I'm a touch typist too. However, I found that I tend to take notes in a very "organic" way, with lots of doodles, arrows, boxes and suchlike. With my Newton, I could take notes in ink, translate the parts I like into text and tidy up doodles with the HWR's built-in shapes function.

I know that all this can be done with a tablet pc and suitable software, but the Newton is less than a quarter of the size of a tablet. Newtons two drawbacks (to me) were the near-impossibility to transfer files in a useful manner and the lack of colour. And the latter was only a minor inconvenience.

You can actually do virtually all of that with a Pocket PC but you have to invest in some software. Calligrapher and the PhatNotes/PhatPad programs are by the same manufacturer and you can write longhand into PhatPad and have it translated by Calligrapher into text. Seems cumbersome to me so I haven't really bothered... I like keyboards, probably because I type well and write longhand abysmally slowly. ;)

I have a Pocket PC (sort of: it's a Siemens SimPad, running WinCE.net 4.1) and trust me: you cannot do, virtually or otherwise, with a Pocket PC what you can do with a Newton.

For starters, the Newton actually has an operating system that is aware that the user will be using -- wait for it -- a stylus...

Wow thanks for all of the responses, they are all helpful. I would love to be using a Newton guys, as I am a Mac user already. But I really want a color screen, so the newton will not work for me.

As far as the PDA route goes, that calligrapher software looks promising. I might have to look at a PDA again, which ones to you recommend Kimmoj?

Notes works fine.
 

I just returned from a conference. During some of the talks, i sketched out an outline for a PowerPoint presentation in the Notes app. When I got home, I FTP'd the file to my Mac using MaemoFTP. Works great. I have a Powerbook (Titanium), but now I just take my 770 on the road--less weight, less bulk, etc.

The 770 form factor is crying for a notepad application. It's an excellent form factor for taking notes -- I prefer portrait to landscape, but whatever! Taking notes in meetings sometimes means checking things on the Net or looking up other things -- all things the 770 is great at.

Good HWR does exist in a modern (sorry folks, the Newton is not modern. Although someone is trying to raise its soul, it's still a dead platform) usable platform. The Sony Ericsson line of smartphones -- P800/P900/P910 -- have excellent HWR. And, I cough when I say this, Microsoft Window XP Tablet PC version has awesome HWR. It can be done.

Some features that would make a great note-taking app: Note taking with HWR or digital ink, allowing the page with ink to grow indefinitiely (sort like MaemoPad+, but with the growing notetaking surface and without the confusing node tree). Organizing of notes in arbitrary fashions. Sending of notes to other applications on other computers. THe ability to import Web pages and PDF and annotate them.

Tall order...I know. Imagine how cool that would be on a 770.

-F

Excuse me, but the P910 and its predecessors do not have good HWR. Strictly speaking they don't have HWR at all: they have character recognition, essentially the same thing as Palms Graffiti. The engine has no idea about words, has no dictionary built in and is basically only good for short and occasional text entries. I should know, I've had a P910i for more than a year now. Even Decuma Alphabetic, though immensely superior to the built-in character recognizer, is not strictly HWR.

AFAIK, Windows Tablet comes with a scaled-down version of PhatWare's ParaGraph HWR, IMO one of the best HWR engines in the world, because it is based on one of the HWR engines that is in the Newton. Mind you, ParaGraph is only really useable in Windows as part of the (to be paid for) PenOffice package.

You do realize that in the paragraph above you are describing the Newton's Notepad application, don't you? Although you did leave out the shape-recognizing ability of the Newton, which would transfer squiggly attempts at drawing geometric shapes into perfect circles, squares, etc...

OK...I don't want to get into a religious war over what is HWR. To me, character recognition is HWR. If you say HWR needs dictionary support, that's fine.

My point is that the current versions of the 770 OS have neither. I am able to sit in meetings and keep up with notes with My SE P910. I am stuck correcting problems with my 770 -- either OS. HWR or character recognition, you pick. It still could be a lot better on the 770.

And my original point was that it can be done. And in a note-taking application, it would be great on the 770.

That could be. I was actually describing GoBinder on Windows Tablet PC. I'm not a fan of Windows; I have to use Tablet PCs for work. But GoBinder is a very nice application that would make the 770 glow if it were squeezed into it.

While I don't go in for Newton-worship, I did own a Newton back in the day and fell in love with many of its features (which are still waiting to be duplicated). The 770 has the potential to be groundbreaking like the Newton. It's not there yet. I hope Nokia and other developers can get it there.

Well, I've used a Fujitsu-Siemens PocketLOOX 720 myself for quite a while now and it is in my opinion the best one out there. Small, fast, great screen, lots of good features. Its successor is the LOOX N560 which is more of the same but with the new WM5 operating system, a faster (624 Mhz) CPU and a built-in GPS (though no camera.) I think the LOOX machines are incredible PDA's. A thriving community of owners at http://www.firstloox.org if you want to take a look.

Calligrapher and the other Phat-apps are at http://www.phatware.com/ - not free, but really good stuff.

I wouldn't get a machine without a VGA (640x480) screen though, so you are looking at the high end of PDA's. It is very possible the cost for one of those will almost double what you'd pay for a 770. Whether or not it is worth it to you is something you have to decide.

Character recognition or true HWR is actually quite important for what you want: AFAIK without true HWR you cannot have ink text with deferred recognition.

Amen.