[Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) General] Stocklone:
I do everything through Lecture Notes currently. I used to do everything through Quill but I found Lecture Notes to be perfect for note taking since it allows for folders as well as notebooks. So I can jump very quickly to the notes I need for the current project I'm working on where everything is organized at the location I'm working at for a given project and the year and month if it was something very regular like weekly team meetings. That structure is good enough for me for retrieving whatever I'm looking for. I know Quill has tags if you want to filter individual pages in a given book but the GUI is incredibly slow once you have a lot of notebooks.

My folder hierarchy is typically Location\Building\Project\(Year\Month) for Lecture Notes. That allows me to split things up enough that I'm okay with combing through my notes from that point out. I do date each entry in my notes than highlight it in yellow so I can quickly find notes for a given day. I'm pretty sure LN offers some kind of tagging system if you wanted to make things searchable.

With Quill I backed up old notes to PDF and made a copy on my microSD and my notebook. I actually haven't archived anything yet with Lecture Notes but I know it can export to PDF so I will probably do that. Quill actually offers syncing notes between devices but I never used it. Quill also had automatic backing up to the microSD card.

I don't ever really access my notes on a PC. Due to computer restrictions where I work, my tablet pretty much has to remain an island unto its self while I am at work. If I wanted to make them accessible I would probably sync the PDF files with Dropbox I imagine.

I think Quill has the prettiest writing but Lecture Notes once you set it up is far more functional.

My system would probably fall apart if I wasn't working in an environment of multiple unrelated ever changing projects. If I only worked one project as my entire job, tagging pages would probably be much more important.

For future reference, a setup where you really don't have to think about anything for syncing between devices and backing up, OneNote with Office 2013 on a Surface Pro 2 is probably as simple as you are going to get. That's what my wife uses.

---------- Post added at 04:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:44 PM ----------

I personally hate this tablet without root. Once I had root, this tablet became an absolute joy to use. I think rooting would be the best advice I could give to a new user that might be frustrated with their Note. Then nearly anything that pisses you off can be fixed in way or another.

Finding the right 3rd party apps is also crucial. I think that if you assume what Samsung provides is the end all of what works with the S Pen, you are really limiting yourself. Once you start branching out you see all the possibilities of the S Pen you can have a much better idea of how useful it is. Also, many times you have to turn on S Pen support for an app such as drawing and note taking apps. Until then it treats the pen like a finger. And sometimes some random 3rd party app may actually do something better than all the big companies with similar apps. Research seriously pays off with this tablet.

A not so super obvious benefit of the S Pen is gaming. I don't know how anybody plays R-Type with their finger when you have all those little enemies flying around the screen from every angle. The S Pen is a huge advantage there. Even casual games like Fruit Ninja, I can play way better with an S Pen because of the higher accuracy and less obstructed vision.