Your Livescribe pen is a marvelous little device. It records your handwritten notes as graphic pages- similar to what you’d have if you scanned handwritten notes from a legal pad. It also can record audio in synch with the handwritten notes in your notebook. This eliminates the necessity of writing everything you hear in a lecture or meeting. As long as you get the main points written down, the audio recording can capture the details. The audio recorded with your pen is surprisingly good, although occasionally you may hear little “handling noises” caused by the movement of your hand on the pen. You can improve the quality of your audio recordings with the optional Livescribe recording earphones. They are worn like regular ear buds, but include two little microphones and record to your pen in stereo.

The pen also has additional features that extend its usefulness.  You can set the pen to display a variety of default formats: the current time or date, the current battery status, or memory capacity. The front cover of your notebook also includes controls to adjust pen play volume,display language,and display orientation (for us pesky lefties). For simple calculations in the mist of note taking, you can do math by writing the operations on a page in your notebook.  For more complex calculations, there is a fully featured scientific calculator printed on the inside covers of each notebook. Results for your calculations are displayed in the little screen on the top half of the pen.