Stylus enabled
With S-Pen support, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3 feels less like a phone that folds, and more like a hybrid device that blurs the line between phone and tablet. If you’ve already pre-ordered a Galaxy Z Fold 3 and S-Pen Fold Edition, we’ve assembled the best note-taking apps to take advantage of these new features.
The built-in option
Samsung Notes supports handwriting and typing, sketching, PDF markup and annotation, and audio recordings. One of the best features is Samsung’s Screen Off Memo, allowing for taking notes and saving them when the screen is off — meaning you can pull your device out of your pocket and quickly jot a note down with your S-Pen.
Microsoft OneNote is another note-taking app that comes with Samsung devices, thanks to Samsung’s and Microsoft's continued partnership. OneNote can work as a minimalist solution, but becomes especially powerful for those who also work within Microsoft’s Office 365 software suite. OneNote’s built-in inking features also work well with an active stylus, like the S-Pen.
A good option for Windows users
OneNote supports writing or typing notes, drawing or sketching, and supports attaching photos or PDFs. Users can also clip content from emails or the web and pull it into OneNote. OneNote offers cloud syncing with OneDrive, and can integrate with Office to embed Excel tables or attach Word documents to your OneNote notebook.
Google Keep is a good solution for people who have a lot of Android devices. Where other apps focus on productivity and collaboration, Google Keep opts for a more simple, streamlined approach with its colored card format reminiscent of Sticky Notes. As with our other suggestions, you can use your S-Pen for handwritten notes or sketches.
Google’s solution
Google Keep benefits heavily from Google’s cloud backend, and obviously ties in well with Google’s other apps (Docs, Sheets, etc.), with notes syncing across all devices connected to a user’s Google account. Despite its simpler approach, Keep still offers support for a variety of inputs, images, and checklists. Keep also features automatic transcription of recorded audio notes, should you rather talk instead of write.
Evernote is a multi-platform note-taking app that focuses on productivity. There’s support for standard features such as audio and video, to-do lists, handwriting, and sketching, and a neatly tagged notebook organization structure.
The power user option
Evernote also offers more advanced features like the option to scan documents, and the app can recognize and capture physical notes with the camera. While Evernote has a free version, a monthly subscription (plans start at $8/month) unlocks features like increased file sizes, custom templates, and integration with Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Formerly an iOS exclusive app, MyScript Nebo is another more advanced solution that is best suited for writing and sketching with an active stylus, like the S-Pen.
If you need to mark PDFs
In addition to note-taking and sketching, Nebo also allows users to import Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files as PDFs that can then be marked up and annotated. Nebo’s handwriting recognition supports 66 different languages, and there’s support for rich content and math objects for equations and calculations. For Android devices, Nebo is available for a one-time payment of $12.