Review: Is it time to ditch your dumb diary for something smart?

Notebook maker Moleskine is betting on a pen with a built-in camera that records in real time, converting diary notes and drawings done on paper straight to digital.

Moleskine's new smart diary records your spoken and written words and makes them accessible online. Picture: Supplied

Have you ever written something down only to have to type it up again later?

Moleskine is hedging its bet that you no longer want to do that and that you wouldn’t mind having an audio recording to go with it.

That’s the newest perk of the long-revered Italian diary maker’s latest device, the Smart Writing Notebook + Pen set, which retails for $395.

This review actually began in the diary via Moleskine’s pen which has a built-in camera and records what you write in real-time. Those words, ramblings or drawings appear in the Moleskine Notes app which can be edited, coloured and sent to an email address as a text document.

The Moleskine Smart Writing set in its box.

Had I chosen, I could have recorded the exact audio that occurred as I wrote in the diary and kept a copy for my reference. This update, effectively rendering your ePen into a dictaphone, comes in pretty handy when you’re on the road and need to take a call.

This is but just a sample of the technology that’s coming out of the eReading and eWriting market which counts the likes of Remarkable, Supernote and more recently Amazon and Kobo as competitors.

Once inside Moleskine’s app is where things get really impressive.

A woman changes the colour of her drawing in the Moleskine app.

While the average note taker may not want a real-time playback or timelapse of their notes or drawings, content creators and artists might. And the option is there alongside the ability to clear out the drawings you don’t like.

Another small feature that surprised us was the app knew we were writing on page 3 and listed that in the app.

Moleskine’s Smart Writing set has evolved over the past several years and while we’re happy the brand has moved away from a micro-USB, we’re not so enthused by the magnetic charging cable included – USB C would have made our lives a little bit easier.

The verdict? When the price of a Moleskine’s smart planner and original planner are the same, why not opt for the smart version? From a buyer’s perspective, should you choose to pick up a smart pen later you’ll have double the choices.

A user views notes made on paper in the app.