Gadgetory

by far one of the biggest selling points of the Galaxy Note line has been the s-pen and for the Galaxy Note 3 it has been made even better it's Josh of regard from Android authority what's going on everybody and welcome to this galaxy note 3 feature focus this time regarding the s-pen the s-pen is the little friend that allows the Galaxy Note to do much more than your average smartphone in this version of the note 3 it has been given a more symmetrical design that can be inserted easier into the phone as well as a lighter feel it might be a pain to handle for much larger hands but for me it's been just fine as a pointer and a handwriting tool we start off with what's already available in the s-pen before you even get into the apps and extra features get in the settings menu and you'll see that the note device is able to detect if the pen is inserted or it's out in the wild you are able to customize what happens when you remove the pen such as noises or vibrations or even if the Air Command menu pops up when you do so and then there is the small cursor that you see on the screen as you hover the tip of the S Pen over the screen and this is where we get into some actual functions from just about anywhere on the phone you can begin to use the s-pen for a few key tasks that button on the pen itself is very important and is the gateway to a lot of uses when hovering over the screen and seeing that little dot you can press it and the Air Command menu comes up but we'll get to that a little later note that the gestures that opened for example the quick command pop-up in the previous Note 2 aren't here anymore instead of simple movements with the s-pen while pressing the button you can just enclose any shape you create to clip out and save that particular piece for later usage this is the simplistic level of capturing your screen that is immediately available hovering the pen over the various parts of the interface will give you some contextual information for example hovering over a gallery folder will give you a preview of what's inside and this is the same 4 icon folders on the home screen perhaps the most useful of these contextual pop-ups is the direct pen input in which a small icon comes up when you hover over a textbox hit that icon and you'll get a quick pad that uses handwriting recognition to insert what words you write into the textbox it's a great and easy way of getting straight to handwriting input definitely faster and arguably better than the handwriting part of the built-in keyboard alright let's get into some apps the one you may already be familiar with and is a pretty obvious necessity for things like the s-pen is a note taking application and in the note 3 it's called S note for the most part this is where you can create just about anything to help you visualize what's going on in your head it's been given a little bit of an overhaul interface wise mainly to give you a quick look at the notes that are inside of the various notebooks you have just drag down on a notebook and you get previews of everything that is found within within the actual notes you have a lot of different tools to make your vision come to life you could keep it as simplistic as just drawing it all out with your pen and perhaps a bunch of different customizable brushes or you can take advantage of a bunch of different tools to help you create your information even easier plenty tools from table creators to even shape plugins are available to help you spend a little bit of time with s-snow and you'll find it as versatile as can be for just about anything you need to visualize however there is kind of a new kid on the block for creative minds and it is called this sketchbook if s note helps you harness the more methodical left side of your brain with its tables and charts the sketchbook definitely helps you engage the more creative right side of your brain physiology aside the sketchbook doesn't come with as many tools for creation as s notes and instead focuses on the brushes and the colors the artsy stuff really for a blank canvas the sketchbook is great for anything from doodles to practicing for draw something or making full pieces of art as you can see here I'm not all that great with the right side of my brain and finally we get into the crux of the S Pen experience on the note 3 Samsung wanted to make the S Pen even easier to use and reach even average users so it created the air command menu this is a pop-up menu that is accessible by pressing the S button while hovering over the screen what you get are five of what could become your most use functions the action memo was dealt with most in my full review because it is the one I use the most if you remember the quick commands menu in the note 2 this is the much better implementation of it basically you write whatever you need into the pad that pops up this could be an address or a search term or even just a phone number and then you hit the outline icon for link to action the memo will automatically find your written material and then give you a number of functions to plug all that information into this could be like the phone app for plugging in the phone number you wrote down maps for your address the web for your search terms or even a task list comprised of each line of written text and of course you can just save the actual memo for simple notes it's one of the most versatile functions of the S Pen on the Galaxy Note 3 and personally I use it a lot scrapbook gives you a powerful way of saving anything you may come across in your note 3 life it can clip out just about anything you outline after selecting it but it doesn't just save what you selected it also keeps the contextual data or metadata so that you can refer back to it if you need for example find an item you want to refer to later even if you just save the clip from the picture or the listing it will keep the URL and basically anything pertinent to where and when you saved it it's useful for one you want to save something but the extra information can possibly come in handy later screen write is yet another way of saving something you find what is most simplistic basically it's just a screenshot of your display that you can write on in somewhat edit the main difference with screen write is that it's more of a catch-all and if it's easier for you it will save to the gallery for further sharing rather than inside of the scrapbook app as Finder is a new way of searching quite literally everything within your phone not only does it look through pretty much every app for the data that you specify it also uses the handwriting recognition so if you wrote an action memo and saved it you can type in one of those words and the note will likely pop up it gives a pretty nice interface consolidating all of its search results also the handwriting recognition on the note 3 is pretty scarily accurate so the s finder could be your gateway for finding just about anything that you need and finally we make it to the pen window which is different from the other typical stylus functions basically this is Samsung's version of small apps draw a rectangular shape and it will fill that area with a small version of any apps in its list it might be good for small multitasking but honestly I don't use the small overlays very much not to mention the list of the available apps is pretty scarce personally I'd rather jump between full apps than try to work with a small one that is possibly covering up my other information and so there you have it it should be obvious from this feature focus that the S Pen is one of the most versatile parts of the Galaxy Note line and in the note 3 it is certainly at its best there is just so much you can do with it and if you're the kind of person that still loves to handwrite things like me it's a great way to bridge the gap between analog and digital I find myself writing even my text messages to people just because I find the s-pen that much fun to use using the pen might actually make you feel like you're doing work so if productivity is important to you pop that pen out and get writing I hope you got a lot out of this feature focus and thank you very much for watching we have plenty more coverage on the note 3 already available on the android authority Channel and plenty more to come if you haven't seen our drop test or the other future focus regarding the one-handed operation in node 3 make sure you do so drop us a like on our videos and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already stay tuned to android authority for all of the best coverage because we're your source for all things Android