Livescribe Smartpen – 2Gb Model
Ξ March 31st, 2009 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Geeky, Software, Technology |
So, I’m a bit of a gadget freak, but not the type that would buy any gadget – simply because it seems, um, cool [Mmmm].
I saw Livescribe’s Pulse SmartPen on a ‘must have’ list I stumbled upon; and, as my partner and I are both academics – and as such, both ‘send’ and ‘receive’ lectures/talks, we thought it worth investigating, and, to cut a boring story short, we decided [well she did – she’s got the money!], to buy one – the BIG 2Gb model.
Unfortunately, Livescribe – who offer the best price on their own products [duh!] – don’t ship outside of the USA. Something you only discover once you’ve got into the ordering process; once it’s in your ‘cart’. So, suggestion to Livescribe – perhaps make this ‘crystal’ on the initial Buy page?
After shopping around, we found that a lot of places in the UK were ‘out of stock’, yet ‘expecting delivery soon’ – which means, IMHO, avoid like the plague! If a website doesn’t say something’s in stock, one should move along.
We eventually went and found the 2Gb model on bitesizedeals.co.uk and, ordered the 2GB Bundle for £199 – saving £50 apparently. Which, if really true, is a great deal!
A couple of days later, our Livescribe arrived in a very big box.
The box contained:
- 2Gb Pulse Smartpen [in a smaller box (above)]
- 3-D Recording Headset
- 5 x 200 sheet notebooks [dot paper], college-ruled, and colour coded
- USB mobile charging cradle
- Smartpen case
- 2 x 3 black fine point ink cartridges + 1 stylus cartridge
- Demo card and interactive stickers
- Interactive Getting Started Guide
Note there’s no software provided – other than what’s resident in the pen of course. For the PC/Mac side of things you go and get the Livescribe Desktop software as a download.
The install of that was smooth, and the application looks and feels very professional.
I like software to be VERY intuitive [as I’m pretty sure you do], and so I never read a manual, unless I just can’t progress through simply figuring it out. I’ll have more on this aspect of the desktop software later.
When the pen was first attached, I went and found ‘Check for Updates’, and there were lots:
Sorry that’s a little small, but to get an idea of how many there are, notice the size of the scrollbar on the right of the list.
However, this is good news! I.e., it’s nice to know [or at least suspect] that Livescribe are keen to improve their product; and, as they do that, issue lots of updates. Of course, one could also take another view: that Livescribe ship buggy software – that is problematic, been reported n times, and, as a result, have been forced to make a very large number of changes to its product! I never tried the pen with whatever versions of things it came packed with [so can’t comment on whether it seemed buggy at all], but I take the former of the two views expressed above. And hey, why would you want to use a product’s software ‘as is’ when there are updates available; which will surely only improve things?
Anyway, the update was smooth.
So, now to try it!
The pen comes with a tutorial/quick-start thingmy which was well worth working through – and I won’t describe it here, and instead show you a picture of me working through it!
The tutorial was easy to follow, smooth, and, I think, pretty much walked you through everything you need to know to get ‘fully functional’.
Be sure to watch the videos of how the pen and the software works here – use the thumbnails at the bottom of the page to walk-through more-or-less everything to do with this gadget.
Ok, so in summary, the pen is awesome! A truly remarkable and wonderful tool that I would recommend purchasing to anyone that takes notes.
But …
Criticisms: I have but 3 [so far].
1. The desktop software is, IMHO, not *that* intuitive – and I still find my self clicking on non-functional items – and/or ‘right clicking’ on things to bring up a context-menu that simply don’t exist. For example, to remove an item from the desktop software, or the pen, you have to highlight the item and then use the top-level menu to select the deletion option. This really should be on a menu accessed via right-clicking on an item.
The desktop software seems well written, i.e., it’s ultimately functional, but, for me, well, it just doesn’t really satisfy.
2. It seems to me that there is an obvious missing feature. You can tansfer your files to your Livescribe Desktop, and from there transfer them to your shared space on Livescribe’s own website via Livescribe Online [a really cool feature]. However, you cannot transfer files *back* to the pen once they’ve been moved off of it! And that’s just dumb!
Ok, so with a 2Gb pen it might be a rare event – to move things off to make space – but, if you do, you’ll be stuck with never being able to use your hand-written notes with the pen ever again. A few other people have noted their own surprise at this missing feature on Livescribe’s forum pages, and it seems that it might yet appear at some future date. And that would be great!
3. Livescribe Technical Support seem to take around 24 hours to respond to queries. Ok, so I only had two ‘trips’ to the support email address, but that was what I found – it’s sloooow!
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Link: a YouTube search featuring the Livescribe Smartpen.
Link: google search for ‘Livescribe review’.