When the first smartpen made its debut in the United States a few years ago, I was excited.
Here was a smart device that could record audio while you used it to scribble down your notes.
Now, it has made it to these shores. I bought one almost as soon as I saw it being tested by a colleague.
The latest generation is called the Pulse. It is made by Livescribe and sold here by Convergent Systems.
So far, the pen has worked quite well. As my interviewee speaks, I write my notes with it. At the same time, a microphone on it records his voice.
For such a small device, the microphone is remarkably sensitive and the audio is as good as anything you could have on a pocket digital recorder.
It comes with an earphone that also works as a mike. This is useful for phone interviews - stick it in your ear, put your telephone handset over it and you're set.
So far, I have recorded about 10 hours of interviews on it and used only a fraction of its 2GB memory.
When I run out of space, I can simply erase the recordings - saved as files - on the pen. The bundled software also allows users to archive their recordings on a Windows PC. (A Mac version is in the works.)
The ink cartridge in the pen is rather small and I will need to buy refills soon - just after about five A4 pages of notes.
The bundled notebook (only a special Livescribe notebook will do) is also filling up.
The notebooks cost $40 for a set of four. The price of the ink refill is yet to be confirmed.
The 2GB version, which can record about 90 hours in high quality (HQ) audio, costs $315. The 1GB version costs $291 for about 45 hours of HQ audio.
Others to consider: In my opinion, none.
This article was first published in Digital Life, The Straits Times on Oct 22, 2008.
