[Galaxy Note 8.0 (Tablet) Themes and Apps] brecklundin:
I was using S-Note at first then moved to LN and now am using Stylus Write pretty much exclusively. I really gave LN a shot but it was simply too cumbersome for my daily-driver note app. I don't need all the complexity of LN and had higher hopes for S-Note. S-Note seems like abandonware at this microsecond in time. I still use the "sticky note" feature to jot down fast details from a phone call if I don't have the time to create a new document in SW. S-Note can get so mess organization wise it's spooky, well at least I can let it get messy prolly due to being a lazy, lazy guy. ;) But there is no debating that LN is a nice and very powerful option. It just was not the right one for me, myself and I. ;)

Viewing the SW website showed me you can build a pretty complex notebook thanks to the bookmarks feature. Just add a bookmark to any page/note/blurb to create new "sections" within your "notebook". Then maintain a TOC at the front of the document and also in each chapter/section/sub-section of your new document or document collection. I figured if you can build a website using SW there is no problem creating as complex a collection of documents as you might need. Candidly though, I have not had time to dedicate to that aspect of SW though to find all the quirks of bookmarks to create that document hierarchy.

Have you watched the Stylus Labs video? If not do that...so much is covered in a compact video, only about 3.5 mins or so. http://www.styluslabs.com/ Plus their site was created from pages written in Stylus Write. I highly recommend watching that "demo" video...seriously... everything you need to know about using SW is in the video on YouTube or the SW site.

S-Note and LN have features which would be nice for SW. I like the "Notebook" paradigm for keeping organized but that i handled OK with folders. Plus there are "bookmarks" I mentioned above.

I would like to keyword pages in SW for searching. Searching for notes is not really possible in SW.

Paper types are really nice in LN and just not there in SW, at least not in the same fashion.

Thing is none of the other stylus note taking apps hold a candle to the speed of use in Stylus Write. SW lets you switch pens in a blink of an eye, insert new lines quickly (you do have to pay attention when writing to allow for possible addition of new blank lines later.) Custom pens are good enough in SW.

I really like the ability to create columns and sections using simple lines on the page...this is a very non-trivial feature I now use all the time.

The way pages auto-magically grow in SW is a very, very nice feature but I still have not fully gotten the hang of it so often extend pages with just marking lines across the page or down the margin then erasing them as time permits.

But for me SW had by far the lowest learning curve of all these apps. It does lag in the area of keeping things organized when I'm too lazy to stay on top of things. But I took to it the very day I first discovered it.

I like something else, the file format (HTML with SVG graphics) is readable by pretty much any browser plus you can edit the HTML if you want. I haven't used pages in something like Word or other word processor but that would be nice as well.

I'm trying to remember but there are a couple features I would really like to see added to SW but at this microsecond I can't recall. Oh, yeah, I remember a couple now...

LAYERS. I love this feature in LN. It's not there in SW at all but it's not in any of the other note taking apps I've tried either. Layers in LN is a seriously powerful feature and unmatched in anything else I've looked at. For my daily-driver notes it's not a feature I would need. For using, say a Lab Book in chem, o-chem, physics or whatever lab setting I think I would use LN to create my final, for printing version because you can create some very advanced page layouts via layers.

EQUATION EDITOR or just a mathematical module. I originally hoped for this sort of feature being added to SW, then I got better. For taking notes in a math class SW lets me fully mimic my old trick of using colored pencils. In one of my Diff-EQ courses I learned about using colored pencils to group equation manipulations before rewriting the line below. You can actually make multiple manipulations each in a different color on a single line then rewrite the result on the next line. As an aside this is fast way to blow though not just note taking but also when solving things on your own. The use of colors to group the changes lets you see them instantly. SW and the lightening fast way you can change pens is perfect for taking this sort of notes.

The color pencil idea also works excellently for chemistry work. Works for O-Chem, Bio-Chem, even inorganic. Basically chemistry equations are just math using a different set of operators/operands within a different solution space so the anything that works for math should translate to chemistry work as well.

Both the above needs fit SW a bit better than LN. For me SW is ton's faster. But again for formal notes to be printed or converted to a PDF for submission LN can offer a better looking result. But it's just a case of the right tool for the right job not that one tool is better than the other.

I've also thought of some "features" but in the end it is only to make things "prettier" which end up over complicating and reducing flexibility so I end up talking myself out of the idea. Which brings me back to why I prefer SW 90% of the time, it genuinely mimics pen to paper notes. But it also extends that pen-to-paper model with the slick editing tools for adding spaces, erasing or what have you. It's the only app I've used which would allow me to take notes as I would on a yellow-pad with the same speed. LN never allowed me to work that way. But my note needs are not as advanced as for others.

FORMS/TEMPLATES: I would love to build some of our work forms for SW but again it makes things over complicated I think. My solution is to use a hand made SW version with no data, only field names as on a print form. I then open and save-as which I then fill in as needed. I am often away from the office when I get calls and need to take notes, using my pseudo-forms I can do this quickly while talking to the client. Later I can enter the data in our management app on the desktop.

I think LN is as good as you can find for advanced note taking when you want more formal output. But for handwritten "yellow pad/composition book" style notes, SW is by far the way to go. I can't wait to get a Win8 device to run SW. Last time I checked the Win version had a number of added features over the Android version. Over on http://www.styluslabs.com/ the Windows version indicates the need for a Wacom digitizer so I would make sure for anyone looking that way to email the dev and confirm the active digitizer on the device you are considering is supported. Perhaps the dev can chime in here when he has time.

Sorry this ran long but I don't get time to comment much so wanted to add all I could think of at once. And don't think I'm blowing you off if I don't answer any follow-up right away. Time and health issues keep me chasing my own tail all day long and we all know how easy it is to disappear into these forums. :D