Livescribe 2 GB Pulse Smartpen

First of all, these pens are the best Smartpens made, and would still be the best, if they were still being made. The problem is these pens were last made in 2009, and contain parts have have a finite lifespan. The battery and the display are good for about 3 years from the date of manufacture. So if the pen was made in 2009, then by 2012 they are no longer any good. I bought two of these pens in 2009, and they both died in 2011. I bought a new one in preparation for a new job in 2019, and I received a brand new box with a pen undamaged since it was packaged in 2009, however it had a bad display. I was able to charge the battery, and the pen made noises when I tried to operate the setup menu, but with the display being dead, there was no configuration possible. The manufacturer tells me they stopped making these before I bought my first one, so there is no way it is possible these were made later. They have integrated batteries and are not intended to be repaired, The OLED display on my original pens grew dimmer in the two years I used them, and were the primary reason they were failing, but the batteries and display pens stored for 10 years are unlikely to have the same life as new.

I got this as a gift from my employees and I wonder how I worked without it. It does everything it says and more. The build quality of this pen surprised me and customer service at Livescribe surprised me even more. shortly after getting the product and using it for a few days it stopped working upon putting it on the charger. I called customer support at Livescribe and they said they would send me a new one. no questions asked. I with in minutes of calling them it started working again and I have had no problems since. I called and told them and they canceled the order for the new pen. The ease of use is amazing and surprised me. I use it primarily for meetings, but also to do my safety audits at work. The pen allows me to do my audits writing the issues I see along with a audio record of the issues at hand. My favorite part and what surprised me the most was being able to upload them on to the computer and send them out to my employees to get issues corrected. that and everyone else in the office wants one now.

Purchased in July 2010 for daughter to use in college. She loved it, worked well thru that year, she returned last fall, it quit working. When she contacted customer service, they told her battery was gone and it couldn't be replaced. We found the pen when moving her back, I hooked it up, updated the software, and pen firmware based on their website, the display doesn't show. The PC found the pen as soon as I hooked it up. But you can't see anything to tell if it's on, recording or anything. I believe it still has battery life but the display is show. I paid $130 for this pen, other notebooks, and refills. This is a huge waste of money for the quality. The pen didn't make it a total of 12 months use and it wasn't like she didn't keep it charged, stored, properly, etc. She has other electronics that still look new. I'll not be purchasing another one of these items or anything from their company.

Pros: *takes good audio *easy to use *best for meetings/interviews. close conversations rather than lectures cons: *bad software. Once you remove audio from the storage on the pen it creates a new folder as if you are writing in a different book. This made it complicated to order lecture notes simply by date because I had to constantly rename and save the files to another folder on my computer.

I have only had my Livescribe Smartpen for about a month. I am a high school math teacher and have already used it to prepare several pencasts for my students. By working an example while explaining it, I create a mini-lesson which my students can watch at home if they need more help or if they have been absent from class. The students are finding it helpful. The pen is easy to use for the most part, but there are a few tips which I found by reading reviews. If you write while speaking and don't use the microphone on the headset, you will hear the pen scratching on the paper which is very annoying. The headset which came with the pen looks like ordinary earbuds to use if you wanted to listen to a pencast after creating it. But each ear piece has a microphone in it. When I am preparing a lesson, I hang the wires around my neck so that the microphones are in front of me. No more scratching noise! The sound is perfect. The written documentation is minimal. I strongly recommend reading critiques of the pen online. This is where I got the idea of using it for my classes.

The LiveScribe Pulse pen I received is a complete piece of rubbish. I charged it for several hours and the display didn't light up when I pressed the power on button. It made a 'dink' sound but no lights. Suggested the device didn't boot up. Contacted Amazon and there was no exchange. Checked my Windows setting and it said the device driver was not available. Checked LiveScribe.com and the support for this device was seriously lacking. That's when I noticed this device might be a 2011 version of the LiveScribe series of smart pens. Gravely disappointed that Amazon stocked and sold me this unusable item;

It works great. I really love how you can playback the audio by clicking on a note you were writing while recording. I've never had it fail. It always picks up everything I write. I think this could be a really valuable tool for anyone in college. It's a little bit of a touchy item in a corporate setting because people don't usually want to be recorded. You don't have to record audio though. You can just start writing on your note pad and it will record what you write without audio. People complain about needing to purchase paper but it's not really that expensive. If you're really concerned about that, livescribe lets you download "dot paper" from their website that you can print on your home printer which works exactly like their pre-printed dot paper. I just bought one for my Father and I'm planning on getting at least 2 more as gifts for Christmas. I only have one gripe but it doesn't detract from my 5 star rating. I wish it came bundled with the software that turned your handwriting into type. You can purchase it for an additional $30 which isn't that bad, and some versions of this pen come with it bundled so shop around. Enjoy :)

I am pretty annoyed that the firmware update basically killed my Pulse smartpen. I was left with an Error Code 303 that will not go away no matter what I try. Their famous fix for errors on the pen doesn't work because the pen basically just loops through this error message and cannot be recognized now by the docker or the firmware software. Customer service basically said I am out of luck and have to buy a new pen since the warranty is expired. I am pretty disappointed and probably will not buy or recommend this product again. Too brittle and I am out $100, to me this is a lot of money...