Seiko InkLink Handwriting System

Other products by Seiko Instruments

Product Details

Supplementary Guide [375kb PDF]

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Product Manual [1.84mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006B7UH
• Item model number: LINK-IR-P
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank

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  Electronics > Office Electronics > Presentation Products > Electronic White Boards

• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 21, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
The Seiko Instruments InkLink handwriting system is the ultimate tool for instantly capturing your handwriting or drawings directly to your handheld, laptop, or desktop PC.

It's easy to use, works on ordinary paper up to legal size, and easily clips onto 50-page tablets. Plus InkLink comes with its own carrying case that fits in a pocket or purse.

Using Seiko's exclusive binaural technology, the InkLink Data Clip continuously listens for communications from the InkLink pen while it tracks the natural movement of your hand. As you write anywhere on the paper pad with the InkLink pen, the InkLink Data Clip reads precisely the location of the pen tip and communicates its exact position to your handheld, laptop, or desktop PC.

Sounds complicated? Believe it or not, InkLink is about as difficult to use as a paper clip. With InkLink, all you have to do is think it, ink it, and link it.

Product Description
The Seiko Instruments InkLink Handwriting system is the ultimate tool for instantly capturing your handwriting or drawings directly to your handheld, laptop, or desktop PC. It's easy to use, works on ordinary paper up to legal size and easily clips onto 50 page tablets. Plus, InkLink comes with its own carrying case that fits in a pocket or purse. Using Seiko's exclusive Binaural Technology, the InkLink Data Clip continuously listens for communications from the InkLink pen while it tracks the natural movement of your hand. As you write anywhere on the paper pad with the InkLink pen, the InkLink Data Clip reads precisely the location of the pen tip and communicates its exact position to your handheld, laptop or desktop PC. Sounds complicated? Well, InkLink is about as difficult to use as a paper clip. With InkLink, all you have to do is think it, ink it, and link it.The package includes: InkLink Data Clip, InkLink Electronic Pen, three 1.5-volt button batteries, Blue ink cartridge, IrDA Transceiver, one AAA battery, InkLink Carrying Case and Quick Start Guide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Technically solid, but has basic usability problems, December 19, 2002

By	C. M. Johnson (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

InkLink is technically slick, but if you are considering it as a way to take notes in any significant volume (like meeting notes in a business setting), forget InkLink due to serious usability problems. However, for very low volume purposes, it does work well. The device itself is flawless. Its ability to accurately capture writing is almost spooky, except for very small dots or tics that sometimes don't register (not a big deal). Problems come in when you try to use InkLink in real-world settings, not just a single page of test doodling. When I take meeting notes, I constantly flip back and forth to add or revise notes in the relevant part of the notes written earlier in the meeting. But InkLink can't function if the paper is folded up and back as you normally would do with a legal pad -- since this blocks its IR receivers. So if your paper is perforated on the top edge, you have to tear off each page before you move to the next. Not only do you have to click on your Palm/etc. device to inform InkLink of which page you are on as you move between (paper) pages, you also have to hold a now-torn-off sheet in its original position (accurately) while updating your notes on that page. The problem is different if you have a side-perforated pad (spiral-bound) -- here there is no need to tear off pages, but instead there is no good way to clip the InkLink device to the pad. Legal pads have a solid binding area at the top, but spiral-bound pads are "all page" -- to move from page to page, you have to unclip / reclip the device as well as click on the Palm/etc. Taking notes in this manner is 100% impractical, although it is very amusing to those around you. I suppose if you could rig up a way to put a spiral notebook in a portfolio at a fixed distance from a separately mounted InkLink device, it may be tolerable. There are other issues with how the captured notes are managed on the PC -- not great but would work for many people. The only clearly indicated use of the InkLink is single-page captures, perhaps as a one-off diagramming / sketching tool.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent at notetaking. Software is missing featues, September 2, 2002

By	marcvg "marcvg" (MA USA) - See all my reviews

The InkLink receiver is small and easily clips to a pad or even a single sheet of paper. The receiver can connect via USB to laptop/desktop, or by an IR transmitter to a PDA. The pen has a transmitter near its tip, whose signal is picked up by the receiver. No tablet required! The carrying case that holds all fits in a pocket or brief case.

The system accurately transcribes handwriting, pictures, squiggles, and so on. The software stores each session as a file containing one or more pages. Its easy to select, delete, and move words, figures, etc. The final printed version can look better than the original! I'm tempted to use the system for all my notetaking.

Some software features are poorly implemented. For example, lines can be straightend, but the operation requires selecting a menu item. There are no standard drawing features, such as menus to make lines, boxes etc. You can copy and paste selections to other pages in InkLink, but you can't copy into other other applications! You can't add a sketch directly to add sketches to, say, a PowerPoint presentation. You can export pages to .jpg, .bmp. or .png format, but that is an awkward way to transfer a document or drawing. (With Adobe Acrobat you can "print" a PDF file that retains the original quality. That's useful for transmitting documents. It would be nice to have that as part of the software.) Conclusoin: the software makes Inklinke a closed system, not an universal input device. Still, it is easy, small, and inexpensive, and I'm tempted to buy a second for home.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Clever design, needs software, January 18, 2003

By	G. Gomez (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This device works as advertised, it faithfully copies every pen stroke. You can lift the pen point, move all the way to the bottom of the page, make a notation and then go back to the top and continue. It has reasonably fine resolution, I only considered this product for handwriting. The flaw lies in two areas: It does not work as a tablet and stores pictures in a proprietary file with an ".ink" suffix. I bought this for handwriting recognition and those programs need to read your writing in real time, not from a jpeg file, Inklink does not act as a tablet and cannot be used with various recognition programs. The .ink file is proprietary to Inklink and therefore cannot be used by other programs, yes you can save your drawings and notes as a jpeg but why bother? Inklink serves a purpose if you need a PICTURE of written notes or drawing but thats it. Use pen and paper, for those important items scan it in or even fax it to yourself. I was hoping to take notes of telephone conversations and have software translate them into a Word file that I could scan for important words, Inklink cannot do that.