The smartpen gets smarter

Several months ago, I took a look at Livescribe's Pulse smartpen, a digital pen that simultaneously records audio and your handwritten notes, and syncs the two together to allow you to find what you heard by simply tapping on a word you wrote.

The occasion was the launch of the company's app store. While I have always thought the pen was a great idea, I found the apps to add little additional value to what could be a very useful tool for students, lawyers and others with a need to listen to long talks and keep track of what has been said.

Livescribe smartpen Livescribe's new smartpen is much more pleasant to use than its earlier model.

What I have always thought was a good idea has now gotten better, with Livescribe's updated line of smartpens. While the company would love it if Pulse owners would use their pen exclusively, that has not been practical.

Because of the electronics embedded within, the Pulse pen was simply unpleasant to hold, too thick and slippery due to its metal surface. Holding one was much like holding a promotional pen that one gets at a trade show and promptly chucks in the kitchen drawer.

Now, Livescribe has figured out how to slim down the pen and, by covering the barrel in rubber, make it a much more pleasant writing instrument, one that you can use for extended periods. The new models use the Echo name.

Other improvements include the elimination of the separate dock that one needed to sync the pen to a PC; now a USB cable is all that is used.

The original Pulse also came with a sleeve in which to keep it, but seriously, how many people today regard pens with the reverence one used to hold for expensive fountain pens? The sleeve is gone too, replaced by a small plastic cover.

The 2-gigabyte Pulse lives on, at a reduced $129 (down $20). The Echo pens come in a 4-gigabyte version for $169.95 and an 8-gigabyte model for $199.95.

The smartpens not only allow you to upload audio talks and handwritten notes, but to share them as well. Teachers have been uploading their lectures and then inviting their students to go to the Livescribe Web site and listen to them, clicking on written keywords to jump from one section to another.

A revised Livescribe application now allows users to e-mail others their so-called pencasts, rather than just bringing users to the company Web site; recipients download the free Livescribe app, and watch and listen to the pencast.

When you are listening and viewing a pencast, or doing the same with your own notes, you can search for a written word; once found, a click on the mouse brings up the accompanying audio spoken at that point.

But be forewarned: if you have terrible handwriting, your word most likely will not be found.

Other changes: the unattractive headphone earbuds bundled with the original Pulse have been dropped; Livescribe has added a standard mini-audio input to the Echo that accepts iPod-like earbuds.

You can now create custom notebooks in the Livescribe application, akin to music playlists in iTunes. And the pen can be password protected, ensuring that a thief will not be able to listen to your private recordings.

The app store has also been upgraded, with about 76 apps now available. But my earlier opinion on them still stands: don't buy this device for the apps.

While some utilities are useful and some games offer a mild diversion, they remain primitive compared with smartphone apps.

For example, the new $14.99 American Heritage Desk Dictionary offers 70,000 definitions, but you cannot look up a word while you are writing text; rather you need to enter the application first. There is no equivalent to right-clicking on a PC mouse to pull up a contextual menu with a definition.

Livescribe's smartpens are definitely smarter. But its apps, not so much.