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Without question, Squid is the best handwriting app available on a Chromebook. Having been on board with Chrome OS and Android apps since the early days, Squid has only gotten better over time. More than any other app in the Play Store, Squid takes pen input on Chromebooks seriously and delivers an inking experience that is simply unmatched right now.
Even Google’s own in-house notes app isn’t even close to Squid from a pen input perspective. Try the two apps out side by side and you’ll notice right off the bat that Squid’s pen tracking, pressure sensitivity, and natural feel are miles ahead of what Google Keep is capable of.
That doesn’t just apply to Keep, though, as Squid feels better and performs on a higher level than any handwriting app we’ve tried in the Play Store from a precision and lag perspective. While not geared towards drawing, Squid offers a great selection of paper templates (ruled, grids, sports scoring, etc.), the ability to drop in images, manipulate selected handwriting as vectors, and import/export PDFs. As a tool for getting things done, it has what most people need from a note taking tool.
My biggest complaint with Squid is the backup feature. You can set up Box or DropBox for backups, but a nice, neat integration with Google Drive would make way more sense. I’ve seen the developers from Squid reply that this is tricky for some technical reasons, but I have a hard time understanding why they can’t get around this. As an app on the Play Store, I’d rather see it install and pull up all my notes via my Play Store Google account, but that still doesn’t happen for now.
If you are interested in Squid and would like to take the Pro version and all its abilities for a free 6-month test drive, you can go and claim you Chromebook perk if you’ve bought a new device. Simply head over to Google’s Chromebook Perks page, scroll down to the Squid option, and click to redeem the offer. The process is quick, simple, and definitely worth a look if you like taking handwritten notes and have a Chromebook with stylus support. You’ll be glad you took the time.
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