Not only is it great for notetaking and journaling - you can add your own photos to a page - it can also be used to sketch or draw thanks to a custom color palette and a collection of tools beyond just a pen. Wondering exactly where to start with the apps? Bamboo Paper (opens in new tab) is a lightweight app that delivers a true paper feel while writing.

Don't have a Surface Pen? You can always check out these Surface Pen and Surface Slim Pen alternatives. And don't worry about mixing and matching hardware the Surface Slim Pen works with older Surfaces.

Thanks to most of the above apps having at least some sort of free version, you can give them a try with your pen essentially risk-free to see if they'll come in handy. This is especially useful for quickly filling out those annoying forms that you usually have to type information into. Write all over it, highlight the significant bits, and save it as a new file. Just open a PDF file, and you're given free rein over what you can do. This fantastic PDF reader and editor is completely free, which is frankly surprising considering what you're getting here.

Best drawing software out 2016