Review: Genius G-Note 5000 graphics tablet

The G-Note 5000 is best described as a digital note recorder that captures everything written or drawn on it.

As well as having a piece of paper with your doodlings, the unit will capture a digital copy, which can be transferred to the PC for editing, storing or sharing.

The whole pad weighs 400g including batteries, which is considerably less than a notebook PC, and makes it an interesting alternative to paper for note-taking in meetings and classes.

The G-Note's stand-out feature is the provision of two pens, red and black. This means that more complex diagrams or notes can be drawn, with the pens keeping their colours when seen by the PC too. Frustratingly, the pens don't slot into the tablet, meaning they are a messy liability since they don't have caps either.

A 150 page, lined A5 pad is provided. Once that runs out, any old A5 pad can be used to replace it. Each piece of paper is linked with a digital page in the device's memory. In practice, the 32MB of inbuilt memory can only hold 500 pages of information.

The tablet is easy to use and accurate, if a little coarse at times. Digital pages are stored in Genius's proprietary file format, and after connecting the tablet to a Windows PC via USB, the supplied software can be used to open the files. The software won't work with Windows Vista, and it feels fairly old-fashioned overall. Basic note editing – which includes erasing, highlighting, changing the colour and shape of the lines and dots – is available.

Most importantly, the software can convert notes into images or Pdfs so the files can be used on other computers. The software can't recognise handwriting, however, so the notes can't be converted to text documents.