Livescribe Smartpen – Review January 20, 2009

I’ve come across this device before, but it has really caught my eye of late, potentially due to the great website they now have.

The Livescribe Smartpen captures both the audio and your writing on the fly using a dot paper method that allows an infrared camera in the pen to very accurately track what you are writing/drawing.

Controls at the bottom of each page add to the features like playing back the audio (as it was captured related to what you were writing at the time).

This device would be excellent for University Students for lectures, and at Conferences.

Apparently the 2GB version of the pen can record over 200 hours of audio!

At first I thought having to use the dot paper would be a bit of a catch, but they now let you print dot paper at no more cost than your printing costs.

I do like the Livescribe journals though… You can have up to 4 on the go at any time.

I noted that captured pages and the associated audio can be shared through media like Facebook, email and through the Livescribe desktop and online community.

Probably one of the better writing digitizers I have seen on the market, and it seems to be gathering interest and some excellent reviews.

Regards,

Glenn Irvine
glenn.irvine@collaborativeview.com