Memo Beta Application Review – Your Alternative to S-Memo

If you own a Galaxy Note there’s a good chance that you’ve installed custom firmware to get more speed, or take full advantage of the high resolution screen through ROMs such as Paranoid Android. There’s no doubt that you’ve missed the one thing that Samsung has done right with their software: S-Memo. S-Memo is an awesome application that allows you to quickly and efficiently caption photos, or take notes for later while being optimized for the Note’s S-Pen. Thanks to developer Nathan Garside, you won’t have to miss it any longer.

     Memo Beta is an application that has been created specifically for the Galaxy Note to replace S-Memo’s many features when you are on an AOSP based ROM. The application follows the Holo design scheme to ensure that the app looks and feels great, while bringing you the many features that you miss from the original program. It’s a must have for Note owners that are on an AOSP ROM.

     Whether you want to admit it or not, we’re all a little biased towards applications that look nice, and this is no letdown. Borrowing some of the design elements of the original, Memo Beta allows for full customization of the S-Pen’s input to allow for different style brushes, complete color customization, along with the ability to enable palm rejection and disable the back button (or menu button for left-handed users). In some ways, the application offers more features than the original, which is awesome.

     Like we said earlier, the application follows the Holo design scheme which keeps the important features easily accessible in the action bar at the top. Some of the tools included in the application are: Pen tool, which is a tool to allow you to customize the look and feel of the pen’s writing on the screen; eraser tool, self explanatory; image tool, which allows you to insert images from the camera, gallery, a map, or a webpage (making note taking easy and awesome); and the text tool, which allows users to input text and adjust the style, type, and color. Similar to the tools included in S-Memo, the application allows us Note owners (and possibly others, but it crashed on the Nexus 7) to take a screenshot, then ‘share’ it through the application for quick and easy editing.

     While the application does not provide the enhanced features of the new S-Note included in ICS TouchWiz, perhaps we’ll see some more add features in the future. For now, any user rocking a Note with an AOSP ROM should definitely check it out. The application is free and is available on Google play for, it would appear, any device. Click on the links below to grab a copy for yourself.

Aesthetic	Performance	Price
Follows the Holo UI design scheme for ICS and up optimization Easy to use interface, borrowing some elements from the original S-Memo app Includes the ability to share any note through a quick share button on screen In depth settings menu with lots of options for palm and button rejection while using the S-Pen	Quick and fast just like you’d expect! No loading times and it makes importing a screenshot or image easy through the “share” button integration The application did crash on our Nexus 7 and was not able to write input with a finger, but since it’s designed for the Note, not a problem	It’s completely free and available for all devices as far as we know
Worth it?