Samsung's revamped S Note app mostly gets it write (pictures)

Samsung's refined S Note app greets you with a brand-new splash screen.

Colorful virtual covers help recognize notes from one another.

One new feature? You can now choose a blank page by default for every note you open. You'll also be able to swap out templates when you need 'em.

Partnering with Evernote means that you can store freeform S notes online along with the service's other digital reminders. The same goes for using your Samsung account as an online locker.

When you start up S Note, you'll choose if you use the S Pen only to write, or let the screen sensitize to your finger or palm as well. You can toggle your choice in each note.

A new, stylized overview screen makes notes much easier to distinguish than ever before.

If you can't exactly remember the contents of your note, dragging down the preview pane gives you a peek inside.

Helpfully, you'll be able to add a page and select settings right from the cover, without ever opening to note. Settings include renaming the note, sharing it, and editing the cover design.

The freeform drawing and writing tools also get a fresh lick o' paint; slider controls and a movable menu let you pick your colors.

The cleaner design encourages extras like charts, maps, and clip art.

I love the new check box list, but pairing it with text input didn't line up. Each new addition nudged each subsequent text field further to the right, and seemed to increase the font size after the first line item.

Text and script are both legible on this handwritten version of my grocery list. Additional settings help you manage pages.

Lasso text or shapes and tap the "transform" button to quickly, automatically, turn freeform writing into a shape, like a perfect square, a mathematical formula, or text. It worked with aplomb on simple, typical challenges I sent its way.

Clip-art shapes you add also give you control over the color and width of outlines and fill colors. Unfortunately, you can't "paint" a note's background color all at once.

Quickly add and edit simple pie charts and graphs using some shortcuts and a bit of handwriting to rename data sets. Sometimes handwriting recognition stumbled here, but you have to start over fresh if you make a mistake, instead of editing one letter at a time.

Drag and drop to resize charts, and edit the layout, frames, and arrangement of the chart vis a vis other elements on the page.