Review: Evernote

By Sahil Mohan Gupta, NDTV | Updated: 8 June 2012 13:33 IST

Highlights

Evernote is touted as the ultimate note-taking app and is available on 13 different platforms, you’ll never use a pen again.

Available on: iOS, Android, Palm OS, and Windows Phone 7
Reviewed on: iPad
Price: Free

Introduction:

Are you a working journalist or an on the go professional? Do you have a penchant for jotting down everything you hear? Don't fret, just get Evernote. Evernote is touted as the ultimate note-taking application and is available on 13 different platforms (iOS and Android to begin with). You'll never use a pen again.

Usability:

When the iPhone came in, Evernote already had a reputation to protect. It made its name on the basis of its Windows and Mac apps, which have been ably supplemented by its web-based service. Now, Evernote has an app on almost each and every platform barring Nokia's aged Symbian OS.

To begin with Evernote, welcomes us with its home page, which is neatly divided into five panes, namely- All Notes, NoteBooks, Tags, Places and Searches. On the top left corner we have a search bar.

As far note making could the interface could not be simpler. We get the option to input Title names for the particular note, besides this we can also tag our notes so that searching becomes a painless process. But what makes Evernote worth the hype is the fact that whatever we jot down gets almost instantaneously synced to the cloud and to all our other Evernote apps. For instance, if we write a note on our iPad it will pop up on our Mac Evernote, our Android Evernote, on Evernote.com and so on. This is very handy indeed, as the problem of transferring documents from one device to the other has been eliminated. We tested this functionality thoroughly - heck, we wrote this review using Evernote on the iPad.

Another facet of the app is that we can click photos and record sound clips from right within the note-taking interface. This means that we can take critical product shots if attending a product launch event, or record short sound clips if typing becomes a chore. We can even attach images from our gallery in our notes. If you think this is good then get this - we can even post our content on Twitter, Facebook or use good old Email. Google Plus is not yet supported but the way the big G is evolving in social media we believe it's just a matter of time before Google Plus gets integrated in Evernote.

Geo tagging is also enabled so we can tag our notes using Google maps. So if a note has been written in say, Dubai, then the in-built Google maps will show a tiny marker.

But we've saved the best for the last. Evernote has the capability to search for text in your images too, and it makes those words searchable. This is a really fascinating functionality. For instance if we take a picture of a pair of Bose Headphones that shows the logo, we can actually type Bose in the search index and Evernote will automatically detect the 'Bose' text in the image.While this technology is quite similar to Optical Chapter Recognition (OCR), it works quite differently.

Evernote is available for free and will allow 50MB of data storage per month. If that is not enough for you, then one can opt for the yearly $45 plan which offers up-to 500Mb of data storage per month. While we know Evernote is meant for primarily text based content we would appreciate a bit more memory in the free app. Come on, Evernote! Dropbox offers us 2GB of free data and 50MB per month is not even 700MB in a year.

Another gripe we have with the iPad variant is the fact that Evernote has eliminated the nifty Web clipping tool found on the desktop apps. The Web clipping tool allows you to chop small bits of web pages and save them in your Evernote notes. The addition of this feature would have truly made the app flawless. Those who have used it before will know its utility; those who have not will never ever know what they are missing.

Verdict:

It is by far the most complete note-taking application on any of the mobile platforms considering it's available on almost all mobile platforms. It is addictive, very handy and very well designed - ideal for a writer or a journalist, but has the potential to change many more lives.

Synchronization with the cloud is also flawless making it even more useful if a person owns multiple devices and, best of all, its free, unless you are a scribbling machine which would make the paid data options logical. Considering the amount of data offered we believe Evernote is being a tad stingy but we are guessing not many will complain!

Usability -4.5
Price -4.5
Wow factor -4
NDTV Rating: 4.3

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Further reading: Android, Evernote, Palm OS, Windows, iOS, note-taking app

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