Go directly from ink to the software you use most often. Eliminate re-keying and slash your paperwork time. Back up and quickly retrieve handwritten documents on your PC. It's all possible with the Logitech io2 Digital Writing System.
The new, smaller-sized Logitech io2 pen fits your hand like a premium pen, so you can write comfortably. Take notes or draw sketches in ink on the smart paper and a tiny camera captures your work, storing up to 40 pages at a time. Intelligent power management maximizes every battery charge.
The smart digital paper consists of a printed dot pattern which locates words and images on the page, and ensures they appear in the same place in digitized files. When you dock your digital pen, your text and sketches are automatically transferred to your PC where you can easily find them, use them, and share them.
Take direct action New WriteSync™ technology integrates handwritten or typed text directly into Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, and Lotus Notes. The text opens in the applicationimmediately take action, save it, or send it. Custom applications are also available.
Convert handwriting to digital text Includes FREE software that learns your handwriting to turn notesincluding tables, shapes and chartsinto digital text that you can edit and use in any application, just like text entered with the keyboard.
Search and organize files Logitech io2 software helps you find what youve written. Enter any word into the io software search function and get a list of every handwritten file that contains that word. Never lose notes again!
Export graphics into the most popular formats Easily use drawings and graphics in almost any application. You can export images up to 300 dpi in the most widely-used graphical formats, including BMP, JPEG, PNG, JIF, TIFF, and EMF.
1 Solid
When the Amazon box showed up at home, my wife was wondering what I was thinking. I have a Dell Latitude D800 and a PalmOne Treo 600 with a portable keyboard. My lifestyle screams mobility. She asked me - what do I want with a digital pen?
For one, it's a pain to take the Latitude to meetings. In my small town, bringing a notebook computer into a room has instantly branded you a complete geek (which may or may not be true). Two, I have tried taking meeting notes and reminders on the Treo. While I love my Treo, as I loved my Palm IIIc and my Axim X3, trying to thumb type notes and keep up with the meeting provided to be a bit much for me. So, I looked to an input device that could be unobtrusive but could still fit into my digital lifestyle. The io2 seemed to fit the bill.
For the most part, I made the right call. Sitting in meetings, nobody says much of anything about the oversized pen. I take my notes, dock my pen (and the download is not that slow), and usually import them into OneNote, which I am increasingly getting used to. Instead of notes all over the place, they are centralized and on my hard drive, ready for review.
Not everything is peachy with the io. I have struggled with the OCR software. My handwriting is pretty good, but it has a hard time picking up my rounded text. The digital paper is a pain in the fact you might not have it near you when you need it. And the whole system is not cheap, even though its a bargain over getting a Tablet PC. I anticipate that this will the same durability as my other Logitech products, which has been pretty good.
2 So worthless I re-sold it
First off, it could not recognize my handwriting at all. I went to the "training" module and despite 5 tries (each try involved writing several pages of sentences, it would not even recognize enough pages to "learn". Even with very careful block printing, it would only recognize maybe 3-4 words in 10. I re-sold it at a loss, but at least I recouped some of my money.
3 Not What You Expect, More Than You Imagine
The purpose of this pen seems to be converting handwriting to text. My opinion on that is it is breaking technology and the only consumer software I can find to do it is the software included with the pen. It requires
4 Life saver for one who uses too many notebooks!
Yes, the pen is a bit "fat" - takes some getting used to, just like switching from an ink pen to a mechanical pencil, pressure and finger placement adjustments. Yes, you need "special paper", but I found the paper to be slightly more expensive than quality notebooks - the difference here is that I don't waste paper as I do with "generic notebook paper" - I don't doodle as much, I don't make the same notation several times, etc. However, the "fat pen" and the "expensive paper" are a far cry from detractors for me. As one who grabs one notebook after another dashing to this or that meeting only to return and toss it upon my desk, grab another notebook an hour later and so on, only to return to find I have to hunt through each notebook looking for the notes from a particular meeting. Instead, I now have about 3 digital notebooks handy - they all look the same, no way to confuse them with "generic paper" - and I know that when I return and dock the pen, my notes, no matter how hastily scribbled, will be uploaded and filed or e-mail or ready for editing within just a few minutes.
The time saved thus far has been hours, and I do mean hours, per day. What a treat to have notes already "transcribed" onto my computer program or folder - the "old fashioned note taking" usually meant the notes stayed in the notebook, until needed...if I could find them, if I could still make sense of them.
I bought a spare docking cradle so I can have one at work and one at my home office - thus I always have the option of charging the pen and/or uploading documents ( think the spare cradle is much more sound/solid - it's not the "portable" model, but seems more likely to survive many, many dockings). I've not encountered difficulties with any of the recognition software - the training was straightforward and both my printing and cursive were easily matched by the program.
I hope to see the surface of my desk by the end of the month - with only a few digital note pads here and there - well, I'd settle for seeing a corner of the desk!
No regrets, reasonable price - note: take a moment to order the ink refills...thus far, a bit tricky to find readily available.
5 Very useful
This pen is amazing. My handwriting is so bad I typically print and even then I often can't read my own notes but this pen is getting better then 95% of what I write into text. I think once I become consistent with my letters (never had to be before!) that percentage will increase. I did do the training, but that only took 20 minutes. If you read the other reviews you see a few negative comments but I have not had those negative experiences. The pen is chubby, especially as I am used to a slim Cross pen, but I have no problem with the size or comfort. I used the Collins notepad one reviewer complained about without problem. The download time is not like a thumb drive but considering all the other time I am saving with the pen I don't care (it is not THAT slow). The only thing I really don't understand is why more people aren't using these. I'm an author and plan on doing a whole book with this pen. Can you imagine doing a term paper with just handwriting and then in seconds it's typed? A teacher grading a paper could quickly write their notes and e-mail or print types responses. Definately worth the Amazon price for this.
6 io2 Impressions
Basically, nice concept - poor realization.
Got the pen a week ago. Installed the latest software on Win XP SP2.
First surprise - Collins Digital io Notepad displays wrongly in View Mode. The background page is shrunk in the upper left corner leaving the written text over blue background. After a couple of days of struggle - Logitech admitted the problem and kindly prompted me to "Please continue to use the Cambridge Notebook for now". He-he, this is the paper which comes in the package plus I already bought a few extra notepads as these were the cheapest. I thought that they would have tested it better.
The pen is large, read uncomfortable after short use; expensive for what it is; transfering files is slow; text recognition is average; it still looks as compu gadget at meetings.
I personally would have been happier with a slim fast scanner for scanning my meeting notes. Cheaper and most comfortable.
7 Dont let the one star phase you, it's great!
This pen works great. The guy who gave it a poor rating must be writing in Chinese because right out of the box I fired it up and WITHOUT training the software at all it nailed my handwriting, and my wife's, and my assistant's. If fact I've had it a month or two and still haven't seen the need to train the software to better recognize my handwriting.
It's been a perfect solution for taking minutes in meetings. If you check the "email" box in the notebook, the software inserts the handwritten document directly in an email as an attachment or imbedded. You will have a copy of the meeting minutes to your staff before they get back to their offices. And that's no exageration. Buying notebooks is no big deal and not much more $. My only con is that the pen is a bit fat but again it's not unreasonable at all for the benefit. It's a gotta have.
8 Great Idea, Works Well, Needs Special Digital Paper
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).
9 Handwriting recognition is poor
I purchased this item because I wanted to be able to have electronic copies of meeting notes created automatically. This system does make excellent electronic copies of notes (as images), but I found the hand writing recognition to be too imperfect. In order for the software to be able to convert your handwriting to text, you must write in very legible handwriting, which is simply not my personal style when taking notes during meetings.
10 Get it!
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!
