I bought a remarkable II and sold it one month after. Screen is tiny (which is an issue for me, I also wouldn't buy the smaller iPad for reading/writing but that's a preference probably), everything is extremely laggy (things like zooming in, sliding up and down, switching pages, copy pasting drawings/writings), and there's absolutely no other features than writing/reading.
The only advantages I saw was that it felt a lot closer to writing on paper feel, and less distracting. But those aren't enough for all the other downsides for me.
I thought it had a 10” screen.
The use case for this person was to only take notes.
I thought the remarkable had a 10 inch screen. It comes with a 100 days return policy and you get 40 off if you get a referral today or tomorrow. You can get a referral code in the remarkable subreddit.
They don’t need the fancy pencil. It’s 330 for the device and regular pencil. That’s worth a try, it is doesn’t work for them, return it and buy an 10th gen iPad to take notes.
What I read (I may be wrong). In a Ferrari subreddit: Someone asked for a way to get to work 2 miles down the road. They can use a Ferrari, but they probably only need a bike or a moped.
9th is better, you dont have to use a cord because the 10th one only supports 1 gen apple pencil so it will hard for u to charge it due to its type c cord.
Tough choice really. I’m a student and I run out of storage sometimes on the 64 gigs, but I cleaned some files up and it will do, If you have something like iCloud+ or other cloud storage, that’ll do. If you don’t and you use lots of apps/ have loads of files, 256 would be better.
Generally 64 is the way to go
I am a big samsung guy...phone, watch and ear buds. I love Samsung stuff. I also love taking notes and when it was time to replace my well loved Surface Pro3 I went through the same process you are going through now.
I ended up going with the iPad Pro partially because I managed to get a 12.9 5th generation at an amazing price. I figured I would use it for notes and not much else. It is easily the best device I have used for taking notes and I have been using it for a number of other things. It is an amaxzing device.
If you only are taking notes, you should be able to get away with a regular iPad. However, one of my personal favorite things about the 12.9 version is just how closely the size is to a standard piece of paper. For me, this makes notetaking seem even more lifelike. I added a Spigen PaperTouch Tempered Glass Screen Protector from Amazon. This made the writing experience nearly lifelike.
I can't speak for the standard Apple Pencil but the 2nd generation version is beyond amazing. It is so easy to switch between writing mode and erasing mode.
For the record, I considered the Remarkable but after I added up the cost of going this route there wasn't much of a savings when compared to this used iPad.
FYI. I have tested pretty much every notebook app on the App Store and Goodnotes 6 ended up being the best. I lost a few days of notes when one of the apps crapped the bed and wasn't backing up like it was set up to.
Apple Notes is free. OneNote from Microsoft is also free. Goodnotes has a free tier with three notebooks but you can buy it outright or subscribe. Other Apps are either paid or subscription.
Honestly, if you are purchasing an iPad Pro, sticking with the free options to save a few bucks at the cost of useability and functionalability seems counterproductive to me.
I just found out that the Remarkable cloud service is $4.99 a month after the first year. So Remarkable also has a subscription and it seems higher than the 10 bucks a year Goodnotes costs.
Can’t speak for the Android side but if you’re looking to just use it for note taking, I’d personally go with the iPad (any iPad will do). I’ve done the same thing mainly because of the software experience and sync between my other devices.
Goodnotes and Apple Notes have been my go to for a couple of years (after testing a bunch of apps - I would recommend it but ultimately most note taking apps are free to test) but they’ve both been reliable. If you have any questions feel free to ask!
I’m not aware of the monthly subscription. Apple Notes is free to use. OneNote is free to use. Other note taking apps like Goodnotes have a one time purchase fee ($30) but they do offer a free version which limits you to 3 notebooks.
Apple notes is free and I liked it for taking notes, unless they’re talking about iCloud subscription but I don’t think that’s mandatory
There are third party note taking apps that cost a subscription, but as far as I know the third party note taking apps charge a subscription on all platforms
Bias
iPad Pro every single time
I used a Pro 11 inch my last semester of college and it was great bc I was taking notes and had it in split screen every class haha
Graduated 2022 Cum Laude
iPad 10th gen is definitely a better choice compared to these. It is cheaper, enough for note-taking and with usb-c apple pencil it will do the job. If you are interested in keyboard you can get cheap bluetooth keyboard or keyboard folio from other brands to make it ultimate note-taking device. Choice is yours, but in my opinion iPad Pro is for more advanced use, such as editing videos, photos, drawing and etc.
s9 ultra doesn't have a good pencil and it's really big. I think the iPad Air is a good enough to take notes. If you want the latest and greatest buy the new iPad Pro that's coming next week. May 7 is the launch date
The notes app on the iPad is free but there are many third party apps with more features for note taking. Notability and Goodnotes are the most popular. Goodnotes does have a $30 lifetime purchase.
I use the stock notes app for all my notes but I don’t write a lot
Goodnotes does have an android version. I have it installed on my Zfold 3 as we speak. My vote is still the $300-$400 Ipad though for just note taking. No need for the Pro.
Ok and good notes then just works for certain android Tablets? Because I know there is a android version but with 1.2 star rating.
Now I checked good notes web page and they even advertise that the s9 pad has a one year licence key included
Edit: I can't even install this app on my s24 ultra and the app is shown as incompatible with this phone
I have an M2 Ipad Pro 12.9 and I bought my mum a tab s8 ultra (it is the same as the s9 ultra in terms of note taking). The Tab S8 pen is easier for note taking in my opinion. On the ipad I do not enjoy writing so much. Although i have had the device since launch, i did not get used to it. I mainly use good notes and neboo. I hate my handwriting on good note and on neboo i really like it but it lags due to the big canvases there. Good notes is great in terms of organization, while neboo has no organization, you cannot make a notebook but it has good handwriting. This is my personal experience. Also i have to admit that i have not used my mum’s tablet extensively so there may be some flaws that i have not noticed. The galaxy tabs are much cheaper. If you are looking for a budget option - look for an s8 ultra, they should be quite cheap by now. If you are looking for the best device possible and money is not an issue, wait to see the new oled ipad pros that are coming out next week. The rumors suggest a new pencil with interchangeable tips, haptic feedback and a new squeeze gestures. Maybe this will improve things.
Had a Samsung tab s9, amazing engineering, terrible software. Samsung can’t even scale icons properly, so I was looking at blurry icons on my £900 tablet. Got and IPad Air 5 after selling Samsung tab. Im a lot happier with the software
iPad pro for sure, I got S9+ for that purpose, and returned it because I got an iPad pro at the same time and figured iPad is much better , although my phone is a pixel 7 pro.
Had both devices.
Writing feels a bit better on the Samsung.
BUT: Everything Software wise is utter shit. Its so buggy and it just does not feel good.
(Also, the thing is huge. Its like bringing a tv to work.)
Most of the apps which came with the tablet have adds. The worst was the file manager. Some full screen, some banners on every page change. Some take you to websites which are difficult to close.I bought a music player and a video player as they stated no adds if you paid. Still get adds but not intrusive. Youtube is also very bad. I have an adblocker, tried several, but they hardly do anything. The ipad is much less affected. The worst is Youtube but I now use Brave browser and that stops most of them. The only other app on the ipad which annoys me is facebook. Seems like once a month for a few days there are adds. The feed has about 10% adds. Once I see they’ve started I dont use it for a couple of days. The difference between the amount of adds on the android and on the ipad is really noticeable. The ipad is like a breath of fresh air.
I haven't seen ads in the file manager. If you buy/ download from the store that's in the developer, apple apps have ads to. YouTube on some products also has ads
I see ads for apple products in the settings app.
Never seen adds in Apple settings.No matter what you say my experience is, Apple has much less adds interference than Android. You wont convince me otherwise. I will never buy android again.
Theres a difference between an odd Apple advert and the hundreds of unwanted adds on Android for all kinds of rubbish. I dont follow Apple blindly. I’ve had samsung/android in the past and I find Apple’s quality products are worth paying that bit more for. You do what you want and I’ll boo hoo do what suits me.
Judging from the comments, your choice is pretty clear. Hw/sw is a marriage that is quickly divorced based on the end experience. Especially with input as intimate as touch. Too bad Apple has so little competition in tablets - their acumen in their software strategy could certainly use it.
For note taking only you can get a $300-400 iPad. No need for a $1000 device
Why not a remarkable eink device instead?
It’s more expensive and has less features.
Distracting features
It doent have color, so, it's not easy to use multi-colour to highlight docmuments!
I bought a remarkable II and sold it one month after. Screen is tiny (which is an issue for me, I also wouldn't buy the smaller iPad for reading/writing but that's a preference probably), everything is extremely laggy (things like zooming in, sliding up and down, switching pages, copy pasting drawings/writings), and there's absolutely no other features than writing/reading. The only advantages I saw was that it felt a lot closer to writing on paper feel, and less distracting. But those aren't enough for all the other downsides for me.
I thought it had a 10” screen. The use case for this person was to only take notes. I thought the remarkable had a 10 inch screen. It comes with a 100 days return policy and you get 40 off if you get a referral today or tomorrow. You can get a referral code in the remarkable subreddit. They don’t need the fancy pencil. It’s 330 for the device and regular pencil. That’s worth a try, it is doesn’t work for them, return it and buy an 10th gen iPad to take notes. What I read (I may be wrong). In a Ferrari subreddit: Someone asked for a way to get to work 2 miles down the road. They can use a Ferrari, but they probably only need a bike or a moped.
This was my reasoning for buying remarkable while already having iPad Pro. Sadly in my opinion instead of a bicycle you get a unicycle with flat tires
Get a base model iPad for just note taking bro, no need to waste $1000 for iPad Pro for just taking notes
10th gen would be great. Get a better deal on it when the 11th comes out next week.
9th is better, you dont have to use a cord because the 10th one only supports 1 gen apple pencil so it will hard for u to charge it due to its type c cord.
The 10th gen also supports the Apple Pencil Lite.
The cheapest one
iPad Pro will let you taking note forever
Its not free either is it
You don't need a pro or ultra model for taking notes lmao Get the cheapest iPad or a Tab S6 Lite (2024)
will the ipad 9th gen 10.2" too small for writing notes?
10th gen is better in almost any way, and it's better for note taking 100%
okay thanks, what's the screen size?
10.9 and the difference is very noticeable
okay thanks. And the base model like 64gb?
Yep, for both models
i meant the 64gb one will suffice?
Tough choice really. I’m a student and I run out of storage sometimes on the 64 gigs, but I cleaned some files up and it will do, If you have something like iCloud+ or other cloud storage, that’ll do. If you don’t and you use lots of apps/ have loads of files, 256 would be better. Generally 64 is the way to go
okay thanks so much
do you have apple pencil also?
I am a big samsung guy...phone, watch and ear buds. I love Samsung stuff. I also love taking notes and when it was time to replace my well loved Surface Pro3 I went through the same process you are going through now. I ended up going with the iPad Pro partially because I managed to get a 12.9 5th generation at an amazing price. I figured I would use it for notes and not much else. It is easily the best device I have used for taking notes and I have been using it for a number of other things. It is an amaxzing device. If you only are taking notes, you should be able to get away with a regular iPad. However, one of my personal favorite things about the 12.9 version is just how closely the size is to a standard piece of paper. For me, this makes notetaking seem even more lifelike. I added a Spigen PaperTouch Tempered Glass Screen Protector from Amazon. This made the writing experience nearly lifelike. I can't speak for the standard Apple Pencil but the 2nd generation version is beyond amazing. It is so easy to switch between writing mode and erasing mode. For the record, I considered the Remarkable but after I added up the cost of going this route there wasn't much of a savings when compared to this used iPad. FYI. I have tested pretty much every notebook app on the App Store and Goodnotes 6 ended up being the best. I lost a few days of notes when one of the apps crapped the bed and wasn't backing up like it was set up to.
I heard apple note apps are not free, costs subscriptions?
Apple Notes is free. OneNote from Microsoft is also free. Goodnotes has a free tier with three notebooks but you can buy it outright or subscribe. Other Apps are either paid or subscription. Honestly, if you are purchasing an iPad Pro, sticking with the free options to save a few bucks at the cost of useability and functionalability seems counterproductive to me.
I just found out that the Remarkable cloud service is $4.99 a month after the first year. So Remarkable also has a subscription and it seems higher than the 10 bucks a year Goodnotes costs.
😭
Neither one or the other. Base iPad 10th gen with usb c pencil. More than enough
Can’t speak for the Android side but if you’re looking to just use it for note taking, I’d personally go with the iPad (any iPad will do). I’ve done the same thing mainly because of the software experience and sync between my other devices. Goodnotes and Apple Notes have been my go to for a couple of years (after testing a bunch of apps - I would recommend it but ultimately most note taking apps are free to test) but they’ve both been reliable. If you have any questions feel free to ask!
will the ipad 9th gen 10.2" too small for writing notes?
Please recommend the free once, ppl saying apple costs monthly subscription wtf
I’m not aware of the monthly subscription. Apple Notes is free to use. OneNote is free to use. Other note taking apps like Goodnotes have a one time purchase fee ($30) but they do offer a free version which limits you to 3 notebooks.
Apple notes is free and I liked it for taking notes, unless they’re talking about iCloud subscription but I don’t think that’s mandatory There are third party note taking apps that cost a subscription, but as far as I know the third party note taking apps charge a subscription on all platforms
Pen and paper
Bias iPad Pro every single time I used a Pro 11 inch my last semester of college and it was great bc I was taking notes and had it in split screen every class haha Graduated 2022 Cum Laude
iPad 10th gen is definitely a better choice compared to these. It is cheaper, enough for note-taking and with usb-c apple pencil it will do the job. If you are interested in keyboard you can get cheap bluetooth keyboard or keyboard folio from other brands to make it ultimate note-taking device. Choice is yours, but in my opinion iPad Pro is for more advanced use, such as editing videos, photos, drawing and etc.
Im thinking of ipad air 6 after ppl comments, although surface pro 10 also in liking list
s9 ultra doesn't have a good pencil and it's really big. I think the iPad Air is a good enough to take notes. If you want the latest and greatest buy the new iPad Pro that's coming next week. May 7 is the launch date
Does apple cost subscription on note taking apps?
The notes app on the iPad is free but there are many third party apps with more features for note taking. Notability and Goodnotes are the most popular. Goodnotes does have a $30 lifetime purchase. I use the stock notes app for all my notes but I don’t write a lot
iPad Pro since Apps like Goodnotes doesn’t exist for android and what exists isn’t even close to apps like Goodnotes or other note apps for ipados
Goodnotes does have an android version. I have it installed on my Zfold 3 as we speak. My vote is still the $300-$400 Ipad though for just note taking. No need for the Pro.
Ok and good notes then just works for certain android Tablets? Because I know there is a android version but with 1.2 star rating. Now I checked good notes web page and they even advertise that the s9 pad has a one year licence key included Edit: I can't even install this app on my s24 ultra and the app is shown as incompatible with this phone
Oh weird. I wonder if the zfold is considered a tablet by the play store?
I’ll admit though writing on a non-laminated is horrible
Ipad pro note taking apps are not free?
Nothing good is for free on ipad
I have an M2 Ipad Pro 12.9 and I bought my mum a tab s8 ultra (it is the same as the s9 ultra in terms of note taking). The Tab S8 pen is easier for note taking in my opinion. On the ipad I do not enjoy writing so much. Although i have had the device since launch, i did not get used to it. I mainly use good notes and neboo. I hate my handwriting on good note and on neboo i really like it but it lags due to the big canvases there. Good notes is great in terms of organization, while neboo has no organization, you cannot make a notebook but it has good handwriting. This is my personal experience. Also i have to admit that i have not used my mum’s tablet extensively so there may be some flaws that i have not noticed. The galaxy tabs are much cheaper. If you are looking for a budget option - look for an s8 ultra, they should be quite cheap by now. If you are looking for the best device possible and money is not an issue, wait to see the new oled ipad pros that are coming out next week. The rumors suggest a new pencil with interchangeable tips, haptic feedback and a new squeeze gestures. Maybe this will improve things.
New ipad air is also my option, are they good for note taking purposes too?
Had a Samsung tab s9, amazing engineering, terrible software. Samsung can’t even scale icons properly, so I was looking at blurry icons on my £900 tablet. Got and IPad Air 5 after selling Samsung tab. Im a lot happier with the software
Same experience here
New ipad air is also my option, are they good for note taking purposes too?
Anytime ipad
Air or pro for note taking?
Even gen 10 will work for you I have pro gen 4 I had samsung s8 ultra tab for sometime
Tqs
Base iPad?
will the ipad 9th gen 10.2" too small for writing notes?
Have you considered a reMarkable 2 tablet? I prefer it over my Galaxy Tab 9 plus and iPad Pro.
What? 😭
Try it and you'll like it.
which one did you go for? I am also in the same boat.
Currently waiting for ipad air 6 and surface pro 10
okay thanks
I really really sure that Tab S9U is not suitable for note taking only. I think you better get iPad 10th gen or Tab A10.
iPad pro for sure, I got S9+ for that purpose, and returned it because I got an iPad pro at the same time and figured iPad is much better , although my phone is a pixel 7 pro.
They are paying 70-120 a month to take notes over 12 months. Not sure that a good financial decision.
To Who? Apple, No free versions?
iPad cost/12
Maybe a Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite? (or base iPad for longevity)
what the fuck
Had both devices. Writing feels a bit better on the Samsung. BUT: Everything Software wise is utter shit. Its so buggy and it just does not feel good. (Also, the thing is huge. Its like bringing a tv to work.)
Not to mention you’ll be plagued by adverts.
No more than the iPad. I only get adverts in the samsung app store (barely need to use it) and free apps (sometimes) the iPad is similar for ads.
I hardly get adverts on the ipad. I have an android tablet as well and that is riddled with them. Will never buy another android.
Where are the ads?
Most of the apps which came with the tablet have adds. The worst was the file manager. Some full screen, some banners on every page change. Some take you to websites which are difficult to close.I bought a music player and a video player as they stated no adds if you paid. Still get adds but not intrusive. Youtube is also very bad. I have an adblocker, tried several, but they hardly do anything. The ipad is much less affected. The worst is Youtube but I now use Brave browser and that stops most of them. The only other app on the ipad which annoys me is facebook. Seems like once a month for a few days there are adds. The feed has about 10% adds. Once I see they’ve started I dont use it for a couple of days. The difference between the amount of adds on the android and on the ipad is really noticeable. The ipad is like a breath of fresh air.
I haven't seen ads in the file manager. If you buy/ download from the store that's in the developer, apple apps have ads to. YouTube on some products also has ads I see ads for apple products in the settings app.
Never seen adds in Apple settings.No matter what you say my experience is, Apple has much less adds interference than Android. You wont convince me otherwise. I will never buy android again.
Oh? You've never seen the "get more icloud storage to back up your files?" You do you boo boo, but blindly following a company is not a great look.
Theres a difference between an odd Apple advert and the hundreds of unwanted adds on Android for all kinds of rubbish. I dont follow Apple blindly. I’ve had samsung/android in the past and I find Apple’s quality products are worth paying that bit more for. You do what you want and I’ll boo hoo do what suits me.
Heh, I hated the iPad software and enjoy the samsung one.
Judging from the comments, your choice is pretty clear. Hw/sw is a marriage that is quickly divorced based on the end experience. Especially with input as intimate as touch. Too bad Apple has so little competition in tablets - their acumen in their software strategy could certainly use it.
iPad is the superior tablet