Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet to the note taking rival Evernote with the release of a converter to move your data into Microsoft OneNote.
Evernote is a very well regarded note taking product. It has very good apps for Apple, Android and Windows devices as well as web browser. It’s synchronization between devices is excellent and support very good.
We’ve used and recommended Evernote for many years. It’s an indispensable part of the Office Watch work and personal life.
That recommendation might seem strange coming from a Microsoft Office publication. OneNote is, in theory, better. It has much more comprehensive ink, drawing and image tools. It’s good for note-taking in meetings or lectures (though many Office users still stick with Word).
But OneNote’s strength is also a weakness. Microsoft boasts about OneNote’s “free-form canvas where you can mix text, images, documents, handwriting, audio, video and more” which sounds great. In practice, OneNore can be too intricate and involved for simple notes, chunks of text and other digital sundries that Evernote handles much more elegantly.
Evernote was designed from the start to work across many types of device and screen. It’s smartphone apps work much better than the OneNote equivalents. OneNote was originally a Windows program that has been later forced to work with smaller screens and a wider range of devices.
The lower cost of OneNote is a compelling reason to use it. Evernote will need to raise their game, especially for paid customers, to stop a slow migration to OneNote.
