A few months ago, I was excited to learn that pen and tablet maker Wacom was working on a digital notebook product. I got so excited about the product that they asked if I could be a part of the product’s photo shoot!
It takes a lot to impress me when it comes to digital technology. Having tried so many predecessors (whom I will not name) I was expecting some sort of notebook that required special paper to make it work. Thank goodness this wasn’t the case. The magic is in the pen, not the paper!
The Bamboo Spark is a notebook with smart ballpoint pen that lets you write by hand, then saves your handwritten notes locally or within the cloud for editing, archiving and accessing anywhere. The tech is in the pen and the notebook folio. You use your own paper, and you can synch your work to the notebook with the press of a button. You don’t need to synch it with a device right away. All of your images and notes are stored in pages inside the notebook itself (up to 100 or so) and when you synch the device to your phone, they’ll all show up for editing.
I brought the Spark on the plane the very next day after I got it and used it to draw and write during the entire flight. It felt nice to use something that was “kind of” a computer without getting distracted by status notifications. It also felt great not to have to manually take pictures of every note I took, because when I synched the images I was able to edit them! I asked Wacom about Dropbox synching and OCR, and they mentioned that they would be coming soon, along with more options for the notebook casing itself. Hooray!
This notebook has replaced both my large notebook and my iPad for now, and it stores a lot of paper in the little folder on the side! This makes me really happy.
Did you know that Wacom is Japanese company headquartered in Kazo, Saitama, Japan, and that the name Wacom means “harmonious computing” in Japanese? Wacom’s American Headquarters are located in Vancouver, WA – just across the bridge from Portland, Oregon. But I was told that the Wacom’s American HQ will be relocating to Portland’s Pearl district early next year! I look forward to seeing them in the neighborhood!
Want to check out one of these notebooks? You can get one here!
