My Review of Easynotes

Two of the best features I have liked on my Palm-powered handhelds from the beginning have been the Notepad and Memo Pad. As I learned more about the Palm OS, I found other applications that suited my needs better than the built-in apps: like Diddle Bug and Wordsmith. Well, an opportunity came along to review Easynotes from Iambic and to be honest, I don’t recall hearing much about the program. Easynotes is supposed to manage all your memos, pen notes, and voice memos in 1 application. With now having voice recording capabilities, I thought it would be worth checking out. I mean it sounds like a powerful app, but can it really replace the other apps I have been using for such a long time?

Well, to start off with the main menu area where you see a list of your memos, pen memos, and voice memos is a bit confusing to me. The reason for this is I think that each category icon should be placed first. This way you as you look at your memo list you can identify the category of each memo easily. This is probably my main complaint over the main memo list. Otherwise, you can completely customize your main memo list by adding specific category icons, note icons, color options, and several sorting options. The whole program is similar to the Palm Memo Pad application making it have a familiar feel, but adding a more individualized and customized interface.

When you tap on one of your memos or create a memo, you will be taken to a tabbed interface. You have three tabs: Text, Pen, & Voice. I found this interface very useful. I could add a hand written note to a memo or voice memo. Better yet, I could take my pen notes and transfer them rather quickly to text memos. You can also add an alarm to a text memo, pen memos, and voice memos. Alarms are a feature that I think should be standard with memos and to-dos. I always need an extra reminder of what I need to do and I like that Easynotes allows for that. Now we will take a brief look at each of the tabs: text, pen, and voice.

Text Tab

I feel Iambic has done right by keeping the text tab simple. It resembles the built-in memo app, but Easynotes allows you to have all the basic memo functions easily available. You don't need to access a sub menu to delete a memo. Setting alarms is also just a tap away and so is setting the category. You also can add an icon and/or a title to your memo and your icon/title can be displayed in the main memo list.

Pen Tab

The best feature to me about the Pen Tab is the ability to change your pen’s color. You can choose any color for the color palette that makes for great sketching and doodling. I doodled a lot during the 3rd grade. Every one of papers had some weird drawing at the top usually of some poor stick man being blow away by another stick man. ;) You can also add shapes, lines, and fill spaces on your sketches and have 11 different pen tips to choose from. It even allows for high-resolution sketches. You can definitely make so sweet sketches with Easynotes. Everything is easy to get to and just a tap away: icons, alarms, and categories.

Voice Tab

What I found most interesting with the voice tab was the capabilities of recording your voice notes at different bit-rates. I’m not sure what the default bit-rate of the built-in voice recorder on my Palm is, but I know I can’t change it! The voice quality is good and it sounded like me on playback. Unfortunately, it did make me sound better than what I am. :( I wanted to be able to map the voice tab to my voice recorder button on the side of my lifedrive but there isn’t an option for that, maybe in a future release. Again icons, alarms, and setting categories are just a tap away. I’d also like to see support for the Lifedrive’s memory setup. When you go to the preferences menu, you can select main memory or memory card, but nothing is said about the Lifedrive memory.

Conclusion:

There was quite a bit I liked about Easynotes and not much not to like. It does what it claims and it does it well. If you take a lot of notes, Easynotes can be very helpful in keeping them organized and in one place for you. No more switching from app to app, you have it all in one powerful and flexible app. It’s definitely worth a look and I give it 4 out of 5 PA Palms.

Pros
- All in one text, pen, and voice memo manager
- Easy access to commands
- Ability to set alarms
- My Favorite – multi-colored sketches! Where was this when I was a kid?!?

Cons
- Main menu list a bit confusing to me
- No ability to map voice tab to voice recorder button on Lifedrive
- Storage area isn’t clear on the Lifedrive

Joshua Burdick – Associate Writer (Buffalo, NY, USA)