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Handwriting recognition and PDA

B

BeeG

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I am looking to purchase a PDA that will work with my son’s Powerbook. He is heading off to college and I thought it would be nice for him to have a PDA that would recognize his handwriting so his notes from class could easily be transferred to his laptop. Do any of the mac compatible PDAs on the market do a particular good job of translating normal handwriting to typed text? Your help is appreciated….


Best!
BeeG
 
just tell him to bring his laptop to class. i tried back in the day to use my newton pda handwriting recognition to take notes. TOO SLOW, no matter what platform you use. Typeing is the best way to write quickly, which is what you need to do in class.

I took my laptop to several classes in college and had the best notes I had ever taken.

Save yourself some cash- he won't use the PDA, and you will be richer.
 
It will be next to impossible to take notes on a PDA with handwriting, its just to slow, innacruate, and limited by formating, cause all you can do its sentences. You can get a keyboard for your PDA that can get over note taking speed, but i am a student and am convinced that the notebook and pen are still the best. Also only PALM pda's work with os X without extra paid software. and all palms use the same hardwriting (for the most part, new graffitti 2 is out but its about the same). Pocket PC's are rough with os X and sony clie's require additional software too.
 
Originally posted by idkew
TOO SLOW, no matter what platform you use...
Click to expand...

-BeeG

Besides, typing averages 3x faster than handwriting - even if your platform is paper. Only downside is diagramming, and doodling. For that, he can still bring a notepad.
 
Yep a PDA might serve him in other areas (calendars can be a helpful thing, especially when classes change), but not for handwriting... HW recognition is simply awful, Rosetta was a nice start but that died a long time ago, so all development is pretty much Palm, and they don't seem to have a desire to innovate.

As for general use PDA, i hear good things about Clie, but I think it's tricky to set it up the first time... perhaps a clie owner can elaborate...

pnw
 
Thank you for all the good advice. It looks a laptop in class is the way to go.

Best!
BeeG
 
Originally posted by BeeG
Thank you for all the good advice. It looks a laptop in class is the way to go.

Best!
BeeG
Click to expand...

I used my laptop to take notes in class a lot, until I got into more CS classes, where I stopped taking notes because the professors said not to. I find that the laptop allows me to take better notes than a pen and paper, but in some classes a pen and paper is preffered for diagraming. Math classes also benefit from use of a pen and paper.
 
I have an Olympus voice recorder for classes where I need to take notes but need to follow the lecture intently.

I also have a keyboard for my Handspring Visor Deluxe that works quite well. Even though I'm fairly proficient with Graffiti, it's still a bit slow. Anyone who is decent with hiragana should do okay though. 🙂
 
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