Windows 8 tablet, or Galaxy Note?

I have no experience with either, so I can't make any [informed] recommendations. However:

When I went to college in the Stone Age, er, the 1980s, we didn't have new-fangled contraptions like tablets. BUT, even if we had, I cannot IMAGINE taking math notes (or chemistry, physics, or other courses I took in pre-med) via any method but my trusty mechanical pencil and paper. I mean, seriously, with all the symbols and everything involved in math [and other] equations/formulas, I can't see how ANY device can be as quick and efficient as pencil and paper.

 

That's what all my students use, notebooks and pens or mechanical pencils. I don't wish to hear beeping or "My battery has gone flat, can I plug it in?" or "Can you hold on a moment, it's crashed.". If they want to transcribe their notes electronically, they can do so in their own time.

The school rule is, personal electronics are not allowed to be used in the classrooms during lessons. Any student caught using a phone or a tablet or something, it's confiscated, and they can get it back at the end of the week.

If there's one noise I do NOT wish to hear during my lessons, is that bloody plopping sound that Samsung have added to their flavour of Android....that really grinds my gears.

To be helpful, if you do want to take math notes and formulae on a tablet, the Samsung S Pen is probably the best there is. But make sure you're thoroughly familiar with it, and take a pen and notebook as well to classes and lectures, just in case the tablet craps out on you.

 

Of course I'm in China, so schools and colleges are very different to the US. And I have my own ideas and experiences as well, as a former student and now teacher.

On your course, you probably will have to take down and work a lot of math formulae and notes. That's why I'm thinking of a Samsung device with S Pen, and have a notebook and pen or pencil handy as well.