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Batteries For Your Pen And Paper?

Posted by timothy on from the overwrought-and-underuseful dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We've been hearing about the paperless office for years now, but we never seem to get any nearer to that environmentally friendly nirvana. It's just too easy to jot things down on a piece of paper, far easier than using a PDA. So maybe a digital pen and paper is the answer? The people at Pegasus, inventor of the Mobile NoteTaker certainly think so. Unfortunately, the guy who reviewed the NoteTaker thinks otherwise."

5 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. 149 lb? by -kertrats- · · Score: 4, Interesting

    for £149, couldn't you just get a cheap PDA and just never take it out of notepad mode? plus if you ever felt the incentive to actually use it, you've got that opportunity. Get a pen-shaped stylus and you're set.

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    The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
  2. Lovely by comwiz56 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to the article: 50 pages, tiny, feels cheap, excessive batteries, can't even exit some of the menus. Overall rating = 4/10

    I think I'll pass for now, especially with the £150 (~$270)

    1. Re:Lovely by GreyPoopon · · Score: 2, Interesting
      excessive batteries

      Yeah, but this comment set of my "dork-o-meter." The dork considered three SR41 (watch size [7.9mm x 3.6mm]) batteries in the pen and two (count them, only two) AAA betteries in the memory unit to be excessive. While I agree with many of his comments, the tone of the article in general was negative from the start, so it was pretty obvious that Gordon was suffering from severe constipation when he reviewed the product. I mean the guy even complained about the "boxy components at the head of the link cable."

      In fairness however, my verdict basically matches his. Way too expensive, cheap construction, not enough thought went into useability and design, bugs in the software. Overall, a bad value. But the batteries aren't really an issue, although I'd opt to replace the three SR41s in the pen with one or two AAAs because they are easier to find and you can get 15-minute rechargeables from Rayovac.

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      GreyPoopon
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      Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

  3. flying cars? by t_allardyce · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Whats the killer app here? no-one has found a reason yet that a PDA is more useful than some paper, most people who even have PDAs only use them for games really, everyone stores their numbers on their phones and notes on paper. Stick a very easy input system on a phone (as easy as a pen), make it easy and free to send anywhere and people might just do it. a way of writing that feels so good you would rather use it than pen and paper, the recognition doesnt need to be perfect, but instead of converting it right there it could be converted and kept with the original notes - when you want to search for something you search the converted text - some of which will be wrong but hopefully enough to get the keywords, then you read the original handwriting on your very hi-res screen and if you want you can convert it and correct it properly.

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  4. Want to see to future of paper? Check out Anoto by AdamInParadise · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Here: http://www.anoto.com/

    Their concept will blow your mind. Basically the best integration between traditional paper and pens, computers and the Internet.

    Wired (the magazine, not the website) ran an article about them a few years ago. You can read it here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.04/anoto.html ?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

    Regards,
    AIH

    --
    Nobox: Only simple products.