My expectations were low for the relatively generic Comulytic Note Pro, but I was pleasantly surprised that it’s not only the most useful all-around notetaker available but also the cheapest after you consider the cost of a premium subscription.

The slim device, at 28 grams, is small enough to fit in a purse or not interfere with the included magnetic ring on the back of your handset (note: it requires a special USB dongle to charge). 64 GB of storage space and a 45-hour battery life are not large, but both should be more than enough to handle a whole week of interviews without offloading or recharging, all processed through OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Google’s Gemini. A small LCD is helpful (and rare in this market), which shows when you’re recording and offers a recording duration. This makes it a lot more useless than other notetakers, which offer nothing more than a colored LED to tell you when it’s on.

Note Pro supports 113 languages—sort of. It will record in a foreign language and offer a verbatim transcript in the native language, but insights and summaries are provided in your chosen language. It’s not a complete solution if you need a complete, direct translation, but if you need the entirety of a foreign news story or speech, Comulytic can handle it.

The proof is in the quality of the abstracts and insights provided. Of all the devices I tested, Comulytic’s summaries are the most meaningful and the least rambling (even better than its transcripts), effectively selecting the most relevant parts of the interviews and pulling the best quotes from my conversations (maybe too many sometimes). It’s also the only device that correctly transcribes an obscene product nickname mentioned in an interview, indicating that a more sophisticated language model may be behind the scenes.

Comulytic is not perfect. It doesn’t transcribe in real time, it’s one of the slowest products to complete analyses, and I couldn’t get the “fast transfer” mode to work, which means all recordings have to be sent to my phone via a pokey Bluetooth connection, but these are minor dings against a solid solution. Best of all, for a limited time, the company includes a generous three-month premium service free of charge. Even if you don’t want to subscribe, the free plan, which offers three “deep dives” and 10 abstracts a month, is better than nothing.

A subscription costs $15 per month or $120 per year