A digital smartpen can transfer handwritten notes and sketches from your notebook to your smartphone. Balqis Lim lists eight worthy smartpen choices
WACOM INKLING
INKLING is a sketching tool that allows you to sketch with a pressure-sensitive ink pen on paper while, at the same time, capture a digital version of your sketch. It enables you to sketch away from your computer — at your favourite coffee shop, during meetings, or on the train to work. When you finish sketching, you can plug the Inkling into your computer and transfer your sketches for further refinement in popular creative software applications, emailing, or project archiving on your computer. Refill your pen with any standard mini-ballpoint ink refill cartridge.
PRICE: US$169.99 (about RM706) at Amazon.com
EQUIL SMARTPEN 2
WRITE and draw naturally and express your ideas in a way that’s meaningful to you using Equil Note and Equil Sketch apps. Select from a range of colours and pen tips and add text and photos to digitally enhance your notes. Equil Smartpen 2 plays well with the items you already have, which means there’s no special paper to buy. Plus, your notes sync between your devices, so they’re always accessible. Collaborate in real time with local and global teams during meetings or presentations by streaming notes using Equil Note Stream where you can highlight key ideas on the fly, insert text and images and allow contributions from remote participants.
PRICE: US$225 at Amazon.com
ROCKETBOOK WAVE
WHAT about a smart notebook? The Rocketbook Wave provides the freedom of a traditional pen and paper notebook while instantly blasting your notes into the cloud using your smartphone.
Just download the Rocketbook mobile app and instantly send your handwritten notes to all of your favourite cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, iCloud and more. And when you use Pilot FriXion pens with the Wave notebook, you can erase your notes using your microwave oven and reuse your notebook. Pilot FriXion pen ink turns clear at 60 degrees, and the Rocketbook Wave is specially constructed to be microwave safe.
PRICE: US$24.91 at Amazon.com
IRISNOTES AIR 3
IRISNotes Air 3 can recognise any writing, whether isolated characters or cursive handwritten text, in 30 different languages including English, German, Chinese, Korean, French, Japanese, and Arabic. It can also detect graphs and drawings, so shapes are digitised precisely and the lines are straightened for optimum result. You can also get creative as the IRISNotes Air 3 allows you to write and draw on photos taken with your mobile device, which you can share with family and friends wherever you are.
PRICE: US$74 at Amazon.com
NEO SMARTPEN N2
THE Neo smartpen N2 has a small camera which records your writings and sends the data to your tablet or smartphone via Bluetooth. Everything you’ve written down will be saved in the internal memory which can store up to 1,000 sheets of a handwritten text even when not paired with a smart device. You can also create some tags linked to the important pages, for a quick and easy search later on. Although it only has a battery life of five hours, this smartpen can transcribe your texts into 15 languages! You can also sync-and-edit your notes or doodles via Neo Smartpen app. You can change the font colour or completely delete your drawing using the app.
PRICE: US$169 at Amazon.com
LIVESCRIBE ECHO
ECHO smartpens record everything you write and hear so you’ll never miss a word. You can replay your meetings or lectures simply by tapping on your notes. The free Echo Desktop application saves your notes and recordings to your computer for fast and easy access. Echo only works on Livescribe dot paper, which is a regular paper printed with a unique pattern of tiny microdots. This tiny pattern works a lot like a GPS system for your smartpen, allowing it to capture everything it writes or draws on the dot paper. However, you can also print your own dot paper for free from within the Echo Desktop application.
PRICE: US$149.99 at Amazon.com
MOLESKINE SMART WRITING SET
THE Smart Writing Set is an instant access kit containing a dotted layout Paper Tablet, Pen+ smartpen and Moleskine Notes app — everything you need to bring the advantages of digital creativity to your freehand notes and sketches. The nCode paper technology allows the Pen+ to recognise exactly where it is in the Paper Tablet and capture each stroke as you capture your thoughts. The Moleskine Notes app then smoothly transfers words and drawings from page to screen in real time, so you can digitise text, edit, organise, share and bring your content to life.
PRICE: US$199 at Amazon.com
LIVESCRIBE 3
WITH the Livescribe 3 smartpen and the Livescribe+ mobile app, simply write on paper and watch it instantly appear on your tablet or smartphone. Your notes become infinitely more useful when they are tagged, organised, searchable, or even converted to text. Easily add recorded audio that’s synced with your handwriting so you can relive important moments. Once you twist the ring to extend the ink cartridge, everything you write is captured by the infrared camera on the pen and stored in the smartpen’s built-in memory. Simply connect your smartpen to your iOS or Android device and watch as all your notes are synced to the mobile app.
PRICE: US$134.15 at Amazon.com