eshropshire
Well-known member
- Oct 17, 2011
- 928
- 10
- 18
Re: Tablet for college students
I personally disagree with the recommendation of the Surface Pro. I have both a Surface Pro and a Galaxy Note 8. I would say the SP does a little better job in note taking (handwriting recognition), but stinks everywhere else when trying to use the stylus. You have to contently shift to using a mouse or touch pad to get options to work. Windows is just not very optimized for for a Stylus. One other item about the SP is its size, I have a hard time calling it a tablet. The SP is very thick and heavy. Holding it in one hand and writing with another will get very tiring really fast. Because the SP is so thick and has very little bezel laying it flat on a desk is not much better, I don't find it comfortable to use to write notes. YMMV.
Samsung has done a great job integrating the stylus with Android. I find myself using the stylus most of the time when working with the Note 8. I don't know about older Samsung Note products like the original Note 10.1 inch table. The prices are pretty good, but do not know how well it works. I have heard mixed to poor reviews about using the stylus on the Note 2 phone. So I don't know if there are similar issues with the older 10.1 tablet. The new Note 10.1 2014 tablet looks great, but is expensive. I considered it when I bought my Note 8, but just did not want to spend that much a tablet.
BTW, several people mentioned the Surface RT as an option (now called the Surface). Not a bad tablet, does come with MS office, but it does not have a digitizer built in like the SP or the Note line.
There's also the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 for $330 if you don't want to get the 10.1.
Edit: I highly discourage getting the Note 10.1 just for note taking purposes. The 32 GB model is $600. You can now get a Surface Pro 128 GB (which comes with a stylus) for $600, and for note taking purposes, the Surface Pro would be vastly superior.
I personally disagree with the recommendation of the Surface Pro. I have both a Surface Pro and a Galaxy Note 8. I would say the SP does a little better job in note taking (handwriting recognition), but stinks everywhere else when trying to use the stylus. You have to contently shift to using a mouse or touch pad to get options to work. Windows is just not very optimized for for a Stylus. One other item about the SP is its size, I have a hard time calling it a tablet. The SP is very thick and heavy. Holding it in one hand and writing with another will get very tiring really fast. Because the SP is so thick and has very little bezel laying it flat on a desk is not much better, I don't find it comfortable to use to write notes. YMMV.
Samsung has done a great job integrating the stylus with Android. I find myself using the stylus most of the time when working with the Note 8. I don't know about older Samsung Note products like the original Note 10.1 inch table. The prices are pretty good, but do not know how well it works. I have heard mixed to poor reviews about using the stylus on the Note 2 phone. So I don't know if there are similar issues with the older 10.1 tablet. The new Note 10.1 2014 tablet looks great, but is expensive. I considered it when I bought my Note 8, but just did not want to spend that much a tablet.
BTW, several people mentioned the Surface RT as an option (now called the Surface). Not a bad tablet, does come with MS office, but it does not have a digitizer built in like the SP or the Note line.
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