However, I am not sure I want all my notes offline. There was a paid app somewhere - not awfully expensive, just a couple $ - that claimed you could get offline Evernote with it. That's true, but the install of OneNote and a sample notebook is almost 600 mb ! That's insane, I got a 32 GB mini but I don't want to use up a whole gig on one program. For me, the benefits of Evernote (easier capture on mobile devices, tagging, platform availability, to name a few) make it a better choice for my needs. Yes, one is free (but I wonder what about me is being sold to advertisers), but they both hold your data out there in the 'cloud' and provide a means for editing that data. While you may have an aversion to Evernote because it is a SaaS, I consider Sky(One)Drive to also be a SaaS since it provides a document syncing/editing service. I still occasionally use OneNote on the work PC (it is a very nicely done application), but I tend to lean towards Evernote for most things, just because it's everywhere I want it to be, usually through a native app. I also like the ability to forward emails to Evernote and have them appear in my account (from any device, not just from Outlook). Also, I just prefer Evernote on my mobile devices, and I do a considerable amount of data capture there.

While I suppose the Sky(One)Drive web site could be used, I much prefer native apps. When I want to use my personal Mac, I can still access my notes if someone happens to call me for work related items without having to go dig out my PC from the home office (yes, I can be that lazy). The benefit for me was that I can access my notes from just about everywhere. I have used Evernote (to some extent) for a number of years, and I am a premium subscriber. (I also tried Outline+ for iPad with saving my notebooks to Dropbox with some success.) I'm not a huge fan of that, to be honest, but I gave it a go.

My biggest complaint was that to get real sync, I had to put my notebooks on Sky(One)Drive. It does integrate somewhat with Microsoft apps (and if you live in Outlook, etc., then it works well). It is a nice note taking app on Windows, and is structured like many paper based notebook setups. My work PC came with Office 2010 (and obviously OneNote).

What is evernote on my laptop