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Gadgets are everywhere. Some are useful, while others just plain useless, like this Toaster Notepad. Last year, while Christmas shopping, I came across the Fly Fusion pen, a pen/computer that records what you write and gives you the ability to transfer it to a computer. The idea really appealed to me, but the Fly Fusion pen seemed to be geared toward kids, and frankly, the pen is big and looks uncomfortable to use.

After doing some research, I came upon another pen computer called, The Pulse by Live Scribe. The Pulse is smaller and geared toward professionals and college students. While the Pulse is not yet available, some of the features that it includes make it much more appealing than the Fly Fusion. For one, you can record audio while taking notes. Afterwards, you can tap on a section of your notes and the pen will play back the audio that it recorded during that time.

The Pulse requires that you use dotted paper (as does the Fly Fusion). There is a camera built into the tip of the pen that records your strokes. When you are finished, you plug the pen into your computer and transfer it to the Livescribe’s desktop software. From there, you can transfer what you wrote into MS Word. The Pulse will also transfer drawings.

The dotted paper will be sold through Livescribe in the form of both notebooks and leather bound journals. One nice feature is that you can print the paper out yourself if you don’t want keep buying notebooks.

Being someone who likes to write in notebook, but hates transferring what I wrote into my word processor, the idea of a pentop computer sounds great. I plan on buying a Pulse when it’s ready to ship. After putting it through it’s paces, I will post a review.

So, what do you think? Would you consider using a pen computer?