I was a physics undergrad back when the origami project launched. The origami project was the introduction of the UMPC (which would probably be called a tablet today). At the time I convinced myself that I NEEDED this device to take notes. What I actually found after buying one was that it was completely impractical. I just didn't have the speed I had with pen and paper with equations and diagrams and I would end up having to stop taking taking notes and copy a colleagues after the lecture. The only thing that was useful was recording the lecturer.

Digital note taking may have advanced since then but i gave up on it a long time ago. Having said that, I do still use my N900 occasionally when I don't have a pen and/or paper.