Ask HN: Electronic note-taking – Kindle or iPad or something else
7 comments
similarly - I've been starting to look for something that lets me draw and write on a screen that can be transposed over video - would love to be able to do it live - like a wacom tablet with a screen..
So far the m-soft surface is leading in my limited research.. anyone know of software to use for such? Like network chuck does some writing during his youtube videos - but that may not be 'live'
- and I'd ideally want to show notes / scribbles on a video shared screen like gmeet / zoom etc..
of course I'd love to be able to drag and drop boxes on a screen to show layout changes.. anyone know something that can do this?
So far the m-soft surface is leading in my limited research.. anyone know of software to use for such? Like network chuck does some writing during his youtube videos - but that may not be 'live'
- and I'd ideally want to show notes / scribbles on a video shared screen like gmeet / zoom etc..
of course I'd love to be able to drag and drop boxes on a screen to show layout changes.. anyone know something that can do this?
Ahh I’ve done so much research here and tried so many different devices.
* the Kindle Scribe has a great feeling, but the software is lacking, particularly around the writing experience. They’ve released two substantial updates to add missing features, but they’re still far from parity with the writing-first offerings from other companies. Also, critically, only some books - crossword puzzles are their example - support writing directly on the page. It’s backlit and feels great to write on though.
* I used an iPad for awhile and it’s a solid solution. Obviously if you install Instagram or whatever you’re seriously degrading its value as a tool for focus, so don’t do that. I switched away because the epaper tablets look better in sunlight, have superior battery life, and feel much much better to write on.
* remarkable feels wonderful to write on. I returned it primarily because I find the company is not super responsive or forthcoming with their plans for improvements. Also, it can’t read Kindle books unless you first convert them to epub, but if you want to write directly on a book on any tablet, you’re gonna have to convert away from Kindle. If you’re really doing nothing but writing — no reading, no annotation — this is probably the right pick. The writing feel is like a scratchy pencil on paper.
* I would not recommend the boox note line. These are fully featured android tablets, though it’s a mystery to me why you would ever want to watch a YouTube video on an eink display. Anyway, I’d avoid these tablets because their response latency/ghosting is quite poor, which will annoy the hell out of you.
* Supernote is what I currently use and would recommend. Their A6X the only one of these devices that comes in a smaller paperwhite-ish size (though they also sell a larger A6X). You can read Kindle books directly via the Kindle app, though what I wrote previously about having to jailbreak to write directly on pages remains true. Supernote has the most robust software for organizing notes, linking between notes, creating digests of epubs, etc, and I find their file management and sync software to be the easiest to use. Also their nibs don’t need to be replaced, ever. And they’re very directly engaged with the community —- you can find a link to their development Trello on r/supernote, as well as regular interactions between the dev team and the community. Their tablet is not backlit, and it’s not as snappy as the Kindle. Their cloud syncing is not automatic, which can be annoying. Also features an email client and a calendar, but I don’t use those so I can’t speak to them. The writing feel is like a gel pen on paper.
* The kobo elipsa 2e is likely the most direct competitor to the Kindle Scribe. It’s backlit and waterproof, and it’s suite of writing tools, templates, etc is frankly what the scribe’s should have been. Unless you’re really wedded to the (again, read-only) Kindle store, I struggle to imagine why you wouldn’t but this kobo device over the Scribe.
* finally, look forward to the lenovo smartpaper is supposedly the one to watch for later this year. It’s a bit more expensive, but is snappier and received good reviews at CES.
Overall I’d recommend the Supernote. My only complaints are that it’s not backlit and can feel sluggish, but in terms of functionality and support, it’s the best. And if you want a more pocketable device it’s the only option.
One last recommendation — if you can swing it, definitely narrow down to your two or three top choices, then order them all and return the losers. The writing feel is quite different across these tablets and comes down to taste.
Some features I don’t care about, but you might, and should research if so: audio book compatibility, word doc compatibility, audio recording
* the Kindle Scribe has a great feeling, but the software is lacking, particularly around the writing experience. They’ve released two substantial updates to add missing features, but they’re still far from parity with the writing-first offerings from other companies. Also, critically, only some books - crossword puzzles are their example - support writing directly on the page. It’s backlit and feels great to write on though.
* I used an iPad for awhile and it’s a solid solution. Obviously if you install Instagram or whatever you’re seriously degrading its value as a tool for focus, so don’t do that. I switched away because the epaper tablets look better in sunlight, have superior battery life, and feel much much better to write on.
* remarkable feels wonderful to write on. I returned it primarily because I find the company is not super responsive or forthcoming with their plans for improvements. Also, it can’t read Kindle books unless you first convert them to epub, but if you want to write directly on a book on any tablet, you’re gonna have to convert away from Kindle. If you’re really doing nothing but writing — no reading, no annotation — this is probably the right pick. The writing feel is like a scratchy pencil on paper.
* I would not recommend the boox note line. These are fully featured android tablets, though it’s a mystery to me why you would ever want to watch a YouTube video on an eink display. Anyway, I’d avoid these tablets because their response latency/ghosting is quite poor, which will annoy the hell out of you.
* Supernote is what I currently use and would recommend. Their A6X the only one of these devices that comes in a smaller paperwhite-ish size (though they also sell a larger A6X). You can read Kindle books directly via the Kindle app, though what I wrote previously about having to jailbreak to write directly on pages remains true. Supernote has the most robust software for organizing notes, linking between notes, creating digests of epubs, etc, and I find their file management and sync software to be the easiest to use. Also their nibs don’t need to be replaced, ever. And they’re very directly engaged with the community —- you can find a link to their development Trello on r/supernote, as well as regular interactions between the dev team and the community. Their tablet is not backlit, and it’s not as snappy as the Kindle. Their cloud syncing is not automatic, which can be annoying. Also features an email client and a calendar, but I don’t use those so I can’t speak to them. The writing feel is like a gel pen on paper.
* The kobo elipsa 2e is likely the most direct competitor to the Kindle Scribe. It’s backlit and waterproof, and it’s suite of writing tools, templates, etc is frankly what the scribe’s should have been. Unless you’re really wedded to the (again, read-only) Kindle store, I struggle to imagine why you wouldn’t but this kobo device over the Scribe.
* finally, look forward to the lenovo smartpaper is supposedly the one to watch for later this year. It’s a bit more expensive, but is snappier and received good reviews at CES.
Overall I’d recommend the Supernote. My only complaints are that it’s not backlit and can feel sluggish, but in terms of functionality and support, it’s the best. And if you want a more pocketable device it’s the only option.
One last recommendation — if you can swing it, definitely narrow down to your two or three top choices, then order them all and return the losers. The writing feel is quite different across these tablets and comes down to taste.
Some features I don’t care about, but you might, and should research if so: audio book compatibility, word doc compatibility, audio recording
https://remarkable.com/ might be what you're looking for
I’ve had a Remarkable 2 for about 2 years now and use it for hours every day. It’s the tool that’s improved my work more than anything other than a computer. My use case is probably 98% making handwritten notes and 2% marking up PDFs like resumes, short articles, contracts, etc. This seems to be the use case that Remarkable advertises the most directly. They call it a “digital notebook” not a PDF/ebook reader.
From what I’ve seen on HN and /r/RemarkableTablet is that the people who dislike their Remarkables the most are the people who buy one to use as a PDF/ebook reader rather than as a digital notebook. The experience just doesn’t seem to be as good — and that shouldn’t be surprising.
From what I’ve seen on HN and /r/RemarkableTablet is that the people who dislike their Remarkables the most are the people who buy one to use as a PDF/ebook reader rather than as a digital notebook. The experience just doesn’t seem to be as good — and that shouldn’t be surprising.
yes. it's a digital piece of paper. it does more by doing less. it doesn't have a web browser, it doesn't play YouTube or music, it doesn't run multiple apps at the same time. because that's not the point of it. it doesn't have those distractions and you pay extra not to have them (like paying to get rid of ads)
- I have been using a 12.9” iPad since march 2018 for exactly these purposes. It has worked very well.
- the better notes apps ( I use goodnotes ) are functionally much better than paper, in that they make it easy to move areas of writing about and erase things you dont want, and add arbitrary pages ( with arbitrary templates ); searching my ( fairly awful) handwriting works well so finding things again is much easier.
- writing on the iPad with the Apple Pencil is not like writing, use the blunt end of a Bic on a flat piece of glass and you will have the feeling exactly. On the other hand, there is little lag so you can create handwriting that is just like what you’d make on paper with a pen. There’s no good equivalent of a fountain pen.
-overall I would never willingly go back to pen and notebook, and I was very picky about good notebooks and pens.
- There are some amazing PDF annotation apps, and for typographical markup it’s a dream.
- Reading A4 pdfs is as good or better than reading a printout.Plus, search. Minus, flipping through. (Bearing in mind i typically print out 2up double sided, but still.)
- Still, my iPad is now > 5 yrs old. The battery life is reducing and the backlight is showing its age. I am tempted to try the Remarkable tablet instead of buying the new iPad, in part because I think you need the big screen for all this to work - but Apple doesn’t make the iPad equivalent of the 15” MBA; in other words the big iPad is overpowered and thus overpriced for my use case. The Remarkable doesn’t have a lot of iPad’s functionality, but it is designed to be a notepad and pdf annotator and the writing experience is said to be very close to pencil and paper.
(It has also turned out that carrying a thin A4 device is easier than carrying a thick A5 notepad, but obvs YMMV ).
Hope these notes are somewhat useful!
- Still, my iPad is now > 5 yrs old. The battery life is reducing and the backlight is showing its age. I am tempted to try the Remarkable tablet instead of buying the new iPad, in part because I think you need the big screen for all this to work - but Apple doesn’t make the iPad equivalent of the 15” MBA; in other words the big iPad is overpowered and thus overpriced for my use case. The Remarkable doesn’t have a lot of iPad’s functionality, but it is designed to be a notepad and pdf annotator and the writing experience is said to be very close to pencil and paper.
(It has also turned out that carrying a thin A4 device is easier than carrying a thick A5 notepad, but obvs YMMV ).
Hope these notes are somewhat useful!
I have an Ipad mini 6 for this exact reason. Honestly, it works really well for me. I can take notes in Nebo(has really good handwriting recognition, better than the competition in my opinion, or OneNote as it syncs with my PC where I take my notes at work as well. as for reading, using kindle app or any other works really well.
I'm particularly interested in the Kindle Scribe but I'm also considering an iPad, because I already use a Mac and an iPhone. Unfortunately, I cannot try them out myself in a store around here.
Are any of you using these devices for note-taking and reading? Do you like the experience? Especially compared to working with plain paper. What works well and what doesn't? What should I be aware of? Can you read A4/US letter-sized PDFs comfortably? Is there something else you can recommend?
Thank you!