Here you will read the hands-on review of iVistaTablet Digital Ink Pad digital notepad and understand why I have titled it as the best digital notepad in the market, surpassing Solidtek in many ways. It is a very useful device with lots of functions.
Before starting the Digital Ink Pad review, I will briefly tell you what you can mainly achieve with this device.
- Digital note taking with drawings, graphs, flowcharts.
- Ability to edit, save these notes on different platforms including internal pad memory, SD card, on computer using USB cable.
- Organization of notes in pages, folders.
- Ability to add multiple voice memo recordings to each page.
- Exporting the page contents to different formats (jpg, pdf, png etc.)
- Using hand recognition software, converting image files to Word readable files.
- Taking notes on any program including MS Office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.)
- Using the pad as a real time tablet. It means that you can see what you type or draw instantly on the computer screen. Very very useful function. I will come to this topic in later stages of the review.
Unpacking:
The digital notepad arrived me in a nicely wrapped USPS box. The main box was inside it. I liked the way of packaging and placement of items so that the device would not be broken during shipment.
iVistaTablet Digital Ink Pad consists of the main pad you will replace notebook, write and draw on, two cartridges (black and dummy), blue ink digital pen with battery, USB cable, a metal tool to change cartridges easily, an empty notebook and two software CDs.
p.s : I have additionally ordered a red ink pen and a portfolio case to replace the device inside, carry safely around and protect against scratches.
Here are several photos.
Digital Ink Pad Hardware:
In front, there is an A4 size area where we will put notebook. On the bottom of the front face, there are controls and indicators. All of them are touch sensitive to digital pen strokes. We just need to tap or sometimes tap and hold for 2 seconds to achieve several functionalities. These are creating folders, pages; changing pages, erasing the page contents; starting, pausing voice recording, volume up and down keys.
On the top, there is a mini USB slot which we will use to charge sync/save contents to computer.
On the left side, there is power button, writing mode changer button, SD card slot, jacks for microphone and headphone.
On the back, if we open the battery slot, we will see the cartridges. There is a tiny hole to change old cartridge easily.
Starting the digital notepad
8 hours of initial charging is suggested in quick start guide (a very useful double side sheet of paper) before the first usage. So, I did the same way. Charging is achieved by USB connection to computer. After that time, you can disconnect it.
The next step is to place the zinc battery to digital pen. After I press the back button on the digital pen and opened the digital pen power, I was ready to take notes.
Remember that even the tiniest stroke we make is recorded in internal memory of the digital notepad. It works flawlessly and doesn’t miss any strokes. So, talented drawers can also take advantage of this device. (I am not a talented one in drawing, so I preferred writing some text instead 
)
You can create additional digital pages. Do understand that the real notebook paper is a dummy one. You can even overwrite on the same physical paper many many times but save the contents on different digital pages. It is even possible to use dummy cartridge. In this case, you don’t see anything on the real paper but all strokes are recorded in the memory! (more…)
