I-pen Mouse

We were a little nervous about opening the box containing the I-pen Mouse when it arrived at our offices. A fearful warning read: 'The opened or cut edges will contain sharp edges, which will lacerate skin and cause deep and severe wounds.'

Thankfully, we survived the ordeal and got the pen up and running with very little fuss and no lacerations to speak of.

It's designed to replace the mouse, with pen input along the same lines as used on a Tablet PC, albeit using the specially designed mouse mat rather than a touchscreen. It's poorly designed and wouldn't even sit flat on the desk, as it had been curled in the packaging.

It can be quite difficult to use, and holding the I-pen Mouse certainly didn't feel like we were using a real pen, especially with the USB cable dangling from the top.

Despite our best efforts, the handwriting achieved using this product looked more like something you'd expect to see in a primary school. We also found that it was particularly hard to write in a straight line, leaving the text somewhat slanted.

The I-pen Mouse can operate as both a pen and a mouse, allowing you to drag and drop files and then leap into scribbling directly onto a web page. One problem we found was that, when attempting to depress the pen to open a folder, the cursor would move down making precise actions slightly difficult.

While we can see that some people might find the I-pen Mouse interesting as a source of fun, we really can't envisage it being useful in real-life applications. If you could use it to write directly on the screen then it would have its uses but, as it stands, it's not something we see really catching on.

Contact: Finger System 0870 042 1305
www.fingersystem.com

Specifications:

• 800dpi
• USB powered
• 22g
• 142 x 15 x 21mm (h x d x w)