Dane-Elec Hello Kitty ZPen

This is the Dane-Elec Hello Kitty Zpen. It’s designed to help children who are learning to write. It comes with a colouring game and software for practising letter shapes.

It looks similar to the ZPen we reviewed recently, but this one is wired not wireless. That keeps the price down compared to the ZPen, but is a problem with small hands and doesn’t help pen control.

The software and drivers are stored on the USB key and the computer must be installed properly – there is no running straight from the key. Once the drivers have been installed the pen works much like a graphics table; move the pen around to move the cursor and tap to click. You will just end up with a messy piece of paper.

The writing software was a little disappointing. First of all there are no audio instructions. I’d rather do the activities with my children than leave them to it but it would make it more fun if they didn’t have to keep asking what to do next. Also, it only offers writing practice and no feedback.

A bigger worry is that our 4-year-old tester didn’t find it very intuitive to have writing appear on both the paper and on screen and that the paper quickly became covered in letters over the same place. The colouring program worked a little better but there still isn’t really any value to having a proper pen nib on the end.

Just like the Zpen the movements are recognised by the sensor that fits to the top of a piece of paper, it won’t fit over more than a few sheets of paper. It fits on the top for writing with the right hand but it’s best to move it to the bottom when writing with the left hand.

We found the Dane-Elec Hello Kitty Digital online for around £55. It’s a good idea but a proper graphics tablet would probably do better service when using a computer, and a pen and paper for learning to write.