What the writer claims
Shah says he had written Evernote off years ago. He came back after seeing steady updates, and he lists the following as the reasons he now prefers it:
- a refreshed interface
- a multi-tab layout
- a redesigned Tags view
- a more capable editor
- tasks, reminders, calendar integration and a Home dashboard
- voice notes and AI meeting summaries
He allows that Obsidian still wins on customization and that OneNote is a solid free option and good at free-form note-taking. He also concedes that Evernote's pricing "is still a concern."
The description of the app as "17 years old" needs a caveat. The public Evernote web service launched on June 24, 2008, launching into open beta on June 24, 2008. CBS News reported at the time that access to Evernote was available to everyone, without a prior invitation, on the Web, Mac, Windows, iPhone, Windows Mobile and other mobile devices. By that date the service is about 18 years and five months old. Evernote's lineage goes back further, because the company was founded in 2000 and marketed software for Windows desktop PCs. The "17" in the headline is loose either way.
Which claims check out against Evernote's own documentation
Tags view
Evernote's help page says the redesigned Tags view offers 48 colors that work in light and dark mode. It also offers table or grouped layouts, sorting, filtering and nesting. You can select several tags and recolor, nest or delete them in one go.
Two details matter for switchers:
- The rollout is gradual. Evernote says desktop, web and mobile users who don't see the view yet will get it on their account soon, so check that your app is up to date.
- In Teams accounts, tag actions you lack permission for appear greyed out.
Slash commands
Typing / at the start of a new line opens an insert menu. It covers tasks, tables, checklists, callouts, code blocks, attachments, audio recordings, table of contents and more. There is a catch: the help page says the command works in paragraphs, headings and tables, but not in lists. If your cursor is mid-line, add a space before the slash. On desktop you can turn the / and @ commands off under Settings, Preferences, Notes.
Meeting recorder and transcription
Evernote's help page confirms that the former AI Meeting Notes can record in-person and online meetings. It then generates a transcript with speaker recognition and an AI summary. Several limits are worth knowing:
- Recordings are capped at 1 GB or two hours each. Evernote's January v11 announcement had mentioned a one-hour limit, so the cap has moved since launch.
- The Summary button needs at least 250 characters of transcript.
- Recording works offline, but AI processing needs an internet connection.
- You can't currently download the transcript or summary. You can copy it instead.
- You can choose an internal transcription model, which Evernote says never sends audio to a third party. The external model sends audio to a third-party provider and suits noisy or quiet recordings.
- AI transcription can be switched off in settings.
Recent updates add to this. The October 2026 recap describes desktop meeting detection for apps such as Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and Slack. It also describes a new audio player with playback speed control, 15-second skips and speaker identification. Meeting detection is desktop only.
Release context
Evernote's v11 announcement on January 19, 2026 called it the first significant release since v10 in 2020. It introduced AI Assistant, Semantic Search and AI Meeting Notes. The Starter and Advanced plans had arrived two months earlier, in November 2025, replacing Personal and Professional; Enterprise is the long-standing business tier. Release notes list desktop and web version 11.42.3 as the latest, with frozen table columns and emoji reactions.
The part to check before migrating: plan limits
The author's one stated reservation, price, is the practical one. Evernote's plan comparison lists these limits:
| Plan | Notes | Notebooks | Tags | Synced devices | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 50 | 1 | 20 | 1 | 1 GB |
| Starter | 1,000 | 20 | 100 | 3 | 5 GB |
| Advanced | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
*Evernote notes safeguard limits apply to prevent abuse.
Evernote's help documentation adds that Free and Starter users who exceed their limits can still view, edit, share and export existing notes. They cannot create new notes or notebooks until they are back under the limit or upgrade. Notes in Trash count toward the note limit.
That matters if you are coming from Obsidian, where a vault is just a folder of files, or from OneNote. A large archive will not fit comfortably on the Free tier, and the 48-color Tags view is of little use with a 20-tag cap. I couldn't verify current prices from the material available, so check the pricing page before you commit.
How it compares with Obsidian and OneNote
This is general industry knowledge, not something tested here:
- Obsidian stores notes as local Markdown files, and its flexibility comes from plugins. Evernote is a hosted service with built-in features. You gain convenience and give up file-level ownership and extensibility.
- OneNote ties into Microsoft 365 and offers free-form canvas notes. Evernote's pitch is structure: notebooks, stacks, tags, tasks and a calendar. The plan comparison says it connects Google or Microsoft Office calendars and integrates with Outlook.
- AI features differ in how much they send to the cloud. Evernote's model choice for transcription is a useful privacy control, but you should still read its AI feature FAQ if your notes are sensitive.
A sensible way to try it
- Install Evernote on your Windows PC and update to the latest version, so the new Tags view and recent features can appear.
- Import one project's notes rather than your whole archive, and watch the note and notebook counts against the plan limits.
- Test the editor, tabs, slash commands and a short recorded meeting. Check the transcript before relying on it, because Evernote itself warns that transcription can contain errors from audio quality or speech patterns.
- Decide whether you need more than one synced device or more than 1,000 notes before paying for a tier.
Bottom line
The XDA piece is an opinion, but Evernote's own documentation backs most of the feature claims it relies on. Its caveats are real: the Tags view rolls out gradually, slash commands skip lists, transcripts need proofreading, and the plan limits are tight below the top tier. If you gave up on Evernote years ago, a trial is cheap. Moving your whole second brain over is worth doing only after you've checked those limits.
Correction (November 13, 2026): The article said v11 introduced the Starter, Advanced and Enterprise plans. Starter and Advanced actually arrived in November 2025, replacing Personal and Professional, two months before the January 19, 2026 v11 announcement; Enterprise is a long-standing business tier.