It can be used with just about any piece of paper. You can buy these special papers (there are a few sizes and models) or you can print it yourself if you have a high-resolution color printer.Įquil Smartpen 2 detects the pens position by using a combination of infrared light and ultrasound. Hence the pen needs special paper to work – that has markings to help the pen know where the tip is pointing at relative to the paper. Livescribe 3 Smartpen uses a camera inside the pen pointing downards towards the paper. Each method influence the pens design and how you use it. The main difference between the two digital pens is how they capture your notes. Livescribe 3 is the best in the special paper category whereas Equil is the top for the regular paper category – more on that later on. These are best as according to Digital Pen Reviews. I’ve been using these two for different purposes, and each have their own tradeoffs. They are Livescribe 3 Smartpen and Equil Smartpen 2.

Here you’ll learn a comparison of the two best digital pens available today.

It is somewhat more practical than scanning your paper notes afterwards or taking photos of them. Then you will always have a copy even though you lose (or discard) the original paper notes. The software in the pen works in the background to copy your notes into the pen itself. They are a less distracting way of taking notes on an iPad since there’s nothing to get in the way between you and the paper – no popup prompts to rate the app, no push notifications to distract you, nor any rigid structure of how you structure your notes. Smartpens creates digital copies of your hand-written notes or drawings.

Livescribe 3 evernote review