Test drive digital pen Dadzhet MT6080

Everything you wanted to know about digital pens, but no one answered.

Progress does not stand still, but in the world cluttered up with gadgets, in the era of tablets and high-speed Internet, I still make dozens and hundreds of various notes and sketches on leaflets a day. This is already the eighth journal in the last three years. A couple of years ago I came across a review of one digital pen, which “pleased” with its quality. And I decided to wait a bit.
Suddenly, I became the owner of another digital pen, which from the first pages showed itself from the best side, which was registered in my marching set and which is the main character of this review.
A tackle you will find a test drive of a digital pen, the Dadget MT6080, which is designed to show that this device has the right to live an active life in the hands of a techie.

To not go far, here's a video review:

Work functions	pen / mouse
Coverage area	A4
Optical resolution	100 dpi
Capacity	100 sheets of A4
Nutrition	lithium ion battery
Data transmission technology	Ultrasound plus infrared channel
Data interface	USB 2.0
Dimensions	handle - 135 x 12 mm
	base - 72 x 32 x 14 mm
Weight	pen - 18 g
	base - 23 g

Packing and packaging

In the box were found:

• base unit;
• digital pen with a cap;
• two 67x2mm black writing rods;
• two batteries for the V392 pen (Size SR41);
• mini-USB cable for connecting to a PC and charging the base unit;
• user's manual;
• two disks with programs;
• bag made of artificial suede for storing and carrying a set.

Design and ergonomics

A digital pen is a seemingly ordinary pen, complete with a special base unit, which is installed at the top of the page and is designed to track the position of our pen.
On the base unit there is an LCD display showing the current battery status, the number of saved pages, as well as the mode of communication with the computer. On the case there is only one button. With a long press it turns on or off the device. With a short-term - completes the input of the current page and starts the next.
The base unit is mounted on the sheet using three oblique clamps

Not the most convenient solution - a rather small number of sheets are clamped. And in order to open all three hooks, you have to use your fingers to represent Kraken. But on the sheet, this design is held securely, and with proper skill, the base unit is rearranged from sheet to sheet in seconds.
The handle fits comfortably in the hand, pleasant to the touch, thick, but after all-metal pens it is a bit light for me, although it is a matter of habit. The inconvenience is caused by the button, which strives to get under the finger. But when writing from her no sense, so it does not lead to a catastrophe. The receiver is located three millimeters from the end of the rod and is hidden behind a translucent grid.

The rods are all-metal, 67mm long and 2mm in diameter, simply inserted into the hole in the handle and fixed there somehow. To pull them out, there is a clip in the cap of the handle.

In general - it looks decent and durable.

How it works

This instance is a typical pen. Along the edges of the base unit, two ultrasonic sonars are located behind the decorative grilles, which accurately determine the position of the handle. These sonars are clearly visible in the photo:

In the center of the base unit is an infrared photodetector. IR communication is necessary for the implementation of the power saving mode - the pen itself has two IR LEDs and, in active mode, sends presence signals to the base unit. Switching to active mode is performed by pressing the handle bar on the surface. If within a minute no more clicks were made, that is, the pen was not used, it goes into sleep mode and the LEDs go out. Accordingly, the base station only turns on the sonar when it receives a message from the pen via IR. This photo shows a barely glowing point:

Probably through the IR channel is feedback from the pen to the base unit.

Operating experience

The pen supports four different modes of operation - it is standalone mode, online mode, note mode and mouse mode. Each of them is interesting in its own way.

Offline mode

This is the most important pen mode, allowing you to conveniently record lectures, make quick notes, sketches. To work in this mode, simply install the base unit on a sheet, turn it on and use the usual way to record by hand. After the next mark is made, it is necessary to press the button on the base unit. The page count will increase by one, we can start a new entry. In offline mode, over 100 A4 pages can be stored in the device’s memory.

On-line mode (PC connection mode).

This is a service mode in which using special software, you can download all entries from the device’s memory to the hard disk using Mobile Note Taker. This is what the main program window looks like:

In addition to the ability to edit what is written, pictures can be exported in jpeg format. With the help of the program MyScriptNotes, you can produce text recognition.

Note mode

In this mode, the base unit is connected to the computer and when you try to make a note, a virtual tablet appears on which all of our records are reflected.

Saving notes occurs by clicking the checkbox in the left pane. And by clicking on the button on the base unit, we switch to mouse mode

Mouse mode

The essence of this mode is clear from the name. Since the coordinate input device is in our hands, no one has the right to forbid us to use it as a graphic pen. The only thing I would like to see in the configuration is such a brush or some kind of plastic stylus so that by the end of the work the sheet does not turn into a black mess.

Well, once we have a digital pen, then Windows 7 offers to use the Tablet PC input panel:

After learning the system to his handwriting, the latter is recognized much better.

Work with Ubuntu Linux

Of course, I was simply obliged to make this pen work in Linux. By itself, the pen is defined by the system as the Pegasus Mobile Note Tacker and immediately works in mouse mode without any problems. But we are more interested in the issue of transfer written to a computer. To do this, install the program m210 launchpad.net/m210
She has a ppa build, so we use the commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tuomasjjrasanen/tjjr sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install m210 

This is just a console utility. i.e. no interactive modes. However, we don’t need more.
I will give the output command

Display information:

 radiolok@urlnn:~$ m210 info Mode: TABLET Used memory: 1612 bytes Pad version: 342 Analog version: 295 Firmare version: 295 

Ok, the device is visible, there is a data page, we try to read:

 radiolok@urlnn:~$ m210 dump > notes 

Without outputting information to the console, a binary file appears in the current directory.
Convert it to SVG:

 radiolok@urlnn:~$ m210 convert < notes 

and the svg file appears in the folder. We rejoice in vector drawings, which, by the way, are perfectly inserted into LaTeX or LibreOffice documents. If there were several pages, then the common for all dump is broken into different SVG files. The good news is that the data dump is a vector, respectively, then it can be corrected without loss of quality.

Consumables

Since this is almost an ordinary pen, it eats almost ordinary rods.
It is possible to install rods with a length of 67mm and a diameter of 2mm. Such rods are used in multi-rod ball-point pens and knobs with a rotary rod feed mechanism. But you will not find them anywhere, and those that I could find in stores cost 140-180 rubles per core. Given the amount of ink, these rods can be priced at cost with inkjet printer cartridges.
But you just can not take me so easily with your bare hands. Caught here are the rods 70mm for 20 rubles / piece.

We remove the plastic tip and we have exactly what we need in our hands.
True, most of these rods in stores have a thickening of the tube after the tip and do not fit into our pen, so you should be careful.

Comparison with notebooks

There are digital pens based on another technology. There is no base unit, and the handle itself is responsible for positioning. This technology has both the main advantage - perfect input accuracy, and a serious drawback - the pen only works with special notebooks with a micro drawing. Unlike rods for 5 rubles, I don’t have any desire to buy a pack of notebooks of 300-400 rubles each. Of course they can be printed, but they always need to be carried with them.
Famous representatives of this type of pens are LiveScribe SmartPen and the acclaimed NeoSmartpen N2 , which collected $ 275,000 on kickstarter

Tests

I decided to check how well the pen copes with its second duty - to digitize the written, so I spent a few simple but very revealing tests.

Linearity test

First, I noticed that in the immediate vicinity of the base unit, the horizontal line is not such a line. I took the ruler and lined the page horizontally every 7mm. Here is the beauty:

The first line was 5mm from the base unit. With it a complete failure - it is clear that there are some restrictions on working near the device. Two bursts in front of the sonars are visible. The line turned out to be double, since the first time I touched the block with a pen and decided to hold it again.
In the next 7 millimeters, the situation is exactly the opposite - there are still visible dips across from the emitters, but the result is already very good. After another 5 lines, we have completely flat lines.
In addition, the figure shows that all the lines are at the same distance (within the error of my drawing), which means that reading accuracy is equally good both near and far, and does not cause stretching of the record.
The test is twofold.

Tool test

Since the “clearance” of the reader on the handle is 3 mm, it is reasonable to assume that the ruler or protractor will not interfere with the work:

To obtain this image, tools were intentionally placed between the handle and the base unit:
It can be seen that the tool did not interfere with the reading, but we notice the read error — the closure of the circles occurs with a shift, and it is not in the original drawing. The tool is not to blame - a similar situation occurs when trying to draw a circle manually:

Question - how strong is the spread? Take a stencil and circle the circle 10 times. The base unit is still stationary:

It is noticeable that the error is present evenly throughout the contour. Based on a 34mm diameter, the absolute reading error was ± 0.32mm.
The verdict is not fatal, you can live.
Test tool passed.

Test for small text:

I wrote a couple of phrases in small print as I could with this pen. The ball is very thick, using rods with a thinner ball, you can write even smaller:

Test passed.
The detected positioning error makes itself felt, but it doesn’t affect the quality of reading my handwriting - it’s already crypto-resistant :)

Summary

If I or classmates had such a device as a student, he wouldn’t have the price.
Since I am not an artist, the visible error of digitization does not play a special role for me - all records are translated into a readable and understandable form, but they don’t need anymore, and this pen is now actively used together with the whiteboard.
Perhaps the only drawback of this pen is its high price. The cost of a typical representative of a digital pen is $ 150–200 and not everyone agrees to lay out such an amount for a little more than a regular pen. However, not everyone needs it. But if needed, then it is worth it.
Presented in this review pen can be purchased at the store Dadzhet.
And for an appetizer, an oily video clip 8 years ago from the Pegasus company - from whose source these pens appeared: