Of the three mainstream digital pens currently available, the Nokia SU-1B is the slimmest and best designed. The larger digital pens are the Logitech Io and the Sony Ericsson Chatpen.

Slim digital pens are preferable - having impressive technical features is less significant if you struggle to write with an unwieldy device. Another design bonus is that you can put a regular Nokia phone charger either into the underside of the USB base or directly into the end of the pen, which is handy if you are travelling.

Digital pens download their stored data either by docking with USB-powered bases or wirelessly via Bluetooth. The Nokia SU-1B at present is the only digital pen that has both USB and Bluetooth options.

The SU-1B stores up to 100 A5 pages that can be downloaded to the Digital Note Viewer. By default the file is saved in pen-generated document (.pgd) file format. 'Save as' opens up other formats including bitmap, png, and jpg.

You can send pages to email applications, Powerpoint and Word from the Digital Note Viewer, but editing is fairly basic in comparison to the Logitech Io software. The Nokia Pen now has the same handwriting recognition trial software as the Logitech pen, which is a useful addition but accuracy depends on the neatness of your writing.

As with all Bluetooth devices, sending an image or note to a paired phone as an MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is limited to a range of 10m. However, you can send a note to yourself then forward it to anyone with an MMS-enabled mobile. This separates Nokia's pen from the competition. It scores highly because of the design and download flexibility.

Contact: Nokia 08700 555 777
www.nokia.co.uk

Specifications:

• 1MB data memory (100 A5 written pages)
• Bluetooth 1.1
• Up to two hours' operation time
• Rechargeable Li-Polymer battery
• Digital paper types: MMS Pad, B7 size 94 pages, A5 size 94 pages
• 35g
• 149 x 23 x 20mm (h x w x d)