[dansmith19]

I'm look for a free app that i can use for taking notes during class. I want to be able to quickly save notes so i can move to the next "page"
also, different colors and brush sizes would be nice.

[icniagara]

Crack open Evernote, type what they say, take a picture of the blackboard as needed, scribble out the formulas and sketches with Scratchpad and nobody can beat your flow.

[dansmith19]

Crack open Evernote, type what they say, take a picture of the blackboard as needed, scribble out the formulas and sketches with Scratchpad and nobody can beat your flow.

In app world, there is "ScratchPad" and "Scratch Pad" which one is better for being able to quickly save notes and start a new page and and has more features?

[Herve5]

In app world, there is "ScratchPad" and "Scratch Pad" which one is better for being able to quickly save notes and start a new page and and has more features?

The first one is an android port but otherwise well once you learn where it saves images; the second one is native but it seems not capable of saving properly.

Other than this you have lots of drawing apps indeed.
Just among the free ones: SketchBlock (very fluid 'ink' imitation), Scroodle (more chalk like), Paintbook (precise but with some bugs in the GUI), Harmony (strikingly original lines), DrawNDraw (minimal free version of a powerful paying version, handling huge images with layers etc., crashes if drawing too large)...

For a notetaking application, you also have the (paying) GroovyNotes that handles primarily text (typed) notes to which you can add photos and sketches via a (minimal*) internal sketch editor, a sketch then being associated to a given text note. I think in this area also PiCiNotes does this, while I don't have an experience with it.

Last: try before buy if you can, because indeed as concern drafting/handwriting on the touchscreen, not all applications are equal, and by far -on the same playbook, with the same writer. Some are outright pathetic, others are very efficient, many in-between.
If I get the time, one of these days I'll post a comparative...

H.

(*) just forget handwriting with that one

[kill_9]

In addition to many applications to meet your note-taking and diagram sketching needs there is a separate hardware device from LiveScribe which integrates with Evernote. The LiveScribe concept is interesting although I find the smartpen a bit bulky considering the state of micro-electronics these days; a better design would be standard ballpoint pen form factor and a metal casing with rubber finger grip like a high-quality pen. I still think Bamboo Paper is the optimal solution although it is not available for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

[amrovi2014]

The first one is an android port but otherwise well once you learn where it saves images; the second one is native but it seems not capable of saving properly.

Other than this you have lots of drawing apps indeed.
Just among the free ones: SketchBlock (very fluid 'ink' imitation), Scroodle (more chalk like), Paintbook (precise but with some bugs in the GUI), Harmony (strikingly original lines), DrawNDraw (minimal free version of a powerful paying version, handling huge images with layers etc., crashes if drawing too large)...

For a notetaking application, you also have the (paying) GroovyNotes that handles primarily text (typed) notes to which you can add photos and sketches via a (minimal*) internal sketch editor, a sketch then being associated to a given text note. I think in this area also PiCiNotes does this, while I don't have an experience with it.

Last: try before buy if you can, because indeed as concern drafting/handwriting on the touchscreen, not all applications are equal, and by far -on the same playbook, with the same writer. Some are outright pathetic, others are very efficient, many in-between.
If I get the time, one of these days I'll post a comparative...

H.

(*) just forget handwriting with that one

I would welcome your comparison evaluation, as I looking for a handwriting app also

[dansmith19]

The first one is an android port but otherwise well once you learn where it saves images; the second one is native but it seems not capable of saving properly.

Other than this you have lots of drawing apps indeed.
Just among the free ones: SketchBlock (very fluid 'ink' imitation), Scroodle (more chalk like), Paintbook (precise but with some bugs in the GUI), Harmony (strikingly original lines), DrawNDraw (minimal free version of a powerful paying version, handling huge images with layers etc., crashes if drawing too large)...

For a notetaking application, you also have the (paying) GroovyNotes that handles primarily text (typed) notes to which you can add photos and sketches via a (minimal*) internal sketch editor, a sketch then being associated to a given text note. I think in this area also PiCiNotes does this, while I don't have an experience with it.

Last: try before buy if you can, because indeed as concern drafting/handwriting on the touchscreen, not all applications are equal, and by far -on the same playbook, with the same writer. Some are outright pathetic, others are very efficient, many in-between.
If I get the time, one of these days I'll post a comparative...

H.

(*) just forget handwriting with that one

I mainly need to be able to write notes with a stylus. Paintbook seems good as it has a grid paper option and curve tool. Although both free and paid versions on app world seem to have the same screen shots and description and the review videos on youtube look different from whats on app world. Do you know the difference between the free and paid versions of paintbook?

also, i counldn't find any videos of scroodle. Is it good for note taking or drawing only?

[dansmith19]

I got Paintbook, Scroodle and "Scratch Pad"
paintbook is not what i expected, no curve tool in free version and gui is not that good
scroodle is not good for taking notes, better for drawing
Scratch Pad is the best of the three, simple design and has zoom option so more space to take notes. although not that many features

I'm still open to more suggestions.

[Herve5]

(...) Scratch Pad is the best of the three, simple design and has zoom option so more space to take notes. although not that many features

I'm still open to more suggestions.

In the meanwhile I also found Drawbook (paying), Draw Pad, Draw (costly but very well starred), Drawingboard pro (whose free version handles my stylus very well), and was positively advised for a "Simple Paint"...
But none of them handles zooming, and I agree once you tried it, this becomes key...

[edit] I also found traces of a StylusNotes app, that I once tried long ago, when... I didn't have a stylus, and then unistalled -but now it's a paying app... Announces zooming and proper exports, maybe worth although I eliminated it at the time. There also is a "Touch Painter" that can zoom and has a free version to try...

[Herve5]

I would welcome your comparison evaluation, as I looking for a handwriting app also

A quick attempt this morning: Draw / Jot / Sketch / handwrite apps on Playbook
Definitely neither perfect nor exhaustive, but that's all I could do I fear. Others will add to it hopefully...
Basically, if you demand zoom (which I consider mandatory for handwriting on our relatively small screen) there are not so many alternatives, of which most are paying apps. Hopefully some of us will have bought them...

[dansmith19]

A quick attempt this morning: Draw / Jot / Sketch / handwrite apps on Playbook
Definitely neither perfect nor exhaustive, but that's all I could do I fear. Others will add to it hopefully...
Basically, if you demand zoom (which I consider mandatory for handwriting on our relatively small screen) there are not so many alternatives, of which most are paying apps. Hopefully some of us will have bought them...

Ill try out some more apps later, but for notetaking i think that pen and paper is still better than the playbook

[Herve5]

Ill try out some more apps later, but for notetaking i think that pen and paper is still better than the playbook

I wouldn't say exactly this.

Yes actual paper is definitely better for manual handwriting notes, which is not the case for Android apps (see 'my' other thread, at the end I added some info on Android-specific apps that could be sideloaded -you can get these actual andro things if you really wish, but the PB will remain twice smaller than an iPad anyway, and for handwriting notes that counts a lot!)

But if you ever intend to search back information within what you noted, believe me: select typed notes instead.
The PB keyboard is very reasonable, much larger than on any phone, its predictive typing does work pretty well (I was against predictive typing: I quickly recognized it 'learned me' very efficiently!), and definitely, when searching an info one year from now, you'll just find it.
Exploring pictures of your notes instead won't help you in any way...

One last word: choose an app that 'scales up', as they say. For the first three notes everyone may look cool, but it's when you recorded 100 hours that things become important. And then, you'll definitely want one that handles lots of notes fast, and doesn't wait 20s to load. This involves database handling, indexing, etc.
This info will never be indicated in the app world, but indeed the dev do reply to this kind of question. For GroovyNotes I contacted the devs asking what was the size of their testing note set, and was it 100 or 1000 notes. They did answer convincingly.

[dansmith19]

I wouldn't say exactly this.

Yes actual paper is definitely better for manual handwriting notes, which is not the case for Android apps (see 'my' other thread, at the end I added some info on Android-specific apps that could be sideloaded -you can get the actual andro thing if you really wish, but the PB will remain twice smaller than an iPad anyway, and for handwriting notes that counts a lot!)

But if you ever intend to search back information within what you noted, believe me: select typed notes instead.
The PB keyboard is very reasonable, much larger than on any phone, its predictive typing does work pretty well (I was against predictive typing: I quickly recognized it 'learned me' very efficiently!), and definitely, when searching an info one year from now, you'll just find it.
Exploring pictures of your notes instead won't help you in any way...

One last word: choose an app that 'scales up', as they say. For the first three notes everyone may look cool, but it's when you recorded 100 hours that things become important. And then, you'll definitely want one that handles lots of notes fast, and doesn't wait 20s to load. This involves database handling, indexing, etc.
This info will never be indicated in the app world, but indeed the dev do reply to this kind of question. For GroovyNotes I contacted the devs asking what was the size of their testing note set, and was it 100 or 1000 notes. They did answer convincingly.

As you said, typed notes would be better as you can search through them. But for classes like math, you have to draw graphs, write out formulas, etc in your notes and for that I needed a sketching app.

I'm now thinking of using Docs To Go and a bluetooth keyboard for classes that only have "text" notes and keeping an actual notebook for other classes.

[Herve5]

As you said, typed notes would be better as you can search through them. But for classes like math, you have to draw graphs, write out formulas, etc in your notes and for that I needed a sketching app.

That's true, and GroovyNotes won't handle inline formulas. Maybe PiciNotes would allow you to both type text and quickly insert formulas in the right place (this from their screenshots, I don't have hands-on experience).

[JWBison]

I don't know where I got it, but somehow in a sideloading frenzy I ended up with RepliGo reader (an android port) which lets you take notes on PDFs, you can circle, highlight, type notes on, or even write on notes on the PDF file, I'm currently using this system in my grad program and it works well for me. Send me a direct message if you can't find the .bar file and I'll see if I can find it.