Though we didn’t put together

a full-blown holiday PDA-related, must-have list,

we at pocketnow have been toiling throughout the year

to show you the best in Pocket PC software, hardware,

and accessories, such that when this time of great

gift buying comes around, you’d be well prepared.

Though this might be a little late for a Christmas

gift, this review still might point last minute shoppers

to a neat gift idea. Day in and day out, Pocket PC

users struggle with the input methods they have. Each

has its advantages and disadvantages. As unexciting

as it might be, on a daily basis I use the built-in

keyboard, only with gestures enabled and large keys

mode. Interestingly, I’ve used every input product

under the sun, from Wordlogic

and Fitaly

to Calligrapher

v6.0. I still can’t break away from the simplicity

and accuracy of the little SIP we get for free in

Thus, when Seiko Instruments recently contacted me

about their well-selling SmartPad being brought over

to Pocket PC, I jumped at the opportunity to explore

yet another input system. This, however, goes way

beyond bringing in some basic text to use in Pocket

Word or Notes. Instead, this is a full solution that

allows you to capture, store, and organized captures

notes ranging in complexity from doodles to intricate

driving direction maps. The Seiko

SmartPad has caught the attention of many, so

   Right from the start, Seiko

grabs your attention with a colorful box, showing

the SmartPad in action. Even before I opened the box,

are quick start references and the CD-ROM with the

of course, the SmartPad itself. Wrapped with a leather-like

material, the SmartPad Portfolio is quite elegant

looking, and would certainly look fashionable amidst

    Inside the portfolio is

an array of pockets, room for your Pocket PC, a space

for a pad of paper, and the multipurpose SmartPad

look inside the SmartPad portfolio. The large pocket

to the extreme left can hold pens and pencils, and

the plastic-covered slot immediately to the left of

doing anything with the SmartPad, you’ll need to insert

the two AA batteries (included) into the compartment

the SmartPad versatile or what? You can use the device

in two ways. First, you can write on the SmartPad

5" x 8" ruled pad (replaceable with any

similarly-sized pad available in all office supply

stores), which we will explore momentarily. Second,

you can use the flat keyboard built into a plastic

insert that you apply to the right side of the portfolio

great is that you can use this keyboard to enter text

into any application! So, instead of using my favorite

input method, the enlarged Pocket PC on-screen keyboard,

you can use the portfolio’s keyboard, which is several

"magic" behind the SmartPad is this InfraRed

unit, which sends InkNote information to your Pocket

PC. Unfortunately, because in the Pocket PC version

this box is permanently affixed to the portfolio at

the top of the Pocket PC resting pad, you can only

use the SmartPad with devices with an InfraRed port

at the middle top, limiting you to use with the Compaq

the other special component of the SmartPad is this

pen, which has a small radio inside (similar to the

pens of the upcoming Tablet

PCs) that, several times a second, scans the grid

beneath it, and sends its coordinates to the software

running on the Pocket PC, letting it know where to

draw a dot on the screen. You need to power the portfolio’s

grid (the space covered by the insert shown above)

such that the pen can interface with it and send back

accurate coordinates. The pen also requires a battery:

one end of the pen is a ball-point writing tip. As

you can see, this is the end that the radio broadcasts

the pen cap is placed at the opposite end, a stylus

tip pokes out, allowing you to use the pen both as

exploring the portfolio, directly beneath the Infrared

unit is the resting pad for your Pocket PC. Included

are two Velcro strips. Since I cannot commit to a

single leather case, I couldn’t bring myself to using

these strips. However, you’ll notice that your Pocket

PC will not want to stay in place unless the portfolio

remains perfectly stationary. You may want to use

the upper left-hand pocket, Seiko has placed five

replacement pen tips. One tip will probably last you

several months, but it was nice of Seiko to think

    To make the best use of

the SmartPad solution, you’ll need to involve your

desktop or laptop with ActiveSync installed. Seiko

included identical applications, InkNote Manager and

InkNote Editor, for both the desktop and Pocket PC.

While I typically frown upon developers doing a brute

porting from the desktop to Pocket PC, in this case

Seiko did a fairly good job of creating an intuitive

Pocket PC interface to their suite, though I wouldn’t

say I could easily be mislead to think the Pocket

PC version was built from the ground up. In any case,

let’s take a look at the desktop module. Halfway through

installation from the included CD-ROM, you are given

other words, InkNote Manager requires exchanging of

InkNote files between your desktop and Pocket PC.

InkNote Manager for the first time reveals a rather

Spartan interface. Only one configuration step is

Setup–Select ActiveSync partner, and the following

dialog box appears. Though I have many Pocket PCs

connecting to this device, only this iPAQ connection

is selectable. After you have created several notes

on the Pocket PC or desktop side, those notes will

making several notes, here is what the desktop InkNote

Manager will show. Rather than stepping through the

various features on the desktop version, again identical

to the Pocket PC version, let’s do our exploration

    Typically when someone

tries to bundle in a package a desktop and Pocket

PC version of the same application, the result is

nightmarish. I am reminded of TeleType’s crude

GPS software. Thankfully, Seiko seemed to know

you can see, the interface is quite similar to that

of the desktop. Here is the "Thumbnail per view"

we get started, if you are running Pocket PC 2002,

you must temporarily disable "Beaming" support.

By default, your 2002 device will attempt to resolve

any Infrared signals coming from a phone, Palm, or

another Pocket PC. This means that the port is locked

at all times. Since SmartPad requires this port to

be free, you must turn off this auto-resolution. SmartPad

should have included this feature within the program.

I’d prefer to only have Beaming disabled when InkNote

now, the fun! Using the paper pad as your writing

medium, make a note. As you write, in real time, your

note will appear on your Pocket PC screen. Accuracy

is topnotch, and if you ever find that what you write

is not what you get, it’s likely because your paper

pad is sliding down the page. Remember: you’re really

just writing on top of the grid beneath the pad, so

even if you think you’re writing what you want on

the pad, if the pad slides, you’ve moved your coordinates

on the grid beneath. You might want to somehow adhere

pops up on your screen is a fully editable note. Let’s

explore some of the more advanced features of the

Select Mode, we can draw a rectangle around a groupings

can drag those strokes around, now that they are understood

Writing Mode, you can draw on the screen without the

highlight mode, you can accentuate text or drawings

to save? Select File–Save, and place the note where

you see fit. Unfortunately, unless you save the InkNotes

in the Seiko Ink Notes folder, those notes will not

appear in the desktop version. Thinking about saving

to a Storage Card? Forget it, unless you don’t plan

basic, yet important features include multi-step Undo,

Cut/Copy/Paste/Clear (using Clipboard), the grouping/ungrouping

of strokes (so you can manipulate multiple parts of

a drawing as a whole), move back and forth between

change the color of a part of a note. This is one

of the cooler features of the program, in my opinion.

Highlight a scribble, as shown above through the Select

Tools–Writing Properties. Now, change the line color

to your liking, or even the thickness of the select

if you’d like to include some perfectly straight lines

in your notes, turn on Straight Lines through the

time you click, a straight line is drawn from the

    One of the biggest selling

points of the SmartPad package

this is your first time adding a category, Pocket

Outlook will be scanned (this takes over a minute

few random categories were found. These selections

make little sense since I categorize my contacts by

company name, so I’m not sure where these fields came

from. In any case, if you don’t want to use one of

your existing categories, you can add your own by

wrinkle! For my little street note I took above, I

tried to use a category called "Directions."

However, InkNote Manager wouldn’t allow me to use

that name for that note. I tried Directions on subsequent

notes, and I received no complaints. The software

allow you to index your notes, so you can more easily

browse a large collection of notes. Unfortunately,

the indexing has little value since you cannot search

notes by keyword. Both the desktop and Pocket PC versions

of InkNote Manager would benefit from searching. One

really snazzy feature that I like is keyword recognition.

If you highlight a word in your note that you’d like

to have as a describing keyword, InkNote Manager will

selecting File–Recognize Keyword, Notes will immediately

launch, and recognition will take place. Again, this

is out of the control of InkNote Manager, so it’s

all went to plan, your keyword will come up properly,

and you’ll be allowed to associate that keyword with

the open note. Here, recognition accuracy was about

final feature I wanted to bring to your attention

was "Register note as action item." Though

the function name makes little sense, it means "Create

Task from Recognized Keyword." Select this from

the File menu, and what you’ll get (after the same

recognition process as in keyword recognition takes

places) is a task created with the keyword as the

subject and the note itself as a linked file. Because

I had trouble with categories, I couldn’t test to

see if this new Task would be placed in the same category

    Both the desktop and Pocket

PC versions of InkNote Manager come with exhaustive

help sections; every function is covered in thorough

detail. In addition, a very useful User’s Guide is

included on the application CD-ROM in PDF format.

If all else fails, Seiko Home/Office Products can

be contacted by telephone

or e-mail. If you need some spare parts for your

SmartPad, Seiko has an online

parts site. Warning: the replacements are costly.

A replacement pen will set you back $49.99, and even

a paper pad costs $12.99 (can be had for no more than

    A few additional features

are

you can send via e-mail or send/receive notes through

Infrared the latter is kind of useless since you’re

using the Infrared port to "listen" for

note scribblings, More useful is you can export as

the number of pages to export, dpi resolution, and

in InkNote Manager’s main screen, in Preferences you

can change the default note size, where to get categories

from (for someone like myself to doesn’t often use

Outlook categories, disable this), whether to display

a ruled note interface, how long the Infrared connection

Setup–Tablet Properties, you can change the default

Infrared listening port (COM 2 is used on the iPAQ),

and you can alter 3rd party application use of the

SmartPad. If you think you might want to use the keyboard

printed on the inside of the portfolio, unselect "Enable

tablet only in InkNoteMgr" and select "Use

tablet as kybd in other apps." Finally, to ensure

the Infrared connection is alive, you can test the

connection, checking the exact coordinates being transmitted

SmartPad portfolio itself is an engineering marvel.

Every last detail has been carefully analyzed to make

the portfolio fit perfectly into a mobile executive’s

arsenal. Yes, leather wrapping would have been nice,

but it looks just like leather, doesn’t it? The inclusion

of extra pockets shows how flexible Seiko wanted to

make the SmartPad. Accuracy was topnotch (and at times

amazingly good!), so I can’t complain about the efforts

of the hardware designers. The software is another

story. Though I noticed Seiko is quite good about

regularly updating their SmartPad software, more time

and thought needs to be put into the categorization

features. My guess is that Seiko was so used to categories

in the Palm operating system that they assumed Pocket

PCs handle categories in much the same way. Sorry,

they don’t! And categories aren’t used, I don’t think,

as heavily by Pocket PC users as Palm users. We have

so many other means by which to organize our Pocket

Office data that we don’t use categories as much.

In fact, the only time I use categories is in Pocket

it stands now, category organization in SmartPad isn’t

broken; rather, it is a bit quirky and is perhaps

a bit too overstated. I think Seiko needs to take

a step back and ask its Pocket PC clients how they

really want to organized notes. Their strongest point,

keywords (and automatic keyword recognition) starts

off well, but fails to deliver since you cannot search

can purchase the SmartPad for Pocket PC for $169.99

directly

from Seiko. I don’t disagree that this isn’t the

cheapest note capturing system I’ve ever seen, but

it is the first of its kind for Pocket PC, and that

alone makes it a class leader. Do be careful not to

lose the SmartPad pen, as a replacement will set you

back $49.95. That’s about a third of the device’s

price! You can visit the SmartPad for Pocket PC’s

   For their first Pocket PC product,

Seiko put further an excellent effort in their SmartPad

for Pocket PC. Though in some parts its software is

a little rough around the edges, I won’t dissuade

anyone from buying the product, since Seiko is committed

to publishing regular updates to their software. What’s

important is the hardware is rock solid, does as it

promises, and delivers what it promises. If capturings

lots of notes is what you do and find that writing

on a 3.5" screen doesn’t cut it, take a close

look at the SmartPad, as it very well might be the