Is the Surface Pro 3 a good tablet for a student for note taking?

[saintforlife]

I want to use the Surface Pro 3 and it's digital pen to take notes in class. I am hoping this tablet can replace a traditional paper notebook. Is this possible?

In addition I want to be able to search inside my notes. Will my free hand text be searchable in One Note or a similar app? Also, if possible, I would like to record the lecturer's voice during my notes and have to sync with the text I am writing....something like the Live Scribe smart pen. Is there an app for Windows 8 that provides a similar functionality with the Pro 3's pen?

 

[onlysublime]

both OneNote and PowerPoint let you record audio alongside the notes.

worked great.... unless the professor went back and forth on the PPT slides...

 

[mhm99chaffei]

Actually the surface pro 3 excels at taking note and everything you were talking about and i believe that it can replace your laptop and not just the notebook espcially if you buy the keyboard accessory but you can still do all of what you've mentioned with surface pro2 or even the surface pro 1 without having to pay alot for the surface pro 3... anyway it`s up to you.

 

[mozman68]

I'm not a student anymore, but the main reason I'm getting the SP3 is for note taking at work, sketching product ideas, and synching up with all my "work" as we are 100% Microsoft (OneDrive, Lync, Outlook, Office, etc.).

 

[FragMonkey90]

Desktop OneNote is excellent for your purposes. I use mine for school and work extensively.

The handwriting with the stylus feels great and natural, and you can easily search your own free-hand text. You can also record lecture directly alongside the notes, and when reviewing your notes you can see exactly at what point in the recording you wrote which line of text

 

[jbaylon]

You can also record lecture directly alongside the notes, and when reviewing your notes you can see exactly at what point in the recording you wrote which line of text

That's awesome.

 

[Cleavitt76]

I want to use the Surface Pro 3 and it's digital pen to take notes in class. I am hoping this tablet can replace a traditional paper notebook. Is this possible?

In addition I want to be able to search inside my notes. Will my free hand text be searchable in One Note or a similar app? Also, if possible, I would like to record the lecturer's voice during my notes and have to sync with the text I am writing....something like the Live Scribe smart pen. Is there an app for Windows 8 that provides a similar functionality with the Pro 3's pen?

OneNote (desktop) on the Surface Pro 3 (also 1 and 2) can do all the things you are asking about. It will search typed, hand written, and text in attachments. It will record audio and insert "bookmarks" to the audio file next to the corresponding notes. I'm no longer a student, but I wish this technology existed back when I was a student.

 

[symesmd]

I love and use Onenote all of the time for taking notes and marking up presentations at work. I have never used the Audio function and am curious how the "bookmarks" feature referenced by Cleavitt76 works? If my understanding is right then you can start recording audio and then when you jot down notes it bookmarks it to where the audio is at that point? Is this correct? If so how do you jump to that portion of the audio when you are reviewing? Thanks in advance.

 

[onysi]

let me express it with the help of pen and paper.

 

[altair679]

Can't take notes with the Surface Pro 3 since any phones are banned from my school.

 

[vakama94]

I too want to get a Surface Pro 3 for note taking and seeing all the replies I'm definitely going to get one.
Sent from my awesome Lumia 520 using Tapatalk for Windows Phone

 

[QuentinJ]

I am in med school and my Surface Pro with OneNote have been a great help - as someone else said you can record lectures alongside the notes and it "bookmarks" the time on the recording with the note so it's very easy to go back to it. The pen is very useful for annotating diagrams or sketching things so I would definitely recommend it. Also, having a very bad hand writing (as doctors do...) I must say the hand recognition is quite good, and yes you will be able to search your hand written notes in OneNote!

 

[xandros9]

Can't take notes with the Surface Pro 3 since any phones are banned from my school.

that doesn't make sense, do they ban food because pencils are prohibited too?

 

[BaritoneGuy]

Can't take notes with the Surface Pro 3 since any phones are banned from my school.��

The SP3 is a tablet or a computer not a phone.

 

[MBytes]

I have the Surface Pro 2, and it is truelly amazing at school. I love the fact that I can type my notes (I have horrible hand writhing), and when the professor does a graph, or diagram, or math (math class), and such, I can flip in tablet mode in 1 sec, and write, and flip back to laptop. Or for math classes, just write everything. A joy to use.

And plenty of power for my programming, and work (more programming).

 

[Grimlock]

I'm a student and will be getting a surface pro 3 because I think its the best on the market for students! I've been watching a lot of other students use all kinds of devices in class (ie iPad, laptops, tablets, etc) and all of them fall short in my opinion. I tried out the pen at best buy and it was a lot better than I thought, and nothing will be better than being able to have all of your notes available in one note, not to mention the ability to scribble on PPTs or any handouts a professor might give.

I had been holding out because I thought the surface 1 and 2 weren't quite there, but the new aspect ratio, larger screen, and greatly improved kickstand has me sold! The future of student computing is NOW!

 

[wg1234]

Hi, a quick question about the audio recorded using a sp3. How is the quality of the recording from the internal mic? I've tried 2 laptops internal mics and the recordings were very poor in lectures. One was a Samsung laptop and the other is my current laptop that is the Thinkpad Yoga, because of the poor sound recordings I got I used a portable hand recorder instead whilst taking notes in onenote, which is less ideal as the recordings aint synced to the notes. If the mic in the sp3 is any good I may have more of a reason to jump ship. I'm in the UK and the sp3 aint out for another few weeks so there is no where to test.

 

[onlysublime]

if you're comparing the mic recording versus a portable hand held that you put near the professor, the SP3 is not going to compare (I remember seeing an army of recorders next to the professor). distance is and always will be a factor. but if you put the portable recorder right next to the laptop, they are comparable. and for the larger lecture halls, professors often have microphones which negates many advantages of the portable handheld recorders.

what i do is I have the sound recorder snapped to the side while I'm typing notes into Word. I actually prefer the sound recorder app versus the desktop sound recorder because the Modern version has a huge touch friendly button. And the way it saves and organizes files is very elegant (seriously, the desktop sound recorder is tiny and requires a mouse and still looks the same as when it was Windows 95). Heck, I like the glowing effect that showing it's recording. :winktongue:

If I need to draw something, I'll swipe over to a drawing app like OneNote. it's really fast to swipe between the desktop and an app like OneNote. I know the OneNote fans like to do everything in OneNote but I'm a Word diehard. I can always copy/paste into OneNote later. But in lecture, I just want to think or grab notes ASAP. OneNote is more for organization for me than realtime notetaking.

If I'm following a PowerPoint presentation, I use the built-in recorder in PowerPoint. Each slide has its own audio. So you're never having to scan a single audio track (like from an audio recorder) to try to figure out when the professor says what for each slide. again, the only issue is if the professor likes to go back and forth between slides (and some maddenly do that!). Underneath the slide is a notes section where you can type your notes. and of course, you can draw on the powerpoint slide.

 

[anon(7901790)]

I want to use the Surface Pro 3 and it's digital pen to take notes in class. I am hoping this tablet can replace a traditional paper notebook. Is this possible?

In addition I want to be able to search inside my notes. Will my free hand text be searchable in One Note or a similar app? Also, if possible, I would like to record the lecturer's voice during my notes and have to sync with the text I am writing....something like the Live Scribe smart pen. Is there an app for Windows 8 that provides a similar functionality with the Pro 3's pen?

Yes. I've used mine to handwrite out some rough drafts of lesson plans for a photography class I'm starting up. My 7 year old daughter likes to use it to practice her cursive hand writing. Compared to my SP1 and Galaxy Note 10.1 that I previously owned, the SP3 kicks the snot out of them. I haven't tried doing voice recording yet.

Yes, your hand writing is searchable in both the metro and classic versions of OneNote. It even does a pretty good job of recognizing the chicken scratches that I write. I also have a Live Scribe pen, but since they don't seem to want to support OneNote 2013, I use my SP3.