The Surface Pro 7 is an amazing device that can be used for just about anything. It’s a tablet, it’s a laptop, and it’s even an on-the-go desktop computer! The possibilities are endless.
But what if you were looking to get the most out of your Surface Pro 7? We’ve put together this list of our favorite apps for the Surface Pro 7 so you can make the most of your device.
We’ve broken it down by category so you can find exactly what you’re looking for: productivity, entertainment, games, business, and more.
Best Apps For Surface Pro 7
This article covers the must-have apps for Surface Pro 7 users looking to get the most out of their new Microsoft Surface device. Programs range from the best drawing app for Surface Pro 7 to some of the more popular Windows 10 apps for consuming audiobooks, podcasts, and movies. We also included a couple of the best productivity apps.
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Best Audiobook App for Surface Pro 7: Audiobooks from Audible
Windows 10 Audible app on Surface Pro 7.
What We Like
Listening progress syncs seamlessly between Surface Pro 7 and other devices.
App icon displays audiobook cover artwork when pinned to your Start menu.
What We Don’t Like
Cover artwork is a bit low res when viewed fullscreen on a Surface Pro.
The Stats screen and badges are incredibly clunky and unintuitive.
Audiobooks from Audible is one of the best apps for Surface Pro 7 for listening to audiobooks. This free Windows 10 app fully syncs your Audible audiobook library from your Amazon account and remembers where you left off on different titles no matter what device you were previously using.
You will need to be connected to the internet for audiobook progress to sync between devices.
In many ways, this Windows 10 Audible app is much easier to use than the mobile versions on iPhone and Android as the larger screen on the Surface Pro 7 allows for more titles to show on the screen at the same time. It makes finding the audiobook you’re looking for much easier, especially if you have difficulty reading the text or controls on your smartphone.
The only negative thing to say about Audiobooks from Audible is the Stats screen, and its badges are a bit awkward to navigate. Neither is used much by users, though, so this likely won’t inconvenience many.
Download For:
Windows
02
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Best Music App for Surface Pro 7: Spotify Music
Windows 10 Spotify app on Surface Pro 7.
What We Like
Absolutely massive library of music and podcasts to listen to.
Facebook integration adds a social aspect lacking on mobile.
Can play audio files off of your Surface Pro 7 as well.
What We Don’t Like
Streamlined menu can be inconvenient at times.
Occasional ads if you don’t have Spotify Premium.
If you like to listen to many podcasts and music, the Windows 10 Spotify app is a must-have. Spotify Music syncs all of your Spotify playlists, favorites, and preferences from the mobile app, making it great for existing users who frequently switch devices. You can also use this app to play locally stored audio tracks that have been downloaded or transferred to your Surface Pro 7 from somewhere else.
You can listen offline if you have an active Spotify Premium subscription.
One of the coolest aspects of the Windows 10 Spotify app is that it can connect to Facebook and display a live feed of what your friends are listening to. If they’re online, their name, photo, and current track or podcast episode will appear at the top of the list. If they’re offline, they’ll appear under the online friends in order of most recent activity. All of the track information is clickable, so you can check out what they’re into with a single click. It’s an excellent feature for those wanting to feel more connected to others or are looking for something new to listen to.
Download For:
Windows
03
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Best Image Editor App for Surface Pro 7: Adobe Photoshop Express
Windows 10 Photoshop Express app on Surface Pro 7.
What We Like
Lots of quality filters are easy to preview and apply to photos.
Crop, rotate, resize, and red eye tools are all here.
What We Don’t Like
You need to sign in with an Adobe, Facebook, or Google account to use.
Adobe Photoshop Express is an entirely free Photoshop app designed for those who need to do some basic image editing before sharing a photo with friends and family or posting it on social media.
While Windows 10’s native Photos app does feature some basic image editing functionality, Adobe Photoshop Express is still one of the best apps for making changes to photos on Surface Pro due to its wide selection of tools and filters. In addition to the usual crop tool and filters, Photoshop Express also boasts red-eye removal for both humans and animals, a blemish removal tool, and default image sizes for specific use cases such as Facebook cover images, Twitter headers, and Pinterest posts.
Download For:
Windows
04
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Best Drawing App for Surface Pro 7: Sketchable
Sketchable Windows 10 app on Surface Pro 7.
What We Like
Professional grade digital drawing and painting tools.
Lots of tutorials and tips to help new users.
Great support for Microsoft’s Surface Pen stylus.
What We Don’t Like
$24.99 paid upgrade required to unlock all features.
This Surface Pro drawing app can be very intimidating at first.
Sketchable is considered by many to be one of the best drawing apps for Surface Pro. It features a massive set of digital painting tools which you can use to make a quick sketch or produce incredible artwork intended to be sold or displayed in a professional setting.
Sketchable is designed to work with Surface devices, such as the Surface Pro 7, and features full support for the Surface Pen stylus for both art creation and navigating the app’s menus and UI. Sketchable truly is a Windows 10 app that allows you to disconnect your Type Cover and mouse and fully use your Surface Pro 7 as a digital canvas like in the commercials on TV.
Download For:
Windows
05
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Best Note-Taking App for Surface Pro 7: OneNote
Microsoft OneNote on Surface Pro 7.
What We Like
Strong support for both typed and handwritten notes.
All content is backed up to the cloud for free.
What We Don’t Like
Switching between notebooks can become a bit confusing once more are created.
The number of options may intimidate casual users.
When it comes to writing notes on a Surface Pro 7, it’s hard to beat OneNote. You can use Microsoft’s free app both for quickly jotting down notes and scribbles or for creating more comprehensive plans, recipes, and checklists.
OneNote supports input via your Type Cover keyboard, touch, or a stylus such as the Surface Pen, and all changes automatically save to the cloud seconds after being made. All notes made in OneNote on your Surface Pro 7 sync for free to the mobile version of OneNote on your iPhone or Android smartphone and vice versa, which makes it a genuinely convenient tool for keeping track of information and ideas wherever you are.
Download For:
Windows
06
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Best Movie and TV App for Surface Pro 7: Netflix
Windows 10 Netflix app.
What We Like
Content can be streamed online or downloaded for offline viewing.
Good file storage management settings.
What We Don’t Like
You’ll need to be a Netflix subscriber to access any of this content.
The official Windows 10 Netflix app is one of the best apps for Surface Pro 7 owners looking to watch movies, TV series, and documentaries. Users can log in with the same Netflix account they use on other devices and either stream content when connected to the internet or download videos for viewing offline.
You can use your Netflix account and this app to watch content when traveling abroad. The available library will automatically change to match the country you’re in, which can be a great way to discover local shows and films when on holiday.
The latter functionality is beneficial when traveling or if your internet connection is too slow to stream media properly. You can delete all downloaded media either manually or automatically by using the rather clever Smart Downloads setting. This feature cleverly erases episodes or films after you finish watching them and downloads the next one in the series so you can keep watching.
Download For:
Windows
07
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Best Email and Planner Apps for Surface Pro 7: Mail and Calendar
Windows 10 Mail app on Surface Pro 7.
What We Like
Both apps are free and come pre-installed on new Surface devices.
Multiple email accounts and calendars can be added to each app.
All changes sync to the cloud via your Microsoft account.
What We Don’t Like
Emails with embedded images need to be resized sometimes.
Navigating months in Calendar can be confusing at first.
Your Surface Pro 7 comes pre-installed with two excellent email and calendar apps, appropriately called Mail and Calendar, respectively. Each app is completely free to use and, while made by Microsoft, works with email accounts and schedules from other services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
You can switch email accounts and calendars via the left navigation menu. All your scheduled appointments are also viewable right away, so you don’t miss anything important. One of the best aspects of these must-have apps for Surface Pro 7 is all of the changes made will sync to your Microsoft account, so, for example, if you create an event in Calendar on your Surface Pro 7, it will be mirrored on your Outlook phone app.
Download For:
Windows
Our Review of Mail
FAQ
Is the Surface Pro 7 a good laptop replacement?
The Surface Pro 7 comes closer to being a suitable laptop replacement than some of its competitors, including the iPad. It’s powerful enough to handle emails, web browsing, streaming, and even light photo editing. All Windows apps should work on the Surface Pro 7, although it won’t replace a gaming laptop.
How do you take a screenshot on a Surface Pro 7?
There are multiple ways you can take a screenshot on a Surface tablet. One method is to long-press the Power and the Volume Up buttons simultaneously. Or, you can long-press the Prt Sc key on your keyboard or use the keyboard shortcut Fn+Windows key+Spacebar.
How do you connect Airpods to a Surface Pro 7?
To connect your AirPods to a Surface tablet, place the Airpods into pairing mode by opening the case. Then, go into Settings and select Devices > Add Bluetooth & other devices > Bluetooth. Select your AirPods in the list of available devices, then long-press the Sync button on the AirPods case until the buds are connected.
best note taking app for surface pro
Note-taking is a pretty personal thing. Some people are meticulous in their notebook organization, with careful folders, subheads, and bullets. Others, myself among them, take more of a scrawl-it-anywhere-you-can approach. However you like to take notes—whether they’re text-only or elaborate scrapbooks—there’s a notes app out there that can handle all your weird quirks and note-taking needs.
First, one big thing to mention. You can write notes anywhere: on the back of a napkin, envelope, important bill, or even in a notebook. It’s kind of similar with apps: you can stick notes into pretty much any old app, even if it’s not really designed for them. Example: Google Docs isn’t a great notes app, but I have notes about this article you’re reading now in the Google Doc I’m working from.
Turn ideas into action
Automate your note-taking
So for this list, we didn’t look at every app that could be used to take notes—we were only interested in apps that were explicitly designed to be notes apps. We also only really considered general-purpose note-taking apps. There are some great super-niche notes apps designed for fiction writers or developers, but they aren’t fit for most people, so weren’t in consideration for a place on this list.
Even with these criteria in place, we still tested close to 40 different note apps. Here are the best note-taking apps we could find.
The best note-taking apps
Microsoft OneNote for a free note-taking app
Evernote for the ultimate digital notebook
Apple Notes for Apple users
Google Keep for Google power users
Notion for collaboration
Obsidian for power note-takers
See our favorite ways to use automation to improve how you put your notes to work, track action items from meetings, and put an end to regular copy-paste actions.
What makes a great note-taking app?
How we evaluate and test apps
All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
With so many apps to consider, we had some pretty strict criteria for what made a great notes app.
First, the apps had to be good at what they claimed to do. This sounds like an easy bar to clear, but you’d be surprised at how many apps fell short. Not every note-taking app needs to have features like image-to-text conversion or stylus support, but if it boasted about them, they had to be well-executed and nice to use.
Second, all the note-taking apps had to be quick and easy to use. The real competition here wasn’t other note-taking apps, but a pen and scrap of paper. If it wasn’t almost as convenient to open a notes app and create a quick note as it was to reach across my desk for a Moleskine and a pen, it didn’t make the cut. This rule also extended to other features: editing and sorting notes had to feel seamless and natural, rather than require a battle with a horrible user interface.
Similarly, the biggest reason to have a notes app instead of a notebook is that you can access it from anywhere on any device at any time, whether you’re at your desk at work, chilling on your couch at home, or flying coast-to-coast. At a minimum, we required apps to be available on one desktop and one mobile platform, and to have some kind of offline functionality. You can’t be locked out of your notebook because you don’t have Wi-Fi.
Finally, we had the value for money test. At Zapier, we love a good free app, but with things as permanent as notes, that has to be balanced against the likelihood of the service surviving the next few years and being able to offer server-based features like syncing. Many of the best apps charge a reasonable subscription price, and as long as it was warranted by the features offered, that was no barrier to inclusion.
Best free note-taking app
Microsoft OneNote (iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Web)
The interface for OneNote, our pick for the best free note-taking app
Microsoft OneNote is a free and full-featured note-taking app. It’s Microsoft’s answer to Evernote (the next app on this list), though without the need for a monthly subscription.
OneNote is incredibly freeform when it comes to taking notes. Each Notebook is modeled off a ringbinder, so it’s divided into sections with subsections called pages. And each page is basically a canvas where you can add any kind of note you like, anywhere you want. This means you can drag and drop in an image, click anywhere to add some text notes beside it, and if your computer supports a stylus, scribble a mustache on everyone in the photo. (Otherwise you can draw one on with your trackpad, but it’ll be less stylish.) It feels like a solution purpose-built for students and anyone else who has to take long, discursive notes about something, rather than people looking for a digital notebook to collect short snippets and random ideas.
I’d struggle to call any of Microsoft’s apps intuitive, but OneNote is familiar. The ribbon at the top of the app has five tabs: Home, which has all the basic formatting tools; Insert, which lets you attach files, images, audio recordings, and everything else; Draw, which gives you all the free drawing and highlighting tools; View, which lets you navigate the document and change how things look; and, finally, Tell Me, which is the help function. If you’ve used any version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in the last decade, you’ll be right at home.
In terms of pricing, although OneNote is free, it uses your OneDrive storage. You get 5GB included, which is more than enough for most people. But if you use OneDrive to store your photos, or save a lot of image and audio notes, you might hit against that limit. If you do, you can increase it to 100GB for $1.99/month.
With OneNote’s Zapier integration, you can automate OneNote to eliminate the hassle of moving information between apps. For example, Zapier can automatically create new notes in OneNote whenever you have a new task, note, or calendar event in another app.
Add notes on OneNote for upcoming Google Calendar events
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Google Calendar, OneNote
Google Calendar + OneNote
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Copy new Evernote notes to your OneNote notebook
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Evernote, OneNote
Evernote + OneNote
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Create OneNote notes from new or moved Trello cards
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OneNote, Trello
OneNote + Trello
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OneNote Price: Free for up to 5GB of notes; $1.99/month for 100GB.
Evernote and OneNote are the frontrunners in the note-taking category. Take a look at how they stack up in our Evernote vs. OneNote showdown.
Best note-taking app for the ultimate digital notebook
Evernote (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web)
The interface for Evernote, our pick for the best note-taking app for the ultimate digital notebook
It’s impossible to talk about note-taking apps without mentioning Evernote, so it should be no surprise to see it on this list. It’s one of the most powerful options around and can handle notes in almost any format you want. You can add text notes, audio clips, images, PDF documents, scanned handwritten pages, Slack conversations, emails, websites, and anything else you can think of. If you’re the kind of person who’s as likely to scribble the outline to a best-seller on the back of a napkin as you are to save your shopping list as a voice memo, Evernote is great: it gives you one safe place to throw everything.
But Evernote isn’t just a dumping ground. It’s designed so you can easily sort and organize your notes. Create a new note by clicking New > Note, type whatever you want or add any of the supported note types, then, at the bottom of the screen, you can add tags. If you already have some tags set up, they’ll be auto-suggested; otherwise, you can type whatever you want and hit Enter. In the sidebar, click Tags to see a searchable list of every tag you’ve used. It’s a really fast way to sort notes as you create them, without having to worry about putting every note perfectly in its place.
Of course, later on, you can dive back in and arrange all your notes into meticulously sorted notebooks. In that case, click Notebooks in the sidebar and then New Notebook. Give it a name and you’ll be able to drag and drop notes from anywhere else in Evernote into it. Alternatively, you can right-click on a note, click Move, and then select your chosen notebook.
Evernote takes things a step further with its search functionality. If you upload an image of a sheet of paper, a business card, a menu, a sign, or anything else with text, Evernote automatically processes the image to make it more readable—and then processes the text to make it searchable. So, if you add a photo of your favorite pancake recipe, you’ll be able to search for it as if it’s a text note you typed yourself. Evernote even works with handwritten notes, though with the huge caveat that your writing must be neat enough that a computer can read it. (Mine, sadly, is not.)
It’s similar with PDFs and other documents you upload—if you have a Premium Evernote subscription, the text is searchable throughout the app.
Crucially, that $7.99/month Premium Evernote subscription needs to be mentioned. Evernote’s free plan doesn’t make this list. It’s limited to two devices, and you can’t save notes for offline access on mobile. Microsoft OneNote is a significantly better free option, if you never intend to upgrade to a paid plan. However, if you’re looking for the ultimate everything notebook and don’t mind the monthly fee, then Evernote is the app for you.
Evernote integrates with Zapier, letting you automate your note-taking. For example, you can automatically create tasks from Evernote reminders, or create new notes for calendar events.
Add notes to Evernote for new Google Calendar events
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Evernote, Google Calendar
Evernote + Google Calendar
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Create Asana tasks from new Evernote reminders
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Asana, Evernote
Asana + Evernote
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Add Evernote reminders to Any.do as tasks
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Any.do, Evernote
Any.do + Evernote
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Evernote Price: Very limited free plan; $7.99/month for Evernote Premium with unlimited devices and offline mobile access.
If you decide on Evernote, check out 30 tips for Evernote to make the most of your notes. And take a look at 5 hidden Evernote features.
Best note-taking app for Apple users
Apple Notes (iOS, macOS, Web)
The interface for Apple Notes, our pick for the best note-taking app for Apple users
If you’re firmly entrenched in Apple’s ecosystem, you don’t have to look too far for a great, free note-taking app. Apple Notes (variously called Notes or iCloud Notes, depending on how you’re accessing it) is built into macOS and iOS, and can also be used through your browser. Just head to icloud.com/notes, and you get an online version of the app with all your synced notes—even if you’re on a PC or Chromebook. It’s a nice bonus that keeps your notes from being totally locked into your Apple devices, provided you have enough iCloud space to store everything.
Apple Notes is a little more barebones than our previous two picks, but that’s not really a dealbreaker. It’s convenient, easy to use, and even integrates with Siri. And it keeps getting better. Apple recently added tags—type #whatever to add one to any note—and you can share notes with other Apple users, and now even @mention them. Search is also pretty powerful. You can look for images, text you’ve written, a particular attachment, drawings, text scanned in a document, or something inside the image you’re trying to find (for example, “a bike”).
Once you create a new note, you can add text, attach images, scan documents, draw or handwrite, add checklists, format things into tables, and more. You can add multiple different things to a single note—but unlike with OneNote, they’re compartmentalized. You can’t, for example, use the pen tool to scratch out a text note.
Of course, as a first-party Apple app, Notes plays nice with the whole Apple ecosystem. One clever feature is that you can use your iPhone or iPad to add content directly to Notes on your Mac. Open a new note, click the Attach dropdown, and then choose from Take Photo, Scan Document, and Add Sketch. If you click Scan Document, for example, the camera will open on your iOS device and you’ll be able to automatically scan, process, and add letters, recipes, bank statements, and any other documents as PDFs.
While not as basic as it once was, Apple Notes is still very functional and checks all our requirements for a great note-taking app. Power-user features can be useful, but most users aren’t power users—and Apple knows it.
Apple Notes Price: Free for 5GB of storage across all iCloud services; starts at $0.99/month for 50GB.
There’s a very healthy notes app ecosystem for Apple devices; however, since they’re all paid products and Apple Notes is so good, none of them made this list. For more options, check out our picks for the best Mac note-taking apps.
Best note-taking app for Google power users
Google Keep (Android, iOS, Web, Chrome)
The interface for Google Keep, our pick for the best note-taking app for Google power users
Most people don’t take notes just for the sake of it. Instead, they’re done to serve a purpose: to remind you to email a friend, to help you outline your new book, or one of a million other things. Often, these other things require you to use some other app or service. You can’t send an email from your notes app, and while you might be able to outline a book, it’s probably not the best place to write it. This is what makes Google Keep such a great option for Google power users.
Google Keep is a little odd. As a notes app, it’s fine. There are reasonable web, iOS, and Android versions, and a handy Chrome extension for saving quick notes and links. But it’s how it integrates with Google’s other services that makes it so useful.
If you use Google Keep, when you open Gmail in your browser, there’s a little lightbulb icon in the right sidebar. Click it, and you have quick access to all your Google Keep notes. You can see any notes related to the thing you’re working on, your most recent notes, search for something from a while ago, or create a new one. But here’s the thing: that same sidebar is there in all of your Google Docs, in your Google Calendar, and even in your Google Drive. About the only Google app it isn’t in is YouTube.
And Keep integrates with the rest of Google in other ways. Click on a note and then Copy to Google Docs to convert it into a new document (you can also drag and drop a note from the sidebar if you have Google Docs open); set a reminder by clicking the little bell icon, and the note appears in your Google Calendar; and if you create an audio note on your smartphone, Google automatically transcribes it.
Really, if you live your work life in Google’s ecosystem, you should be using Keep—even if you also use another note-taking solution for your personal life.
Google Keep Price: Free for 15GB of storage across all of Google apps; starts at $1.99/month for 100GB.
Best note-taking app for collaboration
Notion (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web)
The interface for Notion, our pick for the best note-taking app for collaboration
Note-taking can be something you do for yourself, or something you do with and for others. All the apps we’ve looked at so far are mostly for taking notes for yourself. Sure, you can share and collaborate on notes and even notebooks, but their main features lie elsewhere. With Notion, collaboration on all aspects is built in from the start.
Notion is the only app on this list that skirts the provision of it being a note-taking app. It is, but because of its collaborative features, it can be so much more. It’s basically three tools in one: a powerful notes app (which is why it’s on this list), a task and project manager, and a reference wiki. How you combine those three things is up to you.
Each new document or note is called a page, and everything in Notion is referred to as a block. Blocks include basic elements like text, checklists, and headings, as well as media types like images, web bookmarks, video, audio, code snippets, and files. You can use as many blocks you want, in whatever combination, on every page. They’re super quick to insert: just type / and scroll through the list. There are lots of templates built in too, so don’t feel you have to customize absolutely everything when you’re starting out. Just click on Templates in the sidebar and look through the options to find one you like.
The sidebar is also how you browse all your pages. It’s split into two sections: Workspace, which is all the pages you share with the rest of your team, and Private, where you can have your own notes. While collaboration is a big part of Notion, it’s not forced on you. Everyone has their own section where they can work on things—and then move them out to the public areas for feedback and revision. It’s a great way for an entire team to work together without getting in each other’s way.
One thing to note: Notion bills itself as an Evernote competitor for personal users. It can be—but it’s too much for most people, and its offline functionality isn’t the best. If you love the idea of Notion, go right ahead and try the free Personal Plan, but to us, it’s really best as a team notes app.
Notion integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to thousands of other apps to do things like automatically generate Google Calendar events or save Slack messages to a table in one of your notes.
Conclusion
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