Let me start out by saying this is a cool product, and I do recommend it with the reservations mentioned, below.On the plus side, it's a cool toy. If you want to record ephemeralities
rather than writing a lot of stuff out, it's great.
I don't know whether I would really want to use it to record entire
lectures, though, but that has to do with learning styles. I am not
an auditory learner I prefer reading and writing. The more I write myself,
the more likely I am to remember the information. For an auditory learner,
however, this would be wonderful.
Some of the features need work. The advertised "translation" function is
not that great. Here are the languages it can translate: Arabic, Spanish,
Mandarin, and Swedish. Not much use to us German-, French-,
Italian-speaking folks. But then, it's really not much use to anyone else,
either, because it only has a capacity for a relatively small number of
basic words.
The desktop software that allows you to transfer your notes to your computer
can only be put on one computer at a time. This is a real mistake, IMO. Many
people have a desktop and a laptop and don't want to spend a lot of time
trying to figure out which they're most likely to want to use with the pen.
If you travel a lot, the laptop might win out. But whenever you're home, you
won't be able to transfer your notes to the desktop.
The software itself seems to work well, and it has lots of bells and whistles. It can upload
my notes to the Internet or share them with my classmates. For students, this is undoubtedly a great feature.
Since the pen uses a special kind of paper, Livescribe should offer it in
more than one form and size. It comes in a one-subject, spiralbound notebook
that is wider than an average college-ruled one. It would be helpful to have
the option of a non-spiralbound pad or one that is bound at the top, and to
have different sizes: steno-sized or even smaller, and perhaps a
three-subject full-sized notebook as well.
One final comment: this pen isn't going to be comfortable for anyone with
small hands to use for any length of time. It may not be all that
comfortable for people with big hands, either, unless they favor the fattest
fountain pen on the market. This isn't a pen-sized pen it's a Cuban
cigar-sized pen. It's manageable, but after using it for half an hour, it's
a relief to switch to a regular pen. The Pulse is probably as small as it
can be, given the current state of technology, but if I were redesigning it,
I would go with a little longer and a little thinner and weight it so that
it's heavier toward the business end.
But what about the smaller version-the 1GB smartpen? The difference between the two pens is about $50. The other model gives you twice the recording capacity. The fifty buck difference seems to makethe 2 gig pen the better bargain.
But is it?
First of all there is no difference in the performance or capabilities of either pen except in smart pen storage. this pen holds about 100 hours of recorded and compressed audio. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Few us need to record more than 100 hours straight, assuming the battery life is that long. When the pen is cradled it uploads automatically the contents of the pen and images on the special dot paper. The pen can be emptied of audio while the audio and images remain on the desktop. This is sort of like clearing your hard drive after moving the files to an external drive.
In two months continuous use of the 2GB pen I never came close to 100 hours stored on the pen. So the bottom line is that this pen may be a reasonable cost effective choice. What isn't questionable is that this smartpen is a revolutionary and important technology.
To reiterate what I said in my review of the 2GB pen:
My brother ordered two of these pens when they were first available from the manufacturer. His thinking apparently was that he would have a backup should he ever lose one. Quickly realizing that he might have over-ordered, he offered one to me to try.
There were a lot of reasons I was not enthusiastic about his offer. The first was that unlike my brother, I actually do lose pens from time to time, even expensive ones. So if I lost this thing I would owe my brother money. Second, I am a Mac enthusiast and the desktop software for a Mac platform will not be available until the end of 2008. Finally, the necessity of the product escaped me.
But being a toy lover I put aside my objections and accepted his loan. A few weeks later I was calling customer support on a desktop issue (I installed it on my only Windows computer, a Toshiba tablet). The problem was a software glitch, since in reality the pen was still in beta. The customer service rep solving the problem asked if it was registered in my name. I assured her it was. I then told her that my brother had bought the pen but that he was never getting it back. I could hear my statement relayed around the support department where it was greeted with shouts and laughter. They knew. I was a convert. I had drunk the Kool-aid and was forever theirs.
Okay so what do I use it for? I take it to hearings and depositions (I am a lawyer, remember?). These are public events under Florida law and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.This is important since the pen doesn't just record the strokes of the pen, it records everything being said. And it records it very well. Here is the cool part, touch a word in your notes and you will hear whatever was happening at that time. My favorite demonstration to date is to touch a word from a contested trial where I got to ask a witness if he had ever told people that he spoke to the dead and that they spoke back to him. The guy nearly came across the table at me, a point also recorded. Now an aside to lawyers, law students and pro se litigants-do not ever ask someone this question unless you have an email from the witness attesting to his ability to commune with the formerly alive.
The recording capacity of this pen is astonishing. The manufacturer suggests that the 2GB pen will hold 200 hours of audio. I have no reason to doubt it, since constant use has barely tapped its capacity.
When the pen is uploaded to the desktop software (currently Windows only) images of the notes and the audio are loaded into the computer. From there it can be uploaded to an online site where it is Mac accessible. For now this satisfies my Mac needs at least till the end of the year.
You need special paper to take advantage of the upload features. Fortunately, the supplies are reasonably priced and available online. However the notebook supplied with the pen is most generous.
There are lots of other features in the pen. It is possible to draw a keyboard and play notes (musical notes) on it. My daughter, a music ed major, particularly enjoys this. There is even a cute animation demo built in whose 3-D sound as heard through the earbuds is astonishing and mildly amusing.
So who could use this pen other than trial lawyers? Students seem to be a logical group. Perhaps physicians and nurses could use it. Did the patient really say he had a condition or did he say something else? Livescribe needs to produce industry specific paper for just such uses, or to allow outside vendors to create it.
This product will revolutionize the workplace in ways that we cannot now predict. All we can predict is that it will prove to be one of the most significant technologies of this decade in the same way the personal computer was in the 1980s. Click the"Buy" button now. You will not regret it.
Addendum: As of February 2009 a full version of the Livescribe Desktop for Mac is available for download free to registered users. The Mac Desktop is fully functional and comparable but not identical to the Windows desktop. The Mac version lacks one major feature at this time-the ability to print the special paper found in the Windows version. Some users have reported that they are able to print paper using the Mac software and Adobe so this may not be that important an omission. Printing also does require a color laser printer at 600 dpi, the feature may be of limited utility in any event. On the plus side the Mac version allows the audio capture to be saved in AAC format which makes it playable on standard CDs. Third party software which converts handwriting to text is not currently offered for Mac.
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We all pretty used to technology promising something then having to deal with the fact the promise was more hype than reality. The manufacturers want to get us into a frenzy, thinking their product will revolutionize transportation, or entertainment, or phone calling. But, when the frenzy dies down it seems there are a lot of problems, and unfulfilled expectations that even eager fans will quietly admit are weaknesses.This is especially true with a product that seems so entirely revolutionary and different. It's certainly too good to be true, right?
So, let me start off by addressing that. The Livescribe is the real deal. It actually does what it says it can do. And it does it simply.
The Smartpen works. And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this might revolutionize note taking.
I'm not in class now, so didn't have a real world opportunity to test this out. Instead, I wanted to make sure I got the hang of it before I began to depend on it. I had a 48 minute lecture on mp3 on my desktop that I played over my speakers. I turned on the record feature of the smartpen and started taking notes. Two pages of notes are now completly linked to the audio. Tap any word on those pages and the pen will replay, either through the headset or through the speaker, the words being said when I was writing those particular words. Complex explanations can be saved with only a few words reference or a chart.
This records the text and the audio, and allows it to be saved for future reference. Text, however, is too limited a word. Drawings, markings, formulas, whatever, can be also used.
It really works. Amazing. I was suspect and then utterly surprised. It lives up to the hype. You can see examples of it on their website www.livescribe.com in the community section.
More than this it is expandable. New applications give it a wide potential. This potential is what is pushing me to give the Livescribe a hearty 5 stars. Because while it absolutely does what it says it does, some of the features are previews rather than full-blown capabilities, such as translation. Also, and this is key to me, as of right now the audio and text is limited to the livescribe software. While this software has an amazing ability to search for words that are written, allowing for searchable notes, it does not presently convert the writing to editable text. Meaning you can't cut and paste. This is a feature being developed, however, so should be available before too long. I heard they are working on getting this out before Fall. There is also no integration with other programs such as OneNote. That too might come with third party applications that are being developed.
The audio is better than one might expect. I have an Olympus digital recorder and the smartpen is far above that in audio quality, especially with the included headphones, though the speaker is surprisingly clear as well.
The battery seems to be very long lasting. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday playing around with this, listening to a full hour long lecture, and the battery meter went down about an eighth.
The battery is not removable, which might lead to some issues later as these pens get older and the charge doesn't hold as long.
Overall, I'm amazed by this pen. It simply works and it works simply. The present features are going to revolutionize note taking by integrating full sound. The expanding potential of the smartpen as the manufacturer encourages 3rd party applications, means there is even more potential on the horizon. The cost is quite reasonable. Even the cost of the supporting products shows Livescribe is interested in getting these into the hands of as many people as possible rather than making an obscene profit off of accessories. For what you get, this is an amazing deal.
Five stars for what it does now, with five more stars for how much it seems capable of doing in the future. This might become the most important tool for students since the notebook came out. Better than a laptop, for students and teachers, and much better than a regular pen. I'm extremely pleased and can't wait to get back into the classroom.
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I purchased the pen for business use (note taking in both internal and customer meetings).The pen is really excellent and the capture quality of both audio and writing is quite superb. It would be nice if the pen were slightly smaller but it remains comfortable to hold definately an improvement over earlier generation smart pens (I should point out that I have large hands so I'm not sure how a petite person will get on). Battery life seems to be good and if the 1GB memory will truely record 100 minutes of audio then that is more than enough for my needs.
I have mixed feelings regarding the somewhat basic desktop software (which holds me back from awarding the pulse 4+ stars). Previous reviewers have mentioned the lack of functionality (especially OCR). I would love to see some link to MS Outlook where I can capture actions from my meetings and sync them into my to-do list. If I could convert the notes from customer meetings into type, it would save time rewriting contact reports into our sales management software. However it is early days and I sincerely hope that the software will be developed.
One other annoyance which other corporate users may face is that unless you have administrative rights on your PC, the pen will not sync with the desktop software (A Livescribe support person confirmed that this can be a problem). Thankfully my months of nurturing a relationship with one of our IT support techs has paid off and she has let me have admin rights to my PC (despite being against company policy). If I get caught before Livescribe issues a fix to this problem, the pen will become useless to me.
Overall this is a good effort by Livescribe and future software development could make this a very useful business tool.
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Updated 4/8/2010 I'm revising my review today because they just updated the desktop software today and added some MUCH needed functionality: the ability to arrange your pages into folders!Pros:
1) It was easy to use right out of the box
2) Software installed easily.
3) Audio recording quality was good
4) When I docked the pen, the notes that I had taken loaded flawlessly into the software and looked just like a scanned page
5) The character recognition is great and you can search for words or phrases in your notes via the software. It doesn't convert your handwriting to typed text, (though there is additional software that purports to do that)
Cons:
1) You have to use special paper that costs $5 per notebook. While there is a feature that claims to allow you to print the special paper for free, you have to have a post-script printer. None of my printers at work or home could print the paper, and on the support forum it was clear that folks were having lots of trouble printing it. (Update: I was finally able to figure out how to print the paper. It was a painful workaround that involved downloading third party software, installing a PCL printer driver, etc. Bottom line is that I WAS able to finally print the special paper)
2) You can FINALLY organize the pages into folders (as of the latest release of their software). This makes the pen SO much more valuable for me in a business setting. When you upload the pages to the software, they are organized by the physical notebook in which they are written. When you click on that notebook to view the pages, they just display in the order that they are bound into the physical notebook. pages 1-200. However, you can then drag the pages into custom folders. They stay in their orignal 'notebook' folders. Those cannot be deleted, but you can create custom folders and drag pages from any of your notebooks. So now if you go to five different meetings in a day, you can keep your notes organized by project, class, etc.
3) You can't use two of the same notebook at the same time. The pen uses paper specially coded with little dots. Well, these dots tell the pen EVERYTHING about the notebook. It tells the pen what notebook you are using, what page you are on, where you are writing on the page, etc. That sounds cool, but the catch is that the notebooks are numbered. So if you bought a notebook with the number 1 on the cover, you can't use another one with the #1 on the cover until you archive the first notebook in the software. (update, this isn't as much of a hassle now that the software allows you to arrange pages. Now it is pretty easy to just use a notebook until it's finished. No need to use a bunch of notebooks.
This pen has proven to be invaluable to me. I highly recommend it. It would be worth the money even if it didn't record audio. Just being able to dock my pen and have the pages upload to my computer automatically is absolutely worth every cent I paid!
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