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For me, it was hard to get started using it effectively. I'm still not sure.
March 08, 2016

For me, it was hard to get started using it effectively. I'm still not sure.

Kim Dammers | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Evernote

I do research in education and also look for useful materials to use in teaching. I chose Evernote to quickly store and organize things I find online.
  • I only use a Windows-operating laptop. Evernote stores what I select both online and on my computer.
  • I almost gave up on it. I found it hard to set things up. Instead of clear, linear instructions where I expected to find them, things were available via unlabeled icons. These icons were often opaque to me. Only when someone in an Evernote forum that i found via a Google search and not at Evernote helped me could I begin to make adequate use of Evernote.
  • Evernote touts itself as an organizer. I find it very messy.
  • After about six months, I barely used it actively. I've just been storing stuff for the future. It's possible that I am fooling myself, thinking that when I put something in Evernote, I'll use it, but actually subconsciously check it off as done - unlike when I actually write on a piece of paper or type on some other place.
Pocket - Pocket is easier to use once it is turned on, but Evernote has the advantage that it is always running. Pocket also has clipping and editing tools that Evernote might or might not have, but I don't know about.
It isn't clear and simple, despite its ads saying so.
however, to just click something and store it, it's OK (though I/it lost one URL that I had stored).
Pocket seems to be a better tool: easier to understand and still more options at first glance. (But Pocket needs to be gone to online to use, where-as Evernote can be always there, which is great if your computer is slow or if you have Internet problems.)

Evernote Feature Ratings

Using Evernote

1 - I am a researcher and an instructor in a non-technology field.
  • Theoretically, research notebooks (but I am leery of trusting it.
  • Quick collection of material I want to go over in the future.
  • Collecting interesting materials for use in teaching.
It's there, it's in my face.
But I don't know if I want to go through the effort of learning how to use it properly, when I have other options (databases; storing in my own files; Pocket).
Whenever I go to it, it seems so confusing.

Using Evernote

It was too hard to find out how to do anything beyond the most basic.
ProsCons
Quick to learn
Familiar
Do not like to use
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Not well integrated
Feel nervous using
  • Storing something without thinking about them or where they are stored.
  • Finding out how to do things, especially how to make a new notebook.