THIS portable handwriting capture device is definitely a blessing for people like me. I am rather fond of doodling notes on pieces of paper wherever and whenever the inspirational muse strikes, but simply hate the idea of having to key in the notes onto my PC for use in my writings.

Those who attend meetings and lectures will share the same feeling.

The Inote Mobile Note Taker EN100 does the job rather well by converting all scribbles on a piece of paper to the PC. The product, which consists of a digital pen and a receiver unit with a liquid crystal display, is based on a handwriting recognition technology that captures not only handwritten notes but also drawings and sketches.

To start off, just clip on the receiver device to the piece of paper on which you will be taking your notes. Then, using the digital pen, scribble away and the receiver unit will immediately capture all your notes.

With a storage capacity of two megabytes, the compact receiver unit can store about 100 A4 pages.

The EN100 comes with the Notes Manager application, which you will need to install into your PC. Once you are ready to convert your handwritten notes to digital format, plug in the device with the given universal serial bus cable to your PC.

With a few simple steps, you will see your notes uploaded to your laptop as JPEG files and are ready to be stored or e-mailed.

Notes are saved by date and time, and this makes it easy to refer to them in case you need to add to your notes. Once connected to the PC, you can organise the notes, edit and add more information to the stored notes.

If you are running Windows Vista Office 2007 on your PC, the added advantage will be the ability to use this device just like a Tablet PC pen and to control the mouse pointer. Windows Vista has the Tablet PC input panel, which enables handwriting to be converted into text in a Windows-based program.

I tried the EN100 on several types of paper, just to make sure it worked and found no problems. The receiver had no problems capturing the notes, as long as the paper had a flat surface.

The receiver unit uses a rechargeable battery while the pen uses replaceable ink refill. Two ink refills are provided, and if you need more, they do not cost much – only RM2 per refill.

There are only two things to worry about with the EN100 – remembering to recharge the battery, and bringing along the ink refill just in case the ink on the digital pen runs dry.

Product: Inote Mobile Note Taker EN100

Manufacturer: Yifang Digital

Enquiries: Hersheng Corporation Sdn Bhd (Tel: 03-56336991)

Price: RM320

Specifications

Coverage area: Up to A4

Resolution: 100dpi

PC connection: USB

Digital pen: 133mm by 14.5mm

Receiver unit: 76mm by 33mm by 15mm

System requirements: Windows 2000 (SP4)/XP (SP2)/Vista