E-pens Mobile Notes

Computers have taken over virtually all forms of documentation but it’s hard to beat pen and paper when it comes to taking notes or when you just want to capture a few thoughts and ideas. That is, until you want to transfer your thoughts back onto a computer, at which point you’ll probably wish you’d typed them in the first place.

This digital pen is a nifty solution to the problem. Clip the little black box to the top of your sheet of paper and turn it on before you start writing with the supplied pen. You can now write on the sheet as normal – the pen is equipped with a ballpoint nib, just like a standard biro, and the box stores up to 50 pages of handwritten notes at a time.

When you’re done, plug the box into the software on your PC and you’ll find that your text has been digitised. The black box captures all the movement of the pen as it touches the paper, creating a perfect copy of your scribbles on the PC. It even comes with handwriting-recognition software that makes a surprisingly good stab at converting your scrawl into editable text and learns to accurately identify your writing as it becomes familiar with it.

As well as the ink version, the unit comes with a stylus-style nib. If you plug the box into your USB port, you can use this attachment to write directly to your PC, or even use it instead of a mouse.

Although attaching the box to your paper before you start adds an element of fiddle to the otherwise ultra-efficient process of note-taking with a pen, the final benefits are obvious. We were also very pleasantly surprised with how well it worked.

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