High tech goes low tech – introducing NoteSlate

Not a iPad, not an eReader

Let’s say you’re a traditional broker or agent and you’re overwhelmed with all of these tablets that have hit the market. You know you’ll buy one eventually but really you just want a tool that makes your notes digital. Maybe you don’t want an iPad, an eReader and don’t care about shuffling through apps.

Introducing NoteSlate, a simple tablet that replaces your pen and paper and is extremely simple. High tech goes low tech and for $99, the price of a nice engraved leather binder, it has 180 hours of battery life. According to TreeHugger.com, basic black and white NoteSlates come out this June and colored cases come out later this year. They say it feels like a real wooden pencil and is matte like paper, not shiny like a tablet computer. Ooh!

It doesn’t turn your writing into a font or digitally dictate your writing to typed text, it saves all of your notes visually. The implications in real estate are huge, especially for those who aren’t quite ready to be on the bleeding edge of Mac-dom.

Four basic real estate uses

Scenario one: Imagine you’re out in the field and you need to send your assistant a quick note with a sketch of how the cabinetry in your client’s custom build SHOULD look like versus how they DO look like due to shoddy workmanship. You want that timestamped and have a legitimate paper trail, right? And you want your assistant to be able to explain it to the Super properly before you’re even in your car, right?

Scenario two: What about if you’re accustomed to taking notes during tours as a means of committing them to memory? I know I personally have to write everything down, even typing has been studied as a lower form of memory commitment. Maybe you’re doing a first walk through with your listing client and want your written check list to be emailed to yourself for followup or your assistant or marketing director if you have those at your disposal.

Scenario three: We can see a great use for this at conferences for note taking so a complicated touch screen tablet keyboard doesn’t have to slow you down and you don’t have to carry around a heavy laptop. You already have a smartphone for basic computing, maybe NoteSlate is your note taker?

Scenario four: Bloggers could certainly benefit from technology like this- how many times have you written down “blog idea: write about how the national stats conflict with local stat” on a post it and lose it? And you lose your thought? It’s also good for standard note taking during interviews for your blog site.

Why I want one

Although not everyone on staff here will buy into NoteSlate, I know I will simply because I draw out ideas every day, I’m an obsessive note taker and I’m a manually written to-do-list kind of gal and for only $99, it’s worth a shot. I have a notebook I carry with me everywhere and I am very particular about writing in it constantly (and if you know me really well, you know that I write in all caps because I’m OCD about letters being perfectly in line and the same height).

But hey, if I hate the NoteSlate or don’t use it, maybe I’ll give it to our kiddo for her sketches. But I doubt that will happen.

NoteSlate tour in pictures:

Developing story update: some are calling the NoteSlate a hoax. Originally, the concept was without funding and began pitching itself to the public without a prototype but has since gained buzz and they are working with the Startup Nursery in Czechoslovakia. We do not know if/when this product concept will be released to the public, but based on this post and the excited messages we received yesterday, there is a demand for NoteSlate. For now it is still in concept, we cannot confirm production or release date. Treehugger.com has not yet released a retraction or update.