Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I'm looking for a relatively paperless legal workflow, and I have been surprised at how hard it is. It's hard to pull out a laptop in a meeting to take notes, if only because in a 1:1, you are often in someone else's office and don't have a desk handy. I've been looking at the Livescribe for digitizing handwriting, but to date the software has been shitty. The new version that integrates with iPad/OneNote seems to be a step up, though.

The problem with the iPad, however, is that it's not good for marking up documents. It's great for reading legal cases, but not for marking them up and taking margin notes. Personally, I'm one of those people that gets a lot more out of having paper in my hand and scribbling on it than I do just reading something off a computer screen. I'm really intrigued by this product: http://www.thedigitalink.co.uk/products/capturx-markup-for-p..., which lets you print out PDF's onto special paper so that when you write on it with a digital pen, the markings are reintegrated onto the digital copy. Unfortunately, it's really expensive!

Also, 10" is on the small side for what's ideal. A standard piece of paper is 13" diagonal. I've been looking at the 12.2" Samsung, which also has a digitizer, but Samsung's Android skin is just god-awful. It's a shame nobody makes a 12"+ Baytrail Windows 8 tablet with good battery life...

This product seems to really tackle this niche. Apparently Sony is going to be showing it off this week at the ABA tech show in Chicago.

> which lets you print out PDF's onto special paper so that when you write on it with a digital pen, the markings are reintegrated onto the digital copy.

What I do is print out PDF's onto regular cheap paper, mark them up by hand, then run the paper through the scanner. Voila!

It would be neat to have some software that compares the scan and the original PDF to extract just the annotations, then add those as a layer on the original PDF.

You should try a Surface Pro (1/2) with OneNote.

You can get the 1st gen Pro heavily discounted right now.

The battery life is not the greatest, but you can now cheat with the power cover.

But like you said, a 12"+ Baytrail would be fantastic.

I almost pulled the Trigger on a Surface Pro 2. The big problem for me,[1] is that the 16:9 aspect ratio is annoying for reading documents. A 12" 4:3 device would be a lot better. I'm very curious to see what MS has in store for this fall. A native Metro version of Word launching with Surface Pro 3 might seal the deal.

[1] Well the big problem is that the UI is an abomination, with the clunky obsolete desktop married to the slick, intuitive Metro interface. Having to flip between the two just to use Word is a sick joke.

Also, I had one; think of the hinge. You can't use it on your laptop in a chair like a normal laptop. Check out the Samsung 700TC, it's 12.2 inches and has a removable 'Asus-like' keyboard with a real hinge. I haven't used it in a while(I'm really liking 8 inches for a tablet) but it was pretty good.

You can buy one of those iPad style cases for the Surface that make it easier to use when it's in your lap.

I think the Surface is basically for the segment who either use it on a table like a computer or an iPad when it's not -- like me. The good thing is that there are lots of competing products that satisfy other use cases.

>> The big problem for me,[1] is that the 16:9 aspect ratio is annoying for reading documents.

But isn't 16:9 more akin to a legal page than 4:3? ;)

>> [1] Well the big problem is that the UI is an abomination

YMMV, I guess. I'm primarily a Mac user, and I don't mind W8 at all. Keep in mind that the Metro version of OneNote is pretty bad. The desktop version of OneNote is leaps and bounds better. And because of that, you wouldn't have to mode swap to get into the desktop version of Word.

I like Windows 8, at least Metro. I hate the desktop, and I hate having to switch into it.

I have one, it's called the Samsung 700TC. :)

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