Wacom's digital notepads take you halfway to a Yoga Book

Wacom's digital notepads take you halfway to a Yoga Book ,

One of the most interesting bits of tech at IFA this year has been the digital notepad feature of Lenovo's Yoga Book. Slip a pad of paper onto the touch panel, start drawing with Lenovo's pen (using real ink!), and your analog scribbles will be immediately digitized on screen, courtesy of technology developed by Wacom. But you don't need to buy a Yoga Book to get this feature — you can get it from Wacom, directly, for less.

Wacom's new Bamboo Slate and Bamboo Folio notepads offer the same digitizing tech found in the Yoga Book and in Montblanc's pricey Augmented Paper. The pads are available as a single A5 or A4 panel (the Slate) or a folding A4 envelope with extra slots for documents and business cards (that's the Folio). They work exactly the same as the Yoga Book — just bring your own paper, use Wacom's modified pen, and your notes will be automatically digitized and sent to your smartphone or tablet.

Wacom's A4 Bamboo Folio with a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9. (Image credit: Wacom)

All notes are sent to Wacom's Inkspace app (iOS and Android), which includes 5GB of free cloud storage. Notes, doodles, and scribbles can then be exported in a range of formats (including JPG, PNG, and PDF), and sent off to other services like Dropbox, OneNote, and Evernote. However, in order to have your writing converted to digital text, you'll need to stump up for an Inkspace Plus subscription. You get a three-month free trial when you buy a Slate or Folio, with a subscription costing $2.99 per month. You also get extra cloud storage of up to 50GB.

An A5 Bamboo Slate from Wacom will set you back $129.95, while the A4 Slate costs $149.95 and the bulkier A4 Folio costs $199.95. Phones and tablets supplied separately.