Neo Smartpen M1+ with Real-Time Digitization for Notetaking & Meeting

Bought an N2: bulky and balky. Really hated it. Bought an M1: balky and ultimately died. Got another: had a bit better luck but inconsistent results. THIS ONE, however, worked right out of the box, integrated well and feels good with FAR better battery life. It's sad that the website looks like the company closed down (so out of date all the time) and that you've got to spend a bit of time sussing out the details of their software which is far from intuitive on the setup. Nevertheless, I'd recommend it and hope that they keep going to get even better.

Unfortunately this product is the worst of the worst, I used for a few day then it stopped to sync with the app, by the way the app is useless. I contacted tech support but they have temporary solutions then the final solution was to return the product but the return policy was expired. I don’t recommend this product at all

I have recently reviewed pens and apps. Each have their quirks. The M1+ is more like a normal pen than others. As long as you don't move it around much in your fingers the scanner sits just fine. To connect it via Bluetooth you have to have Bluetooth on but not paired through those settings. You will pair in app. Which is why it is good to have the app open first when turning it on by cap removal. It scans writing fine like any other as you can see I've included a picture of the scanned text, the transcribed text over the writing, and how it eventually looked. I think app looks fine. It saves the scanned image, you can transcribe anytime, and view and copy the text. The thing I don't like is that it has no line detection. If you write a line right underneath, it jumbles the words in the final text. You can see in the photo that I skip a line as I wrote. For a Neo Studio 2! app this should have been worked out already. It wastes paper. You can use moleskine notebooks or ncoded. Their ncoded notebooks are a few more dollars than on their site. They look like they have good a5 notebooks on their site, not Amazon, but with an over $30 shipping is unacceptable. Though it does have its flaws, I hope they fix them, I think it is worth it on a good sale like I got mine.

Between my teen daughter and I, we have 3 Neo SmartPens (A1, M1, M1+). All work nicely with the required N-Code papers (printable pdf options are available, with their own pros/cons I won’t mention here), we’ve only experienced very minor and infrequent connection issues with the Neo Studio 2 app that’s generally fixed with a power cycle or quick re-sync, and battery life has always been adequate for our use. Each pen has strengths and weaknesses I’ll detail below, but the TL:DR is… get the M1+ and replace the ink with a nicer gel refill for the best of both worlds and have the most capable smartpen possible. I have the A1, a bit larger and heavier overall than the M1+, neat pen grip on/off, adequate memory of 160 pages and good battery life (130mAh Li-Po). Its downfall is the proprietary gel ink cartridge currently ONLY available from Neo in S. Korea with insane shipping and import fees totaling 30%+ the cost of the whole pen for a 3 pack! I love my A1, but when the ink runs out, sadly, it’s going in the trash… I replaced it with the M1+. The M1+ is the newer upgraded version of the M1 my daughter has been using. It features more memory, a larger battery, refined pen cap to prevent battery drain, and made of more durable materials. We haven’t experienced any issues with our M1, and the memory and battery have been adequate for her daily use in high school. We did test, and the M1 will work/record while charging, so that’s an option if you’re in a pinch. It’s thinner and lighter than the A1, made of plastic (fiber reinforced on the M1+), has a power feature that turns on when the cap is removed and off when it’s replaced, and uses readily available standard D1 refills… which fixes the fatal flaw of the A1! It comes with a standard ball point ink that writes fine, but I much prefer quick drying gel inks like the A1 and why I prefer that pen to the standard M1 in terms of writing output. So why did I buy an M1+ if I prefer the A1? As I said before, the A1’s ink refills are ridiculously expensive and not readily available if you need one quickly. The M1/M1+ fix this issue by using standard D1 refills, but come with standard ball point cartridges that are ok but underwhelming IMO. The 5-second fix? After much research I’ve found that the Uni Jetstream SXR-200 refills (in Red, Blue, or Black, 0.5mm and 0.7mm) available here on Amazon, are the perfect instant drying gel refill to give me the A1’s smooth gel ink output for a fraction of the cost of proprietary refills. Simply pull the old one out and slide the new one in, couldn’t be more simple and doesn’t require any tools or disassembly of the pen. The M1+ with this upgraded ink will give you the best writing and most capable NeoSmartpen out there!

So, to review this pen, I purchased the black leather like business notebook. You need both for it to work. I was surprised how accurate the pen was when writing on the paper and then uploading to the app. The App: The app is a little rough around the edges. I had to install NeoStudio2. When I opened it, I expected it to tell me how to sync the pen to my phone but I had no clue how to do that. I tried to press the wireless icon button on the pen but nothing would happen. I thought I had a dud. Then I saw there some pen icon on the top left corner and then it found it. It wasn’t intuitive, and I think if I didn’t notice it, I’d think the pen was defective. Another annoying thing is I use separate emails and passwords for all of my things. So if one gets hacked it doesn’t affect other accounts. Well, with the app, I have to often sign in again. It is just annoying. I don’t know why it doesn’t just say signed in like an other app. It does a very good job at transcribing my chicken scratch handwriting into type. It just worked. I have really bad handwriting sometimes. Overall: It does seem to work. The hardware is really good. Like it is the most comfortable pen I’ve used that can do this. I had a Logitech years ago and it was a monster to hold. This feels like I’m holding a sharpie but a little smaller. It’s comfortable to hold. I wish the software was better. I feel if they could nail that it would be amazing. I will continue to use this for business notes.

I do not like the fact that I had to search all over the web for information on how to use the pen and the supplies that go with. I also do not like the fact that the instructions were unclear or not complete. It is a guessing game. But because I need this particular technology I struggle on. Pitiful * Update - I am so unhappy with this $129.00 pen. It attaches itself to the program at will. And data transfer is a joke. I downloaded the app to all my devices so that the syncing would you know ... sync. No way. And the medium Planner is of no earthly use. And if I'm doing things wrong, I wouldn't know there are no legible directions to guide you. Don't waste your money.

This came without a pen top. So, it has to be turned off and on manually. Not a big deal but clearly a "miss" by the seller. The pen works fine.

I got this model because it has significantly more memory for offline storage and also higher battery capacity. It is made from good quality plastic. Another upgrade is the auto on and off switch feature when you remove and replace the cap. It uses D1 type of refills which are widely available. One extra refill along with USB-C charging cable are included. While this pen can write on any paper to capture the writings you need a special micro dot encoded paper. You can scan and print it yourself using a high resolution scanner and printer but the cost of the prints per page will be higher than per page cost of a bulk pack of five notepads. That micro encoding helps the pen to determine its exact location on a page and page number in the notebook. The companion app receives drawings and writings over Bluetooth connection and lets you transcribe the writings into text and also export the contents in various formats.