Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I recommend caution with products from Livescribe. The idea is good, but the implementation, and the customer support are not. I’ve been using their pens for over 4 years now, and I’ve been through 3 of them already. They barely live past the warranty period, in what can be an engineering flaw or simply planned obsolescence. The problem is always the same as well, regardless of the model (I had the Pulse, and 2 Echo pens): the display starts fading slowly until it is no longer readable. When you email support, they acknowledge the issue and send you a new pen if you’re still on the warranty period. The problem is it mostly happens a few months after it is out of warranty. There’s a pretty crowded topic on their own forums, which was closed for comments mid-2013, where users were voicing their mistreatment: [...] There’s one more thread:[...] I used to recommend their products to friends and family, and I even gave Livescribe the benefit of the doubt when the first pen stopped working out of warranty (I purchased not one, but two new pens), all the time hearing the rehearsed script that it was a problem with a specific batch etc. Don’t be fooled by it. It is not affecting only a specific batch and you’ll very likely encounter this problem if you buy one of their smart pens. Maybe it is related to the OLED display part they use in all pens, as there were lots of concerns about the lifespan of OLED displays. The single fact they’re still using the same one may be more planned obsolescence than anything else.