First thing first. Notepad sucks. It adds zero value to (read decreases) your productivity. There is only one reason to use it... its light.

I tried couple of options available but Notepad++ wins for sure. This is open source project, straight forward and easy to use. This can do whatever a normal editor is supposed to do. Adding to that, it supports syntax highlighting and syntax folding for C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, makefile, ASCII art, doxygen, ASP, VB/VBScript, Unix Shell Script, BAT, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, Tcl, Assembler, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Smalltalk, PostScript, VHDL, FORTRAN, Ada, Caml, AutoIt, KiXtart, Matlab and Verilog. Couple of these I didn't even heard of :(.

It has rich set of features. Such as:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• WYSIWYG
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Multi-View
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
• Dynamic position of Views
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback

For me, the best use is when I say "View Source" from IE. To open source in notepad++, change your default program to open text files in notepad++ using Folder Options.

I know there are are more advanced editors than this. I haven't tried them all but most of them are kind of real resource hog or complex. If you haven't use it, give it a try. :)

All that said doesn't mean I am saying notepad++ is advanced editorthan Vim or Emacs. But I really can't think of a text editor for which I have to read tutorials. Really, tutorials for using a text editor. Am I missing something?

PS: There is a basic comparison of text editors at Wikipedia. If you can spare time, try as much as editors from the list. :)