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146 of 147 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for note-taking setting, still room for improvement -, September 13, 2005
I was looking for an alternative method than bringing a laptop to class because of carpal tunnel problems. I think this IO2 pen does a great job filling that duty for the following reasons, but there's also room for improvement:
PROS:
1. The pen battery and memory are sufficient for my needs - I am in 5 hours of class each day, and write approximately 20 pages of 8.5x11 notes, and the pen can handle that without going into the "red" on either the battery life or the memory, as long as I replace the cap when not writing.
2. It's faster than handwriting and then typing notes - transferring, correcting, and formatting 20 pages takes about 1.5 hrs each day, instead of many more to type them in.
3. It's user friendly. The training session is easy, and the software pretty much works with a few simple buttons. You open the software and it downloads the pages you've written, erasing them off the pen as it does so, then you select a page and pick one of three actions:
a) put the image of the page into an e-mail
b) put the image of the page into a word document (kind of like you scanned it in)
or c) CONVERT the page into editable text then put into word or an email. I always use this option, and what the software does is give you a 2-page layout with the scanned image on the left, the suggested typed text on the right, and then you correct it for errors before inserting it into a word document.
4. The "vibrating" factor isn't a problem - you feel a slight "hello-i'm turning on" vibration when you take off the cap, a quick double-buzz when you check the box to indicate you're done with a page, etc. Nothing too strange...
5. The paper isn't too much more than a regular notebook (nor does it look really strange) and can be ordered from a couple on-line stores pretty easily.
6. The pen does a good job recognizing both print and cursive, and if you add words to the dictionary it does better at your personal abbreviations or specialized terms.
7. The special appointment paper is great - you can check a few boxes and write text, sort of like old-fashioned carbon-copied phone message books, check a box saying it's an appointment or calendar item, and when you load the pen into your USB cradle it'll import that appointment into outlook automatically.
CONS:
1. MY BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH THE PEN IS WITH THE CONVERSION FUNCTION: IN ORDER TO RETAIN YOUR "FORMATTING," THE PROGRAM TENDS TO PUT THE TEXT YOU WROTE INTO A BUNCH OF ARBITRARY TEXT-BOXES SPREAD OUT ACROSS THE PAGE IN A WORD DOC, so the page is pretty much un-editable. Of course you've already edited for translation errors at the earlier step, but you can't really change the formatting of your notes into an outline or anything, because separate paragraps are in different textboxes. To get around this problem, as soon as you're done correcting the converted text, but before you click "put into word document", just highlight the text, copy it, and paste it into your own word document. You lose the formatting and have a bunch of extra carriage-returns, but it's better than trying to organize a bunch of text boxes on a page in WORD.
2. My second critique is the pen loads things PAGE BY PAGE - and every time you put a page in a word document, it opens a new document instead of adding a page to the first document, so you have to do some cutting and pasting to keep your notes together.
3. The pen is still a little TOO BIG. Granted I'm a woman with smaller hands, but I can't imagine how it must be to get the original IO, because this one is almost too big for me. I can barely manage to write with it comfortably, sometimes I have to take breaks.
4. The ink-cartridges are poor quality - I'm looking into getting a better refill, but the size seems unique so far. The pen pretty much writes like a cheap ball-point pen, which is depressing for someone who likes fine writing-utensils.
5. It takes quite a while to "upload" the docs from the pen to the computer, even with a USB 2.0 port. To deal with this, I usually just plug it in and let it transfer while I do other things.
6. You can go back and add text to pages before, but sometimes the pen is confused and so off-sets this text from the original text and you'll have to arrange your text-boxes to compensate and make the page look right.
7. The pen gets confused with diagrams because it tries to overlay shapes and text, and doesn't do so well. I find it's better to highlight any diagram and designate it a free-form drawing (this is pretty simple to do in the IO software before you use MyScript to convert the page), so the pen doesn't try to convert drawings.
8. The pen doesn't learn along with you. After the initial 30 min. training program, and disregarding the words you can add to the dictionary, the pen stops learning your handwriting.
9. The software that comes with the pen isn't really great at managing the documents. Each page is a separate document (even at the stage where you're in the .pen documents, before you even insert it into word or outlook).
OVERALL - I am fairly happy with my purchase because I really can't bring a laptop to class, and this does save time. However, I feel I still waste a lot of time fighting the formatting problems inherent in the software, so would like to see a new version of the software that doesn't do the stupid text-box trick. I don't think this pen would useful in the working world unless you couldn't bring a laptop to meetings or something.
The pen is pretty nifty and very easy to use if all you're looking for is a way to have all your notebook pages "scanned" into the computer, the problems really start with the conversion function.
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104 of 107 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Get it!, November 4, 2004
I have had this pen for just a couple of days, so this is very much a first impressions review.
I like it and the handwriting to text works reasonably well. My handwriting is not something I'm proud of, but the software is doing a good job. I suspect my hand writing will improve as I use the pen more. There are some improvements that could stand to be made, for which see below, but overall this looks like it is going to be very useful. I wanted a pda, but didn't want to have to carry one. I carry enough digital detritus as it is. This pen was my alternative solution to most of the problems I wanted a pda to solve.
As for improvements, the first is the size of the pen. I can use it reasonably easy, and logitech claims it is smaller than it's precursor, but it is not real comfortable, and my wife, with smaller hands, can not use it at all.
The second improvement it needs is to the software. I find it big and intrusive, I would much rather see it more seemlessly incorporated into the os, so that it was easier to concentrate on the management of documents without having to deal with a separate software program.
A related improvement is to the document management system - having to mark a page as done is annoying - it would be great if there was also a faacility to 'reopen' a page.
These are minor inconveniences in comparison to the functionality the pen offers; it really is something special - Get it!
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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Idea, Works Well, Needs Special Digital Paper, December 29, 2004
I received this digital pen as a gift, and am impressed with its capabilities (what a great idea!). This pen allows me to transfer meeting notes & other writing into electronic form for ease of filing, locating, and transporting (via computer & PDA).
The pen size is supposedly smaller than first version, but is still a bit on the thick side -- however, I found it to be manageable.
Even though I don't have very good handwriting, the software that came with it (MyScript)did a good job recognizing both my printing and cursive writing as well as drawings/sketches. Some guidelines for accurate translation of writing: write in your normal style when setting up your profile, write horizontally, cross out mistakes and continue (software corrects), do not retrace letters. The software can convert your writing to edit-able computer text, Microsoft Word documents, Microsoft Outlook (Email, Calendar, To-Do List).
Unfortunately although the pen writes on any paper, special digital paper must be used in order to convert to electronic documents, but digital paper is available from several sources at relatively reasonable cost and in various forms & sizes (notebooks, notepads, etc.)
Overall, I'm very happy with the pen (though I'd love a version that could write on regular paper ...guess this would require totally new technology though).
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