Sometimes I wake up in the night and have an idea I want to jot down. Paper and pen aren’t a great solution for this because I have to turn on a light. More importantly, handwriting notes on a paper tablet keeps them trapped on paper unless I photograph or scan the page and import it somewhere else. To get ideas out of my head, I went looking for the best handwriting app for Kindle Fire Tablets.
I could use my phone to jot down notes in the middle of the night, but that often results in checking updates on other apps. I also find the act of handwritten note taking to be helpful in letting go of whatever is spinning around in my head. Back in July I was on a quest to find a workable handwriting solution for handwriting on my Nook Color tablet. The solution I arrived at was to use an app called Handrite Note, which is also available for the Kindle Fire. At that time, the Kindle Fire wasn’t out yet.
While combining Handrite Note and Evernote was a great way to take my scribbles and make them searchable via the optical character recognition technology built into Evernote, it wasn’t an ideal solution. Some new handwriting apps are available now which improve on my original solution. The Kindle Fire works far better with a tablet stylus than the Nook Color ever did, which makes writing feel more natural. The net result after a bunch of experimenting is something I hope everyone will find useful in using handwriting for text input on a Kindle Fire tablet.
The Problem with Keyboards on a 7-inch Tablet
I type fairly quickly on both Android phone and iPhone keyboards. I once timed myself at about 35 words per minute, which is slow on a computer keyboard, but it feels about as fast as I can go on a handheld device. On the Kindle Fire, I can’t get anywhere close to that speed. The size of the Kindle Fire makes it too small for onscreen touch-typing like I’ve seen many iPad users attempt and too big to comfortably hold between two hands and rapidly tap letters.
Holding the Kindle Fire in one hand while using my finger or a stylus is considerably faster.
Which Writing Stylus is Best for Kindle Fire?
Handwriting on a tablet is more efficient if you have a stylus. If you are someone who is used to pressing really hard with a pen or pencil, you need to lighten your touch, but a stylus makes for a smooth writing experience. Combing a stylus and a handwriting app on a Kindle Fire dramatically improves note taking.
Stylus options have come a long way since the original release of the Kindle Fire. There’s even a standard for design now. When looking for a stylus look to see if it is at least USI 2.0 compliant. The Universal Stylus Initiative is intended to create a standard that guarantees better compatibility between stylus devices and tablets like the Kindle Fire
Made for Amazon Stylus Pen
The Made for Amazon Stylus Pen pictured above is USI 2.0 complaint. It doesn’t require pairing and should work as soon as you insert the battery. You can tilt the stylus up to 45 degrees and still have the tip contact recognized on screen. AAAA batteries are expected to last about 6 months. It includes a sleep mode to preserve battery life. For under $40 you get a reliable stylus that will work far better than making notes on screen with your finger.
Evach Capacitive High Sensitivity Digital Pencil
Another viable option is the Evach Capacitive High Sensitivity Digital Pencil, which includes a rechargeable lithium polymer battery, which is good for about 8 hours of continuous use on a single charge. The pencil automatically turns itself off if not used for 30 minutes to preserve battery life. It has a 1.5mm tip, which writes at various angles.
At under $30, it’s slightly cheaper, though I’d probably opt for the one with AAAA battery support so that you can replace the battery as needed.
Best Handwriting App for Kindle Fire
Part of choosing one of the best Amazon Fire tablet apps for handwriting is personal preference.
One way to use handwriting is to swap out the default on screen keyboard for Graffiti. As a former Palm user, the pen strokes are a nice way to short cut writing. The downside is you need to learn the handwriting strokes to take advantage of it. While I was a longtime Palm user, I find myself typing faster in many cases.
If all you want to do is save handwritten notes you can refer to later, Handrite Note Pro is still my favorite option. It allows you to write text in a larger size and then shrinks your writing to fit the screen as if you were writing on a continuous line on paper. The graph paper or lined paper backgrounds both make my writing highly legible, which translates to effective OCR. You can see how I use Handrite Note in combination with Evernote in the video embedded below, but I have a new favorite handwriting app. There is a free version you can use to try Handrite Note out before you buy.
Another viable option is Inkredible. The app handles my scribbles like a champ. It includes built-in palm rejection, which helps with making sure you don’t need to worry about hand position as much as some other apps.
I personally prefer Handrite Note Pro over Inkredible, but both are solid options for taking handwritten notes on a Kindle Fire.
Combining the Kindle Fire, Made for Amazon Stylus Pen, and Handrite Note Pro creates a solid combination for handwritten note taking on a tablet.
Best Note Taker Tablet from Amazon is Kindle Scribe
While note taking apps work fairly well on a Kindle Fire, if you have the budget, get a Kindle Scribe for handwriting. The Premium Pen and e-ink make for a much better note taking experience overall. The Kindle Scribe also easily converts my illegible handwriting to text that can be reused in Google Docs or other note taking apps like Google Keep and Obsidian.
