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Pen, voice recorder, calculator. I’m surprised that this thing isn’t checking my spelling and grammar. It can record lectures while you take notes, letting you listen to key points ay a later date. There’s a nice 2.5mm headphone jack at the top, along with a 2 inch long OLED screen at the top. The Pulse requires a special notebook and ink cartridges. One notebook and two cartridges come with the pen, while extra notebooks (a four pack is available for $20 from Livescribe) and ink cartridges (a five-pack is $20) can be purchased. One other interesting feature “3D” recording. There are two microphones, one on each headphone, which can record in 3D. It’s a really neat effect if you ever actually needed to use it.

The notebook paper has tiny dot patterns that provide a “grid” for the pens IR camera to reference. An infrared receiver in the tip of the pen recognizes unique dot patterns on sections of each piece of paper while you’re writing/ recording, and this allows the pen to “jump” to the specific moment in which you were recording and play back the lecture segment that corresponds to your notes.

The IR/dotted-paper combination is also how you navigate the pen’s menus and settings. The notebooks have various tools printed on the inside cover. One is a printed calculator; tapping the buttons on the page makes the answer appear on the pen’s screen. The page also includes various menu options for the pen, such as the screen’s brightness controller, a left-handed/right-handedselector, and the microphone sensitivity controls.

Wrap up- 9/10

Why? I don’t like that whenever I lay the pen down, it rolls all over the place. It could also use a silicone grip or similar near the nib. The notebooks are also pretty expensive ($5 for 50 sheets), considering that you’ll probably be replacing them often.

For $128 dollars, I’d most definitely recommend this pen for back to school. Any student from high school to college could easily use this pen for studying or anything else they may need.