Review: e-pens Create Digital Pen
Iain Laskey looks at an innovative solution to capturing written notes and diagrams.
| Product | Create Digital Pen |
|---|---|
| Company | e-pens |
| Web | www.e-pens.com |
| Price | £59.99 |
| We like | Hardware work well, accurate, works with Digital Ink applications |
| We don't like | software could be better |
| Rating | 7/10 |
| Requirements | Windows 2000, XP, Vista |
I often find that when working on a problem, I end up drawing lots of charts, pictures and doodling notes all over them. I've often wished these could be stored on my PC for referring to later. Well, now they can.
e-pens have released a pair of products, the e-pens 'Create' and 'Mobile Notes' . I'll be concentrating on the Create in this review.
The Create consists of a USB receiver and a wireless pen along with software to make use of it. In a nutshell, you clip the receiver to the top of a sheet of paper or picture and anything you then do with then pen is reflected on the screen of your PC.
Usefully, the package includes a set of biro inserts allowing you to see what you write on the paper itself. Alternatively, if you are working on a picture you wish to preserve, you can swap to a stylus which feels the same but leaves no marks. The biros/styluses can be easily removed by reversing the cap and using a metal gripper at the top to extract them - a nice touch.
Bundled Software
The software itself looks very dated with icons and a user interface straight out of Windows 3.1. Selecting online help fires up a PDF which is in bad need of proofreading. The software works in two modes, Mouse Mode or Note Mode with LEDs on the receiver unit helpfully indicating which mode you are in. In the former, the device emulates a mouse. Hovering above the paper moves the pointer around. When you place the pen on the paper, it starts drawing. A button on the side of the pen's shaft acts as a mouse button and support both clicks and double clicks. Right clicks are supported but via a somewhat tedious process of pressing, pausing and waiting for a popup menu to select 'right click' from.
The main input screen fires up automatically when you start writing and offers a reasonable amount of options and tools such as changing the colour and width of lines. You can also cut/paste the drawings into other applications and send any pages you have created via email or directly to someone on the network. A second application, the Note Manager, lets you organise pages you've created, convert them to different formats, create 'Sticky Notes' and interestingly, set an alarm to make a page pop up as a reminder. Also included is a copy of Serif's Draw Plus package.
It's worth visiting the makers web site as it contains some useful additional documentation, support and the latest version of the software.
Vista Support
Things are much better for Vista users. The e-pens Create is supported by Vista and Office 2007 or earlier versions of Office One Note and can be used with all the 'Digital Ink' functionality including handwriting to text support and direct entry in Office applications. Windows 2000 onwards also allows handwritten entries in Windows Live Messenger. The PDF manual goes into using these options in some depth and is a useful for read to the many related tools and facilities on offer in Vista/Office 2007 that people may be unaware of.
Mac OS-X Support
The packaging and supplied software mentions nothing of Apple Macs but the PDF manual indicates it works with OS-X as a graphics tablet. This means it will work with many OS-X applications and can also use the Mac's built in handwriting to text function. The makers web site has some Mac software as a download.
In Use
After a short period of time, the Create soon became easy to use. The pen feels nice in the hand and in purely hardware terms works astonishingly well. It's quite strange being able to doodle and write out notes. If you've used a graphics tablet, you'll feel right at home. Working with a pen as opposed to a tablet feels much more natural when creating notes. Toggling back and forth between mouse and Note modes was a bit awkward though and it would have been nice to have made this a bit more seamless, perhaps via another button on the pen itself.
Conclusion
It's difficult to sum up the e-pens Create. In hardware terms, it's a winner. It looks nice, works well and the pen is nice to work with. If you're a Vista user and ideally a Vista/Office 2007 user, this product can be firmly recommended. For others, I'd have liked better quality bundled software and can only hope this is updated in due course before I can be as enthusiastic for all.
Finally, prospective buyers may want to consider the e-pens Create's bigger brother, the 'Mobile Notes' version. This can store a number of pages in its memory allowing you to work without a PC, just the pen and sensor. Pages can then be uploaded to your PC later. It also adds built in character recognition making it a more rounded product for not much more money.
