Solo Bluetooth Digital Pen

I bought Solo Digital Pen after reviewing several other products. Before covering Solo review let me put forth my analysis and findings on other coparable products.

1. iBall TakeNotes: After my experience with iBall Senior mobile, I do not want to go with this brand.
2. Genius GNote: This is the product I wanted but refill availability in India is a question for me.
3. Staedtler: A good brand internationally. Lacks bluetooth. Also not sure of low cost refill availability.
4. Livescribe Echo: Even after shelling 13k rupees, you need to depend on this company for everything starting from paper, refills and notepads. And these are very expensive. And I do not want to end up myself paying money endlessly for consummables alone.

Now comes Solo. I chatted with the company support and they are very responsive and scored my first impression. I asked mainly about the cost of the refill and its availability in the Indian market. The exec said it is easily available and around 10 rupees. Then I thought of buying it and went to a local dealer. The box is not sealed. I thought not to buy and then tried with other vendor and the shipment got delayed. Lastly I got this through this vendor and got it before the committed date.

Unboxing:
The product came in an alluminium box. Receiver is tiny as I assumed from the pictures. This is a big plus, you can attach to any notepad. Clip space is so small so if you are using a bigger pad, you cannot attach it as a whole, instead you need to attach that to the pages.
Pen looks normal pen and doesnt had a slight premium feeling. I believe that lenght of the pen could have been reduced little bit to give that a premium feeling. Printing of Solo brand on pen cap was a bad taste all together.
Now this comes with two DVDs, one contains MyScript Lite version with License. The USB cable comes in a retractable package and the mechanism doesnot work properly.

Functioning:
After installing the software and I connected the receiver using USB port to computer and attached to some white papers. Notemaker window popped up and I started scribbling on the paper which appeared on my computer screen.

Pen uses ballpoint steel refill and of an inch and half length. Writing was smooth but ink quality is not so great and appealing. I hope you can change the refil.

Later I removed the USB connection and attached the receiver to a notebook page. I started writing in several languages and even traced a photo. At the end clicked the turn on / off button and saw the counter increased. Detached the receiver, docked to USB port and able to download the work I did as it was. Functionally I found the use is enormous. I took some notes while reading my journals and drew some figures. Mouse functionality is good but not so great, may be I need to get used it. Drew something on MS OneNote and found its a bit easier than mouse.

I have only one day experience with this pen but its an interesting thing to get used to it.

Few recommendations for the manufacturer.

+ Switchover to metallic body of the pen and shorten the length. While shelling 10K rupees almost, your consumer deserve definitly of the Shaeffer grade pen if not Mont Blonc. But please do not give a Reynold.

+ Rubbarise the receiver unit. Chances are there that it will fall on ground while clipping.

+ Put sophisticated clip. Current one doesnot hold more pages and slips easily.

+ I did not try with other refills but definitely you may need to look into improvement on that angle as well.

+ We need some software for Symbian as well, still Stmbian market share is high and you cannot ignore that totally.

Thank for going through my rather lenghty review. The product is a good one you can try but all I advise is negotiate for the price before you buy one.