The best smart pens are mightier than the swipe. These smart digital pens help you easily transform your sketches, notes, and doodles into digital files. Offering all the comforting familiarity of a traditional pen and so the unparalleled ease of writing and doodling, but with the advantage of them being instantly transferred into digital files on your smartphone or laptop.
Livescribe 3 Smartpen
Most accurate
The Livescribe 3 Smartpen is the best smart pen we tested thanks to its phenomenal accuracy in both writing and drawing. It’s also comfortable and easy to use because of its soft rubber grip and round design. We were equally impressed with the 30-second setup time. This Livescribe 3 Smartpen has an impressive battery life, lasting for up to 14 hours of continuous use. It is charged via a micro-USB port at the tip of the pen.
Wacom Bamboo Folio Smart Pad
Works with any paper
The Wacom Bamboo Folio Smartpad is the ideal smart pen for both casual doodlers and professional artists. Thanks to the accompanying smart pad, you can use any type of paper with the smart pen, which is perfect for artists who need their ideal canvas. When you’re finished, upload and save your work by pressing a button to sync the smart pad with your smartphone.
Neo Smartpen N2
Quick setup
The Neo Smartpen N2 is easy to set up and feels comfortable in your hand, but it does require special notebooks and writing pads to function. The pen itself is long and attractive. It's also incredibly easy to use; all you have to do is press a button on the bottom of the pen to turn it on. You can also toggle the Bluetooth and pairing settings using buttons on the pen.
Moleskine Pen+ Ellipse
Stylish design and excellent accuracy
The Moleskine Pen+ Ellipse is part of a collection of high-quality products by the famous Italian paper maker. The Smart Writing System includes the Pen+ and Ncoded Paper Tablets. The Moleskine pen is the best we tested, but it only works with its proprietary notebooks. The pen itself is sleek and weighs about as much as five regular Bic pens. It's comfortable to hold and easy to write with.
Livescribe Echo
Built-in audio recorder
The Livescribe Echo delivers fantastic accuracy for both writing and drawing. It also comes with a built-in audio recorder, allowing you to record interviews and lectures to write down later. It even has a great battery life despite this added feature. Because it has an audio recorder stuffed into its casing alongside all the other technology, the Livescribe Echo is extraordinarily bulky and cumbersome to use.
Why buy a smart pen?
Why you can trust Top Ten Reviews
Smart pens are rapidly becoming obsolete. If you own an iPad Pro, the Apple Pencil offers better accuracy and better functionality than any technology that digitizes physical pen and paper.
However, certain use cases, like taking notes in a college class or wanting to share your handwritten meeting notes, could make smart pens a smart buying decision. Be warned, however, that if your penmanship is sloppy, digitizing them won’t do you any favors.
If you're looking for a smart pen that doubles as an audio recorder, then we recommend the Livescribe Echo, which has a solid voice recorder built-in. If you want the clearest quality, though, a dedicated voice recorder will get much clearer audio. The smart pens in our reviews are best used for digitizing your handwritten notes; recording audio is more of an additional feature.
But if you’re a true pen and paper aficionado, a smart pen could be a great way to digitize and keep track of your handwritten notes and drawings. The high price and questionable quality make choosing the right pen an important decision though, as they're quite an investment versus a normal pen and paper. Read more in our reviews to determine which digital pen might work best for you.