Jilli, if you want to test it out later I could hang out with you briefly. I use it all the time for the online class I teach and with my brother. I will be available from 7:30 to 8:30 central time or so. Send me an email at profile Addy with info if you want to try it.

It's pretty easy but you should probably try it once to make sure all the plug-ins and stuff you need are installed.

Since I got the iPad mini, the full-sized iPad stays on the refrigerator. The smaller size is just so much easier to tote around. Caveat - my full-sized iPad is first generation, so not a retina screen and probably thicker than newer models, both of which no doubt affect usability.

Your roommate definitely should wait a month for the new iPad models to come out.

except, they probably will be considerably cheaper than the new models

After the new iPad models come out, the current generation will probably drop in price. Either way, I'd wait.

Agreed.

ita let me know what stylus functions you fall in love with. I haven't used it for much beyond writing things in Lecture notes (a pretty amazing app itself) If you root the device (no need to install anything custom just a simple root) then GMD SPen Control will probably give you significantly more options on pen gestures - essentially full customkzability to do whatever you want, especially if you use it to launch tasker tasks. I think I might take more advantage of that with a tablet form factor.

Styli are neat but not worth two posts.

Thanks for the reminder of new models--I got mine as a refurbished one after they came out with new models, so it was super cheap (already discounted because refurbished, and then they discounted further because it was no longer the newest kind).

Oh, I'd love recs for stylus apps to download--I'm only going through what came installed--I'm technically just testing, not investing. I am downloading Lecture notes right now--the handwriting in S Notes is clear enough that I think I can use it during meetings, definitely highlighting what I could *not* do with the standard that there's clearly real time potential here.

But mostly I've been poking at art.

Let me go see what rooting involves.

I think art is the killer feature and not my zone. But Lecture Notes is pretty super powerful - kind of OneNote like without any syncing capability but you can export pages to Evernote as images or PDFs. It isn't very fast - S Note or Papyrus are quicker to load - but with a feature set to die for.

EZ Pdf viewer pro has decent pdf annotation tools with some pressure sensitivity. There isn't anything in the space as good as Bluebeam Pdf Revu on Windows, but that costs $100 so. EZ Pdf Viewer is better than anything I have found for tablet PCs at the price point so I actually grade papers with it all the time. You can import PDFs into Lecture Notes but if you want to annotate the PDF directly then EZ is your best bet.