Friday, 15 July 2011

Using Evernote on the move

A long time ago, Ok, a year ago, I mentioned the existence of cheap logoless Android tablet computers. Like Christmas, alternatives to the iPad have been a long time coming but its now possible to buy reasonable looking devices for under $200.

Now they are not iPads, they use resistive touch screens, and from the various English language reviews I've read (and there's not that many out there) battery life is so-so and the speakers are less than flash.

Unfortunately people seem mostly concerned with using them to play videos, while I actually want to do something else - use Evernote on it as a means of stopping the lunacy of having put all my documents into Evernote, and then printing out the relevant ones before a meeting.

But didn't you spend a lot of time arguing that netbooks have advantages over tablets and even go and buy a new netbook?

Yes, I did. And I still believe that for a lot of purposes, mostly revolving around ease of input and content creation that a netbook has significant advantages over a tablet. But equally, having played with Evernote on an iPhone having a tablet like device is ideal for accessing and reviewing documents - pdf's mainly, and as such having a portrait orientation screen is useful.

In other words there is a role for tablets, but as substitutes for armfuls of A4, not as substitutes for netbooks as data input devices. Question is, is it worth $200 to find out if the logoless tablets are a sensible device for this purpose?

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