I am staring college in January and I am trying to find a good way take and save notes. So here is my train of thought. I could buy a cheap laptop, that would only be used for school and nothing else. The plus of that is, I can take notes more easily and quicky. The downside is that I would be spending so much money for something I would use so little. But what about the iPad? I am good on touch screen keyboards so that won't be an issue so couldn't I just use that for notes? Also, what I would probably end up doing is taking notes on paper and transcribing them onto the iPad (since writing things down is how I remember things, it'll help me study too.) Basically, would the iPad be good for a student?
I'd say so. I love my iPad. Useful to a student - 10-hour battery life means you don't have to lug a laptop charger around. Plus, if you don't like the touch keyboard, you can use any bluetooth keyboard with it. That and a copy of Pages or another notetaking app and I think you're set.
I suppose the iPad could be a good choice out of the several options. There's a new thing by wacom but...not out yet (mid october i think)... called the Inkling. What it basically is it attaches itself to normal paper and digitizes it automatically to the likeness of your writing...so basically what you write/draw on paper gets turned into an electronic image which you can later put on the computer. Search it up I think it costs around $200? However, if you're confident with typing notes...a laptop or ipad i suppose...but i still find lugging anything over 1.5KG annoying. Maybe a netbook? unless you think the screen is too small...
Paper on its own is a pretty good option as well, when accompanied by a couple of folders to organise stuff in. I'd say see how it goes at first without technology, and if you can't keep things in order that way, either splash out on an ipad/laptop/whatever or just use the computers at your college's library.