Best on-the-go note taking app on Google play store. Neatly organize your notes and ideas by typing or hand writing. Best note taking app with stylus android is a note-taking application for Android devices. It allows the user to create handwritten notes by using the touch screen or an attached stylus. With this app, you can write text anywhere on the screen, because it supports both portrait and landscape mode.
Best Note is an amazing, simple and easy to use notepad application for Android. It’s powered by a built-in and powerful handwriting recognition system (capacitive touch screen device only). With Best Note you can easily create and manage your notes. You can write with your finger, flip the phone to enable the stylus pen and enjoy hand-written notes on your phone.
Adobe apps
Price: Free / Up to $52.99 per month
Adobe apps make for excellent stylus apps. Some of the apps include Adobe Photoshop Sketch, Illustrator Draw, and other creative apps. There is also a document scanner, Adobe Fill & Sign, and other business oriented apps. These are all excellent apps for stylus and S Pen users. They get frequent updates, work fairly well, and most of each app is free. They also integrate well with their desktop counterparts. Thus, if you use Adobe Lightroom on mobile, you can easily make it work with the desktop version as well. However, that does require an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
Google Keep
Where many note keeping services focus on rich feature sets, Google Keep tries to do the opposite, aiming for a fairly simple cloud-based note taking app that still supports a wide variety of inputs such as text notes, checklists, audio and photos.
Google Keep displays your notes and to-dos in a card format reminiscent of sticky notes. Each note can be tagged, colored or set with a time or location-based reminder.
Download Google Keep: Android, iOS
GoodNotes
The best note-taking app for iPad Pro.
SPECIFICATIONS
Developer: Time Base Technology LimitedAvailable for: iPad, iPhone, MacFree version: NoFree trial for paid version: No
REASONS TO BUY
+Optimised for Apple Pencil+Good handwriting conversion+Affordable price
REASONS TO AVOID
-No free version
If you’ve invested in the iPad Pro, we expect you’re using it for more than checking Facebook and watching cat videos. If you’re looking to take advantage of its powerful functionality to be more productive, make sure you’re using it to jot down creative ideas in the moment. To do that, we’d like to point you in the direction of GoodNotes, our next pick from the best note-taking apps.
This iOS app turns your iPad into digital paper, allowing you to make searchable handwritten notes quickly and easily wherever you find yourself. You can use the Apple Pencil (or one of the best Apple Pencil alternatives), or just your finger. It’s the most similar experience to writing on paper that we’ve found. And we’re not talking about a few scrawled words here; this clever app can recognise everything from equations to mind maps, and it does a great job of converting handwriting into text.
Everything gets auto-synced to the iCloud, and you can access your notes from your iPad, iPhone and Mac (there’s also a macOS version). GoodNotes also allows you to mark up PDFs manually. Available at a relatively cheap, one-off price, GoodNotes is the perfect app for iPad Pro users who want to make notes when inspiration strikes.
Notion
Notion aims to be your personal and team productivity hub. The app allows users to create customized private or shared workspaces where they can then add versatile “blocks” that act like text snippets, bookmarks, images, toggle links, files, code snippets, discussion sections, and more.
As a result, you can customize your workspace as you see fit, dragging and dropping blocks of content to where you want, without disrupting an entire document. Whether you’re doing note-taking, spreadsheeting, or building a Kanban board, Notion’s powerful building blocks make things a snap to set up.
The free version of Notion allows you to save and sync up to 1,000 blocks of content, while premium subscription plans remove that content limit and add admin tools, permission settings, and other features, depending on which tier you opt for.
Character Maker
Price: Free / $1.99-$2.49
Character Maker is a series of drawing apps. There are a few apps in the collection, including instructional apps for kids, pixel art, and and a general tutorial app. Drawing is doable with a finger. However, these are much easier with a stylus. The apps include a ton of tutorials, The apps range in price from $1.68 and $3.68. However, they don’t have any in-app purchases or ads to otherwise bother you. They all make for great stylus and S Pen apps.
Notes
iPhone users already have a pretty compelling note-taking option on their phone courtesy of Apple’s Notes app. What you get from this built-in app is a clean, simple interface and a number of tools for creating notes with formatted text, dictation, drawings, images, web snippets and file attachments. Users can organize notes and attachments in a folder system and search for text
One of the most compelling reasons to use Notes — other than the fact that it’s already there on your iPhone or iPad — is that all of your notes are synced across your iCloud devices. You can also password-protect your notes (or unlock them with TouchID). Other options allow you to share Notes with other people, with everyone able to make changes from their iPhone, iPad or Mac.
The sharing feature alone makes Notes a pretty compelling option, even for a built-in app on your iPhone. And in iOS 15, a new mentions feature notifies people when they’re tagged in a shared note. iOS 15’s tags feature also gives you a better way of organizing Notes, as you can see in our iOS 15 Notes hands-on.
Download Notes: iOS
Material Notes
The best note-taking app for Android.
SPECIFICATIONS
Developer: Prasad ShirvandkarAvailable for: AndroidFree version: YesFree trial for paid version: No
REASONS TO AVOID
-Only for Android
Note-taking apps shouldn’t be complicated, but it’s surprising how often you can open one and not know where to start. The Android app Material Notes doesn’t have that problem. Its opening screen proclaims simply, ‘Click the + button to add notes’, and it couldn’t be easier to use.
The user-friendly approach continues through the whole interface, allowing you to create notes, to-do lists and reminders without effort. You can colour-code them, organise them into categories, archive them, assign favourites, and more. There are also some handy unique features, such as the ability to create quick notes from notifications, back up your notes to Google Drive, print directly from the app, and tell your device to read notes out loud.
The app is free to download, while a Pro version – available for a cheap one-off payment – adds extra features including a calendar view, backend encryption, extra fonts, and reminder notifications. There’s no sync functionality, but for many, that’s a feature rather than a gripe, since not everyone wants sensitive information floating about on the web. If you just want to keep your notes on a single device, this is the best note-taking app available for Android. If you do want to sync notes across devices, however, we’d point you to Evernote at number one on our list.
Gboard
Price: Free
Gboard is one of several good keyboard apps. This one also includes a handwriting input option. You can use your stylus and write your messages. The app then converts it to text and inputs it wherever needed. It works in notes, text messages, search, and wherever else you can type. It’s a bit of an old school, niche function, but some people enjoy the act of writing out missives. It’s a simple, elegant solution that fans of the stylus might appreciate.
Microsoft OneNote
The best note-taking app for Windows.
SPECIFICATIONS
Developer: MicrosoftAvailable for: Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, webFree version: NoFree trial for paid version: One month (for Office 365 subscription)
REASONS TO BUY
+Feature-rich+Optimised for MS software+Powerful free version
REASONS TO AVOID
-Extra storage requires subscription
If you do most of your work in Microsoft’s ecosystem, a notetaking app optimised for Windows makes a lot of sense, even if it’s also cross-platform. The feature-rich Microsoft OneNote works across Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. You can attach images, symbols, Excel tables, audio files and more to notes, and you can extract text from images. You can also clip web pages through a browser extension, and you can add diagrams and sketches drawn on a Surface tablet.
More uniquely, this note-taking app offers an Accessibility Checker, which highlights problems like low contrast, which can make text difficult to read, or images that are missing alt text. There are some great sharing and collaboration features too, such as allowing others to add comments to your notes.
Best of all, the free version of Microsoft OneNote includes the vast majority of its features. The only slight catch is that you get just 5GB of storage. If you want more, you’ll need to take out a Microsoft 365 Business subscription.
LectureNotes
Price: Free / Up to $4.99
LectureNotes was once, is currently, and likely always will be the hallmark of a great stylus app. It offers a bunch of features including image importing, stylus support, notebook export (for sharing) to your device, Evernote, and OneNote, advanced organization features, and more. If you install LectureVideos and LectureRecordings, you can also insert video and audio recordings into your notebooks right alongside your notes. It’s extremely powerful and popular. There are also additional plugins that cost extra money. They add more functionality.
Nebo
The best note-taking app for using with a stylus.
SPECIFICATIONS
Developer: MyScriptAvailable for: iPhone, iPad, Windows, Android, ChromeOS (but only supported devices)Free version: NoFree trial for paid version: One month (for Office 365 subscription)
REASONS TO BUY
+Superb handwriting conversion+Annotate PDFs+Add custom words
REASONS TO AVOID
-Only for high-end devices
If you want to take lots of handwritten notes with a stylus, MyScript Nebo is best note-taking app for that overall. It’s optimised for modern digital pens like Apple Pencil and the Samsung S Pen, and it has some very cool features indeed.
You can write with both fingers and a stylus, use a digital eraser where supported, and change the colour of your notes. There’s support for 66 languages, and maths and equations are recognised by the app’s clever AI.
With its proprietary Interactive Ink technology, MyScript Nebo also does a very neat job of translating handwriting into digital text. It’s also highly versatile, allowing you to combine handwriting and text in the same paragraph, sentence or even in a single word. You can add custom words, such as technical terms or slang, to help with recognition, and you can see a preview of your handwriting conversion in real time. The only downside is that it only works on high-end devices
RoughAnimator
Price: $4.99
RoughAnimator is an animation app that lets you animate actual moving pictures. The way it works is you draw something, then add a frame and change things up a bit. Once you’re done, you have a little animated movie. This is one of only a few apps capable of doing this. It has specific features for stylus users and direct S Pen support. You can export animation to QuickTime video, GIF, or an image sequence as well. It’s a surprisingly good app despite its lack of popularity. It’s one of those stylus apps that are worth a shot.
Evernote
Evernote is one of the first apps that comes to mind when it comes to note taking, and for good reason. It provides a feature-rich note taking service that syncs across multiple devices and platforms, making sure that your notes, photos and other documents are always at your fingertips, whether you’re on a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.
Tagged notebook organization, support for photos, videos, to-do lists and more make Evernote a versatile note taking solution, though it is more complex then minimalist solutions.
The free Basic plan has a limit of 60MB of new uploads each month with syncing limited to two devices. Upgrade to a personal account for $7.99/month, and you can upload 10GB each month and sync across unlimited devices; the $9.99 professional account ups the limit to 20GB.
Download Evernote: Android, iOS
Bear
The best note-taking app for Apple devices
SPECIFICATIONS
Developer: Shiny FrogAvailable for: iPad, iPhone, MacFree version: YesFree trial for paid version: One week (monthly subscription) or one month (annual subscription)
REASONS TO BUY
+Minimalist and elegant+Syncs across iCloud+Capable free version
REASONS TO AVOID
-Sync requires subscription
Apple products are about beautiful, intuitive simplicity, and Bear fits that philosophy perfectly. As the best note-taking app for Macs and the iPad, it lets you create notes and sync them across all your Apple devices via iCloud. There’s no fussing about with folders and notebooks; you just create notes and then store them. You can attach tags, images and other files, as well as drawings created on your iPad or iPhone. There are apps for macOS, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, plus a browser extension.
There’s a free version of Bear if you just want to take notes on your iPad, but you’ll need to pay for the Pro subscription to sync them across devices. That also gives you extra export options, plus the ability to encrypt your notes, password-protect them, and unlock them using Face or Touch ID.
Just be aware that even the Pro version is a purposely stripped down app. For example, there’s no formatting panel, just support for Markdown. If you want more features, look to Evernote or OneNote, but if you want a simple, minimalist app for iOS that gets the job done, there’s no better option.
Conclusion
Both iPhones and Android devices usually come with their own built-in notes app, but sometimes, it’s best to turn to a more full-featured program if you need to take notes during a meeting or lecture, tick off a checklist, brainstorm ideas or remind yourself of upcoming events and tasks.
That’s why we’ve gone through the App Store and Google Play to find the best note taking apps for mobile devices. Install one of these apps on your phone, and you’ll never need to scramble to find pen and paper again.