Noteslate

Update: Friday, August 5, 2011: Unfortunately, I just discovered that the website for this product, www.noteslate.com, has been taken down.  Apparently the group that promised to create this product was unable to do so, which is too bad because I would have gladly bought one of these.


Geeked About: 

Noteslate, an electronic tablet which transforms handwriting into digital images, intrigues me greatly.

At $99 plus shipping I could justify purchasing this device based on the amount of money it would potentially save me in paper notebooks and the amount of time it would save in terms of translating the notes I take in pen in those paper notebooks into text on a computer screen.  Even with a netbook I still find myself drawn to use a pen and notebook to jot down notes and sketches rather than inputing everything into the computer right as it comes out of me, which adds a step to my workflow.

The Noteslate will come with a pen shaped stylus that works as both a writing tool on the pointy end and an eraser on the other end, the way a pencil operates.

Kids, you can ask your parents to explain how these 

used to work in the days before we had computers

At $99 I would certainly want to keep this thing safe but I wouldn't feel so scared about losing or damaging it that I would have to keep it at home under lock and key at all times.

Features:

• 760 x 1024 display
• Ability to save out pages of notes as either .gif or .png files
• Relatively low cost at $99 plus shipping
• Low power consumption (no word yet on the number of hours per charge but it should be fairly high)
• USB port and SD Card slot for transferring notes

Concerns:

I signed up for the Noteslate email alerts more than a month ago and I haven't received anything from them.  The blog on their site only has a single entry from February of 2011.  The command of the English language displayed by the creators of the site leaves a lot to be desired, e.g. "Thank you for all your support, feedback and talks about Noteslate tablet.  When we put our site online a few days ago we really wished this."  Yikes!  Hopefully, they are hard at work making this device a reality and English is their second (or third) language.  I read on the site that the release date is scheduled for June of 2011 but I'm not holding my breath.

The fact that I most likely won't be able to try this out in a store before purchasing it also concerns me.  I would like to make sure that the device is really responsive to input because I imagine that even a little bit of lag would seriously hurt the user experience.  Perhaps I'll wait until a few others review this thing before investing.

It looks cool anyway

You can check out the Noteslate website here.