Extensive Notes – Feature Rich Note Taking Android App
by Jonathan Lonczak
Oct 12, 2011 4:37 PM –
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Extensive Notes. Notepad app with so many features, it’s bordering on insanity.
Price: Free, $1.99
Tested on: Sony Xperia Play, HTC Droid Incredible 2
Content Rating: Low Maturity
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Extremely easy to use and feature rich note taking application!
- Allows you to take handwritten notes, audio notes, and video notes!
- Supports folders, advanced note searching, database search, and password locked notes and folders!
- Streamlined application makes it very easy to use!
- Many many extras including: conversions, calculators, stopwatches, countdowns, shopping lists, to-do lists, translators, artist and lyrics lookups, weather forecasts, password management, and more!
- Supports backup to the SD Card!
Cons
- No integrated cloud backup.
- Less pleasing aesthetics than other competitors and sister application Classic Notes
Features:
Extensive Notes is an excellent and feature packed note taking application for Android. It features standard note taking options, unit conversions, a stopwatch, calculators, a shopping list tool, a special day countdown utility,weather forecasts, references, media tools, folders, Google translate, and the ability to import and export data to and from the SD Card. Extensive Notes is much more than a note taking application, it is a “Swiss Army Knife” on your cell phone with an immense amount of tools to help with many issues that you deal with on a daily basis; consolidating your notepad, weather app, translator, shopping tools, and calculators all in to one place for easy convenient use!
When you first open it up the application does not seem like it could contain all of the features that are built in to this incredibly feature filled application. You are presented with a main screen which only displays notes that have already been recorded and a series of options for you to peruse at the bottom of the screen. These options are: New, Folders, Sort, Settings, Extras, and Search. Ironically about 70% of this application is listed underneath the Extras tab. 
The New tab at the bottom of the screen is what allows you to write basic notes. When you click on New it gives you the option to make a standard note, to draw your note using your finger or a stylus, to record an audio note, to record a video note, to create a to-do list, or to scan a barcode and turn it into a note. The basic notes come out similar to any other note taking application like Evernote or Fluffy Delusions sister application Classic Notes. I personally enjoyed the ability to draw notes with either my finger or a capacitive screen stylus. It was an interesting feature which is not present in many of the competing applications and gives this application a unique value to those people who prefer to take handwritten notes over typed ones. Both the video notes and audio notes recorded in the same fashion and create a new document with an embedded attachment of any audio or video file that you imported or created at the time the note was written.
The folders option allows you to create various folders in order to better sort all of the notes that you store. This allows the user to easily create specific folders for all Audio, Video, To-Do Lists, or Notes By User without having to click and drag each file into one of these folders. Another great feature is that it allows you to create password locked folders for private notes. This allows you to easily store and hide sensitive information within the application and keep it safe from prying eyes.
Extensive Notes also comes with many different sorting options which allow the user easier access to the information they need when they need it. You can sort notes by pending reminders, modified by both ascending and descending, priority level, create ascending/descending, and alphabetically ascending/descending. By including many different useful sorting options and a search option for your notes the developer ensures that you will always be able to access the information you need!
The bulk of the application’s features are built in to the Extras section of Extensive Notes. The Extras section includes translations, calculators, backup tools, weather, references, countdowns, stopwatches, conversions, and more! These are all tools to allow you to accomplish things that you would normally need six or seven different applications to do. With the Weather tool you are able to type in your location or zip code and get a detailed five day forecast in the format of a note. This allows you to easily see the weather forecast, but also allows you to easily save it and view it later for further use.
Also built into the Extras portion are the calculator and conversion tools. These allow you to easily perform complex calculations that would normally require a separate application to perform such as; mortgage calculators, interest calculators, standard calculating options and conversions from different units of measurement and currency into other units of measure. These include conversions of time, light, pressure, power, liquids, weight/mass, energy, and even flow rate. This application has an insane amount of extras built into it allowing it to replace dozens of other apps that you would normally have to download and use separately.
Another feature that I found extremely useful was the Google Translate integration. It allowed me to type in any phrase I wanted in English (or any other language and) to have it translated into the written form of any language I desired. This is very useful for those of us that either visit a foreign country or regularly communicate with foreign speakers and writers. With the translating functions you are able to get accurate translations for free that many websites require payment for, what a deal!
Finally, there are many other extras like shopping lists, stopwatches, countdowns, artist and lyrics search, and a heck of a lot more! I can’t even cover everything built into this application without writing a book. Needless to say, this is one of the best note taking applications out there and definitely has the most features of any note taking application I have ever used. The only application I have seen packed with this many features before is the other note taking application by Fluffy Delusions called Classic Notes.
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Extensive Notes Notes
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Extensive Notes To Do List
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Extensive Notes Folder Management
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Extensive Notes Drawing
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Extensive Notes Translator
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Extensive Notes Weather
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Eztensive Notes Mortgage Calculator
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Extensive Notes Stopwatch
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Extensive Notes Discography
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Extensive Notes Bandwidth Conversion
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Extensive Notes Options
Usefulness:
This application is very useful for both note taking and for looking up information on the fly. It is extremely feature packed and ensures that no matter who uses this application they will have some use for at least some of its features. Even if you don’t wish to record notes on your device this application provides one of the easiest ways to get weather forecasts, perform conversions, and get information on the go!
Ease of Use:
Extensive Notes is extremely easy to use. All of the options are straightforward and easy to access. Unlike the sister application Classic Notes, this is streamlined and organized allowing you to see all of your options and easily select the ones that you need.
Frequently Used:
I find that I use Extensive Notes more frequently for its add-ons than its note taking capabilities. Although the note taking options are excellent and provide many options for the user I prefer the automatic cloud sync options of Evernote when I am typing in notes to myself on my device. However, Evernote does not have any of the extras that come included in this application, so I find that I will often use it for conversions and translations when I am in need of. I also am extremely pleased with its shopping list features since I don’t need to download a separate grocery shopping application to accomplish this task.
Interface:
The interface is much more mechanical and technical in nature than sister application Classic Notes. The options are all easy to select and the extras are better organized than in Classic Notes, but I find that the aesthetics are harsher and less pleasant to work with. I would like to see either theming options or different interface skins in order to provide a more pleasant working environment.