Anyone using like a Palm Pilot m105 or Psion Series 5 for digital notetaking/sketching?
Any suggestions for modern devices or replacements to these aging/failing ones?
edit: there is also the Cybiko, but those are even harder to find
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Something like this?
both of those are way too expensive ($1000 and $500 respectively) for this simple usecase
an m105 can be had for like $20 and a series 5 for $150
and their keyboards both look abysmal compared to the series 5
Then just buy a bt keyboard and pair it phone
Iām explicitly looking for like airgapped electronic devices, so no wifi or bluetooth or cellular.
Probably not what youāre looking for, but you could get an used Thinkpad X220T and remove the network card
Iād be tempted to buy an e-ink device with stylus support like this and not connect it to Wi-Fi, but if no Wi-Fi/BT hardware at all is a requirement Iām not sure about good modern devices off the top of my head.
Why not get a remarkable tablet and just use it offline?
Ok so this is more trouble that it is worth but Iām putting it here just in case you want a little more DIY and granularity:
Get a Raspberry Pi Compute module and slap it on an appropriate board, notably the official Dev board of Raspberry Pi CM6 has a detachable WiFi and bluetooh (uFL?) antenna.
Only runs linux though. Raspberry Pi CM5 compute should be more than enough compute power to take down notes.
this was my thread
Iāve since found two more interesting things:
- for notetaking there is the AlphaSmart 3000: a digital typewriter/wordeditor
- not pocketable
- you can type whatever into it and it supports a few different files to save to
- when you plug it into a computer it works as any regular keyboard
- but there is a send button that will rapidly type out your document into your computerās opened text/word editor
- takes 3xAA batteries
- around $40-$80 used on eBay
- for sketching there are actually super cheap ālcd writing tabletsā that are actually passive, but use a battery simply to reset/clear the screen
- these have no way of saving/transferring the copy but are still interesting
- Amazon.com: Mafiti LCD Writing Tablet 8.5 Inch Electronic Writing Drawing Pad Portable Doodle Board Gifts for Kids Office Memo Home Whiteboard Black : Toys & Games
- some of them are even double sided and quite pocketable: Amazon.com: Mini LCD Writing Tablet, 6.5in Double Display Erasable Reusable Electronic Drawing Pads, Electronic scratchpad for Kids and Adultsļ¼Black : Electronics
- around $5-$15 new
regarding the palm pilot, the only way to get data off is by running the ancient software in a windows xp/7 virtual machine and passing through the serial cable, which is pitiful.
the series 5 on the otherhand has a cardslot which you could presumabl copy off of with a given reader.
I still am interested with how others take notes, especially on the go. I canāt stand typing or sketching on a phone/tablet, it feels too limiting. And Iām not one to usually keep a laptop on me. And paper seems messy and wasteful.
The Series 5 still interests me, but they are quite rare and expensive and the hinge cable supposedly breaks easily especially given their age.
Why not pen + paper? Composition books are rather cheap, usually have about 80 pages. Too big for a pocket.
Before I had my PalmPilot in the day, I used pocketmod, which is kind of an origami folding of a paper sheet into a small book. See Pocketmod: The Free Recyclable Personal Organizer
You can put different sides on it - a monthly calendar, a list with checkboxes, plain lines, etc. Print one per day, days, or week whatever need is.
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