Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Pullman, WA
Posts: 130

SmartPad2

I had been considering the SP2, and finally ordered it. It came in a couple days ago, and here are a few of the things I have noticed:
I like it. There are several (software) improvements I think should be made, but overall, I'm happy with it.
One of the first things I noticed was that I could not zoom all the way. When you have a drawing on there (called ink notes), you can view it at 1x, 2x, or 4x. Well, it turns out that 4x is not permitted on color devices (such as my Prism). They are supposed to be working on this issue already.
I called their tech support to discuss several issues, and one of the things I asked the guy about was teh ability to beam the ink notes back and forth between PDAs, which he said should work fine. It doesn't. I had no desire to put velcro on the back of my Prism, so I picked up a cheap Visor Solo that stays in the binder at all times. It turns out that I can't beam the ink notes, and it doesn't seem possible to transfer them to another PDA on the desktop either. If anyone knows of any way to transfer the ink notes, I would love to hear about it.
If you print the ink notes from the included desktop software, it looks great. You can save the ink notes from there as either BMPs or GIFs, and either way, a lot of the quality is lost. You can see the quality loss on the computer when you view the pictures, and when you print them. I managed through a long drawn out process to save the ink notes as JPEGs with a lot loss quality loss (still some), but I see no reason for the loss at all. I really hope they get this issue fixed, as most of my ink notes will get saved as pictures and then imported into Word docs before they get printed.
Other than that, (the lack of beam, and pic. quality loss are what really irk me), everything seems to work great. This will be a real asset to my engineering classes. Another thing that makes this nice for class is the little cell phone holder turns out to be just right for holding my digital voice recorder. Most lectures, this binder is the only thing I show up to class with (along with my Stowaway).

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IYYAYAS

AMMO - Providing the enemy the opportunity to die for his country.

Registered: May 2000
Location: Chicago
Posts: 15

SmartPad is just not quite there.

Why doesn't the smartpad just save the images to a cf or other memory card, then the device would be independant of the reader. A user could view the info on any PDA, or a PC. And it could be folded in half, as a normal pads of paper in folios are used.

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 1

Couple Of questions as I am considering this product using it with my visor deluxe.
I am attending a 4 day conference (on dog agility, so can't borrow a laptop from work) and will be taking lots of notes, diagrams etc.

Is it a memory hog?

Does the software have text recognition? Or is there another product I can use to easily convert?

Is the paper notepad specific to the Smartpad or can I use any generic?

Thanks,

Owner of the spaniel horde

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: SF Bay Area
Posts: 71

quote:

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Originally posted by 2ManyDogs
Couple Of questions as I am considering this product using it with my visor deluxe.
I am attending a 4 day conference (on dog agility, so can't borrow a laptop from work) and will be taking lots of notes, diagrams etc.

Is it a memory hog?

Does the software have text recognition? Or is there another product I can use to easily convert?

Is the paper notepad specific to the Smartpad or can I use any generic?

Thanks,

Owner of the spaniel horde

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"This world is totally Fugazi." -Fish (Marillion)

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: SF Bay Area
Posts: 71

Damn, I guess the original SP2 thread already dropped off the list!

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"This world is totally Fugazi." -Fish (Marillion)

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Pullman, WA
Posts: 130

It's here.

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IYYAYAS

AMMO - Providing the enemy the opportunity to die for his country.