Best Note Taking App for Android
There are many note taking apps with completely different approaches to organizing your thoughts. Google Keep is our favorite, striking the perfect balance between quick notes and serious organization. You can sketch something easily or use filters, labels, color coding, and more.
Google keep
Platform: Android Price: Free download page
Functions
- Stores text and list of notes
- Attach a photo or voice recording to notes
- Flag notes for easy filtering
- Color-coded notes
- Search notes by text, type, color, label, or attachment
- Set time or place reminders for specific notes
- Share notes and lists with other users
- Shared notes are synced immediately for all users
Where is it best
Google Keep is the perfect balance between a basic note-taking app and a full-fledged notebook like Evernote. If all you need is a quick spot to jot down your text, Keep will help you without having to jump through hoops. You can easily add plain text notes or quick to-do lists without creating entire notebooks or organization charts.
However, if you want more, Keep has a ton of features hidden beneath the surface. You can attach a voice recording or photo to your notes (but only one at a time), color code and tag them for easy filtering, and even share them with others so everyone has the same information. You can also set reminders in Keep that work exactly like Google Now reminders so you don’t forget about the assignment you scribbled.
Where it fails
Google Keep is good for short notes, but it lacks many of the features that more powerful tools like Evernote have. You can’t organize your notes into notebooks – shortcuts serve a similar function, but by default the page still stores all your notes in one place, and the notes themselves are very simple. You cannot use advanced formatting or add tables, and you can only add images as header images. You cannot add them to a note.
Competition
If Google Keep is a notepad, then Evernote is a filing cabinet. A live note-taking service is an obvious alternative for a more dedicated note organizer. Evernote is great for large research projects or just keeping a notebook for anything you want to remember. Jotting down a shopping list is a bit overkill, but if you want a really powerful note-taking app, Evernote is taking the throne right now.
OneNote from Microsoft offers some of the most robust features for taking real notes. In addition to the rich text, images, and tables that Evernote offers, you can also draw with the marker and selection tools. You can even add ruled lines to make your notes look like a notebook. Like Evernote, this is probably overkill for simple notes, but it’s a good alternative if you want something different.
SimpleNote goes in the opposite direction. This app has even fewer features than Google Keep, which is good for those who don’t need the bells and whistles. It uses plain text with no special formatting. You can bookmark or pin certain notes or search your archive, but from an organizational point of view, this is not much. Which is great if you like a minimalistic note taking app.