Livescribe Pulse

MORE: click here to watch our video review of the Livescribe Pulse

We’ve looked at so-called ‘smart pens’ before, and never been enormously impressed. The idea is that any notes you take using the pen are also captured as computer files so you can file them for later viewing or indexing.

As with most such pens, the Livescribe Pulse saves your writing as picture files, which can’t be edited as text files can. That’s a big disadvantage – we would love to have our scrawls translated into word-processor-ready documents – but the technology to do it is some way off.

Instead the Pulse’s clever feature is that it records audio as well as images of what you write. That’s extremely handy if you’re taking notes in a meeting or a lecture (not so much if you’re on your own, in which case it might only pick up the hum of a computer). The pen links to a special notebook (it’s supplied with a 200-sheet book) of paper that’s printed with patterns of tiny dots.

A camera in the tip of the pens picks up the patterns to figure out where on the page you’re writing, which it uses to reconstruct the pages later, when the pen is linked to a computer. A USB docking station is supplied, which is also used to charge the pen’s internal battery.

Once you’ve made some notes you can tap the pen anywhere on the page and it will play back the audio that was being said when you wrote a particular sentence. Audio recording is optional so you can switch it off to conserve battery life or if there’s no sound to hear. Battery life was good – we were able to take notes in several long meetings without needing to recharge.

Picture quality was very impressive, as was the recorded audio. We used it to record a busy meeting and were easily able to make out all the voices around a large conference table.

It has a couple of clever touches, such as a calculator and translation tool (using a touch-template provided in the notebook). It can even be used as a piano, which is more of a gimmick.

You can see all of its features including the piano in action in our video review: click here to watch.

The 2GB memory in the pen is enough for up to 200 hours of recordings. Ink refills are fairly cheap, but the paper cost is one to watch – once you’ve used the initial notebook up, further pads (it will only work with the special paper) cost from £10.

At its list price of £150 (online stores are selling it cheaper) the Livescribe Pulse is not cheap but it’s great for those who need to take notes in meetings or lectures.

MORE: click here to watch our video review of the Livescribe Pulse