with my running todo list. Everything else is stored in google docs or obsidian. Having an eink or tablet for taking notes would feel like friction without much benefit.