Gone are the days when we used to keep a pen and a slip pad handy. Who needs these stone age contraptions when you are all equipped with smartphone and tablet. There are dozens of note taking apps available for major mobile operating systems. If you happen to wield an Android device, be it a phone or a tablet, we bring you the top 5 note taking applications, so that you do not have to go through thousands of such apps available in the Android market:
Evernote: The ubiquitous app is a big hit on iOS platform and it is equally good on Android. Evernote can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. Once you create an Evernote account and download the app, you are all set. You can sync your notes with Evernote cloud service. Once you have synced the app, you can access your notes from any device. Further, you can use it to record text notes, video notes and audio notes. and the best part is that the app is available for free and you can download it here.
ColorNote: While Evernote is capable of fulfilling your basic note taking requirements and some more. ColorNote is ready to add some extra pizzazz to your note taking abilities. With this app, not only you can take notes, but can also create checklists. You can customize this app to your heart's content. You can set reminders for the tasks to be done and changing the background colors is a cinch. Further, you can also share your notes with your contacts. If you want to save your notes from prying eyes, then you can choose to encrypt your notes or can set a password. Just like Evernote, this app is also free and is available in Android Marketplace.
GTasks: The USP of GTask is that you can integrate this app with Google account. But if you do not want to integrate, you can use this app
in a standalone mode as well. This app can double as your Google Task client. Once, you integrate this app, you can use it to take care of your Google Tasks, Google Calendar and Google Docs. It has very intuitive user interface and uses simple gestures such as horizontal scrolling for switching between tasks and task lists. You can also set up syncing schedule for this app. Again, this rich app is available for free from Android Marketplace.
SpringPad: This app not only does the usual note taking, to do listing and task creation routine, but it also lets you take a photo and scan a barcode. And whatever you do is automatically saved, sychronized and sorted into different categories. You can also share notes and other information with your contacts. You can also create separate notebooks for keeping track of different notes. Apart from that, it also lets you add tags, alerts and flags. You can download this app for free from here.
Astrid Task/Todo List: This app is all fun but is also able to give you power performance. Astrid is an open source app. Apart from usual functions of list creation and synching, this app also lets you set up instant notifications. With the help of API, you can also sync this app with your Google Tasks or you can choose to sync with Astrid.com. You can easily find the tasks using custom filters. It also features 'Locale' add-on which sends you notifications based on your location. You can also use Power Pack for adding voice memo and voice notes functionality. This free app can be downloaded from here.