Even though I can sit in front of a camera for hours, I do not consider myself the creative person here at GNC. My wife is the creative type, and she spends as much on paint, pencils etc as I do on gadgets at times. She is also and iPad Junkie, so when the Apen A5 Smart Pen arrived I just handed it to her, and asked her to tell me about it in a week.
A couple of days later I see her on the couch, iPad in hand with the pen and the A5 communications module that plugins into the power charge port plugged in. I casually asked how she liked it, she said how come you did not buy me one of these before? I mentioned it was a review unit and I got that look, like your not taking this away from me are you.
My wife had read the box and downloaded the three free applications. The App she was using when I noticed was the “Studio Basic Lite”. She was doing some basic sketching, but she said she could markup images, capture notes, sketch and draw along with some other things from the other apps. I played around with it for a while, and after making a mess of things she erased my doc, I see the value as a tech / business guy. When I attend meetings this will be perfect for note taking, and the best part is I can doodle while I take notes and unlike paper erase the doodle.
The Apen A5 Smart Pen is delivered with the Apen stylus, battery, receiver, 3 pen tips, a protective pouch and the Quick Start guide. Getting started is easy you plugin the A5 receiver into the charging port configure the pen and your almost ready to draw etc. You need to download the three free apps from the app store. Sadly there are only three apps that work with the pen, FlyNotes, IdealNotes, and Studio Basic Lite. You should flip the iPad on its end, and have the charger port with receiver at the top.
The retail on this unit is 129.95. I asked my wife if this was going to save me money on art supplies and all I got was a dirty look. Overall though for business user and those with a creative flare it is a nice product. The only addition they could have made was to include a nice case so your piece parts would be easier to manage when not in use.
