Saving EditText content in RecyclerView

The major problem with your solution is allocating and assigning TextWatcher in onBindViewHolder which is an expensive operation that will introduce lags during fast scrolls and it also seems to interfere with determining what position to update in mAdapter.

Making all operations in onCreateViewHolder is a more preferable option. Here is the complete tested working solution:

public class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<MyAdapter.ViewHolder> {

    private String[] mDataset;

    public MyAdapter(String[] myDataset) {
        mDataset = myDataset;
    }

    @Override
    public MyAdapter.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent,
                                                   int viewType) {
        View v = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.list_item_edittext, parent, false);
        // pass MyCustomEditTextListener to viewholder in onCreateViewHolder
        // so that we don't have to do this expensive allocation in onBindViewHolder
        ViewHolder vh = new ViewHolder(v, new MyCustomEditTextListener());

        return vh;
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, final int position) {
        // update MyCustomEditTextListener every time we bind a new item
        // so that it knows what item in mDataset to update
        holder.myCustomEditTextListener.updatePosition(holder.getAdapterPosition());
        holder.mEditText.setText(mDataset[holder.getAdapterPosition()]);
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemCount() {
        return mDataset.length;
    }


    public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        // each data item is just a string in this case
        public EditText mEditText;
        public MyCustomEditTextListener myCustomEditTextListener;

        public ViewHolder(View v, MyCustomEditTextListener myCustomEditTextListener) {
            super(v);

            this.mEditText = (EditText) v.findViewById(R.id.editText);
            this.myCustomEditTextListener = myCustomEditTextListener;
            this.mEditText.addTextChangedListener(myCustomEditTextListener);
        }
    }

    // we make TextWatcher to be aware of the position it currently works with
    // this way, once a new item is attached in onBindViewHolder, it will
    // update current position MyCustomEditTextListener, reference to which is kept by ViewHolder
    private class MyCustomEditTextListener implements TextWatcher {
        private int position;

        public void updatePosition(int position) {
            this.position = position;
        }

        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i2, int i3) {
            // no op
        }

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i2, int i3) {
            mDataset[position] = charSequence.toString();
        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
            // no op
        }
    }
}