Handwriting recognition

I think this is a brilliant request and I feel exactly the same way (especially since formulas and graphs are soooo tedious and slow to do on a notebook). Have you already looked around if there are (maybe open-source) options out there? E.g., android apps or a bare-bones, fittingly-licensed, handwriting recognition engine?

There is LipiTk (http://lipitk.sourceforge.net/), and CellWriter (http://risujin.org/cellwriter/), which isn't natural handwriting recognition, but character recognition. It would appear from a look around that Libre handwriting recognition for Linux is just not there. Proprietary systems for Android are coming on, however. The Samsung one seems quite highly regarded, although I've never tried it.

It is a glaring omission on mobile devices.

Thanks for this most helpful comment! Myself, I'd be happy to pay for such things if they actually work. I recall fiddling around with some paid-apps back on the Nexus7 (2012) and it was useless. However, as discussed below, NVIDIA seems to have gotten the package right with the Shield. So maybe with newer screens and CPUs these things are now doable...

For as long as I can remember, in the pre-iPhone era, palmtops and big screen phones (even small screen ones, look at the SE M600) have been sold with a stylus. These were usually toothpick like sticks with the ergonomics of a match. The screen quality was so crappy, that you could smear a drawing of a male reproductive organ, but for any fine art or writing, the technology or haptics were missing. On top of that, the handwriting recognition was bad. So, all in all, nobody wanted to actually use that.

Even on the iPads, apps like Bamboo Paper or Evernote's Penultimate do not do handwriting recognition. You can use them with an active stylus and you get a rather good resolution so your writing might be readable, but your text will not be translated to machine letters. My experience is: I do not want to use that, it feels wrong, looks wrong and it does not help me at all.

My solution was to buy a livescribe pen and write on the compatible paper. Yes, it still has paper, yes it is rather expensive. But it yields the best results, I get my writings transferred to the desktop and the livescribe software actually is able to make my notes searchable. If I bought the MyScript software, I could transfer them to machine letters. With the Sky series of pens, your handwirting will gets transferred via Wifi to Evernote, you could then use your tablet to read them.

tl;dr: Even if it worked smoothly, it feels so shitty you probably do not want to use it.

All these issues you list are down to the problems with the input devices, be it crappy digitizer resolution, crappy handwriting recognition software or a crappy stylus. The common factor here is not the suitability of the input method, but the crappiness of the implementation. Livescribe is not an option as it is Mac/Windows only and requires another device.

I would hope that a tablet could become a primary computing device, without a decent data entry system this is not possible. Handwriting offers the most flexible and most compact data entry system for tablets. The problem is that the software just isn't there to do it. A suitable fairly fine, soft capacitative tip on a stylus would be best for overcoming the feel of writing on the hard glass screen and prevent scratching. If the tips were to wear down then replaceable tips or a pencil like core that could be sharpened would also be good for the useability of the stylus. Admittedly a 7" tablet is a bit small, an iPad sized device or bigger would be a better minimum size, but there is nothing that prevents this from being a killer app for tablets. Without it, data entry will always be an absolute chore, or one that requires additional external devices like a keyboard to make input efficient. It would change a tablet from being a content display device to being a truly useful tool. We could then ditch the horrible, bulky laptop (and Widows with it).