Does anyone here use a tablet PC on a daily basis as a student for notetaking (with something like OneNote) in class as his/her primary laptop? I was just wondering how substantial an improvement it is over taking around a normal laptop or a netbook -- whether or not the marginal benefit of the tablet feature is worth it in light of cost, portability, usability as a primary laptop, etc.

I'd imagine it'd be more worth it if the notes taken involve a lot of diagrams and formulas/things that can't easily be typed?

use paper and a scanner.

I just take notes by hand in lectures.

The notes written during a lecture are almost unreadable to anyone else because I have to jot down things fast. I "decipher" it later.

Worked for years.

I mean, what does scribbling on a tablet PC do more than a thin, cheap notebook with a pencil can't do (for notetaking).

Just saves paper and helps w/ organization I guess <_< But I guess my question is more whether a tablet would be a worthwhile improvement over a regular laptop for notetaking given the premise that notetaking will be done on some type of computer regardless.

save paper, burn more oil.

if you're not typing, use paper

Pay attention in the lecture, make notes later.

Copy down absolutely everything or fall asleep out of boredom.

I want to get a tablet to paint on.

Yeah, that's the other reason I was interested in them ... PS work

I'd use a notebook for note taking and translate it to your tablet later for organizations sake. I know in buisness meetings I take down alot of important info that our supers mention, and I can't afford to have my laptop crash in the middle of my notes, just to loose them all. Also if you did handwritten to digital, you'd have two copies, and even more if you printed some out. Might be good for group study if your a thorough note taker.

NO! No no no! The University of Louisville's engineering school, Speed School, requires you to have a tablet. They suck. Horribly. Almost everyone I know hates them. Even if you get a Wacom one, their digitizers are greatly inferior to usb digitizers that people use for PS work. Even though everyone in the school is required to have them, at least half leaves them in their back packs and takes notes on paper. Of the people that do, a good chuck of those leave it in notebook mode and surf the internet rather than taking notes. It does help keep you organized, but here's thought for that. Buy a binder for each class!

Writing on tablet screen is hard. It will take you a very long time to get used to writing on there, and your handwriting will look bad both on and off the tablet. Unlike some USB tablets, this is a hard shiny surface, so it feels nothing like paper.

They all have screens with horribly tiny resolutions like 1280x768 which, IMO, is far to small for tablet use. For tablets to work well I'd want to see them all use 1680 or 1920 screens, so if you really want to have that functionality, just buy a regular laptop with a USB tablet.

Also be aware that unless you buy a really expensive one, these will probably fall apart fairly quickly. Most of them have pretty crap build quality and the screen hinge can be very vulnerable depending on the model you buy. My screen, for instance, somehow has a bunch of dust stuck up under it. I have had to replace the disk drive, and open the thing up and tighten the screws buried way back in the screen assembly, because they apparently work themselves loose over time. I know more people who've had a lot more problems with their tablets, certainly more than regular laptops.

And remember, even though you'll be paying top dollar for these tablets, you'll get budget level hardware. And you can forget about seeing any kind of video card.

I rarely write anything down during lectures.

i've kinda wanted to get one of the these to use

In CS I never take notes because the lecture slides are always posted, it makes more sense to pay attention and try to learn. When I had math classes a tablet would have been handy (or so I think, who knows how much I would have used it). Same goes for logic classes that use a lot of symbols.

Hahaha, obi-kwiet goes to speed school. Hahahahaaha, suddenly it all makes sense!

I just got this last week, and I bloody love it.

My handwriting is ****ty, ****ty, and it works like a dream (left handed as well). I use it to jot down quick notes here and there, during meetings or with patients. I also find it a bit more polite than clacking away with the keys incessantly.

Also, onenote is awesome. The only feature I really liked about macs (selective screenshots), has been added to windows, so that's pretty cool. I like that all my notes and scraps are in one place that I can search through.

Yeaah, the tx2500 series was the reason I started this thread (it was on Woot) ... opinions of it are pretty high in most places I checked and since I really need a new laptop anyways I was considering whether or not I should just go for it considering w/ coupons it's as cheap as a non-tablet (~$650) off the HP site.

A friend of mine has that one, or an earlier model in the same line. He likes it, but there have been some quality issues.

I'd use the built in mic to just record the lecture and replay it while I am laying down to sleep.. no physical work required

Wait, you live in Louisville?

Speed School makes me die a little more each day.

Is it from brain atrophy because you only memorize the parts for the test then dump brain cells?

Rob, Obi actually makes sense and has valid points nowadays.

Wow rob, you really burned me. I'll go rethink my life.

At work we get to play with making software to run on these: http://www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_c5.asp We do quite a lot of auditing for large companies so our auditors get them.

It's the only real experience i've had with tablets but they seem nice. The screens are kinda small though, but it's the only way to keep them compact i guess.

From what I hear, the best tablet is actually the Modbook. Problem is that you have to pay for Macbook, and then pay the extra grand for the tablet conversion. But from my use with Vista/XP tablets, they suck a lot. Vista got lightyears ahead of XP's recognition, but I hear the Modbook is better than both by a lot.

Why is the Modbook better? In terms of handwriting recognition, Vista's is pretty top notch. What software is there for OS X? Isn't it all third party?

I can't help but feel that the idea that the Modbook is better is a sentiment of the Mac community going "ZOMG LOOK! WE HAZ THAT 2??!"

Dude he goes to speed school.

You wouldn't know unless you actually knew a bunch of people that go there.

your application got rejected or something?

I didn't even know what it was until I moved here, but I wouldn't want to go there even if I did. I haven't met a single person that is as happy with their classes as I am mine.

No one likes it, we're all there because we want to be engineers. It sucks for five years, but it sets you up pretty well for the rest of your life.

But seriously, stereotyping Engineering students is just stupid. You run into the roblings, but there's plenty of decent people too.

WTF is speed school?

they have to wear crash helmets, I assume

It's the engineering school in the University of Louisville. It's a pretty reputable engineering school, but the rest of the university kind of sucks. They call it Speed school because the Speed family donated a crap load of money to it. Because of that last name, no one ever knows what the hell it is.

Because your engineering degree is going to guarantee you a job.

Of course not, but sure gives me a pretty large advantage over many other degrees. Engineering is hard enough that it takes a pretty substantial recession for there to be a glut of engineers. Otherwise, there's no way that companies would pay engineering co-op students 3700$ a month after four semesters of course work.

As it stands, anyone with half way decent grades can expect to walk out of college making around 50-60K$ a year in depending on the engineering discipline. Petroleum engineers make obscene amounts of money, but their job security can very wildly with the market. Of course, if the economy gets bad enough it'll be hard for anyone to get an job, but it'll still be easier for engineers. It's just supply and demand.

Thats not what I meant.

Your ambiguity is hardly my fault.

Your inability to draw more than one conclusion is hardly mine.

Do we have the ability to ignore people here? I forget. I'd love to put Rob on ignore.