My "outboard brain"
January 22, 2014

My "outboard brain"

Marina Braverman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction

I use Evernote to store the many snippets of research and just plain interesting info that I come across. It allows me to save emails, photos, scanned documents, and web pages - pretty much any piece of data I come across goes into my Evernote. The great thing about it is that when I save content that interests me presently, it pulls up related articles - even ones I saved years ago.
  • Stores many kinds of content.
  • Integrates "real world" and "virtual world" by partnering with companies like WhiteLines to create a notebook that goes into Evernote with a simple smartphone snapshot.
  • Makes it easy to grab emails, web sites, snippets, photos, and audio.
  • Integrates with Skitch to add annotation and sketch capabilities.
  • My main concern is security: they were hacked in 2013 and, other than vague reassurances, they have not shared details of the hack or what they're doing to prevent it from happening again. I do not store any sensitive or confidential information in my Evernote account
  • I would like to see handwriting recognition integrated into Evernote
  • Improved writing efficiency
  • Improved ability to transfer data between "real" (handwritten and drawn notes) and digital
I may not renew my premium subscription, as I don't use most of the extra features it offers, but the free version is excellent and the only alternatives I've used were either locally stored (no cloud integration) or went out of business or did not offer anywhere near the features of Evernote.
If security and confidentiality is a big concern, I would avoid Evernote. I would recommend it both to straightforward users (just want an "outboard brain" to store data) and those who are interested in innovative uses that Evernote Ambassadors put Evernote to. I have not used Evernote for business, but find it excellent for personal use. The premium version does not offer great improvement, on the surface, but power users may need the additional features.