e-pad

e-pad is a digital tablet—an

input device that consists of a pen and a tablet. The tablet is like a

notepad. When you move the pen over the tablet, the cursor on your screen

also moves with it. The pen has a rounded metallic tip. It’s primarily

used for drawing, but can also be used for signing and scribbling comments

on documents. It’s targeted at professional and amateur designers, and

SOHO users. However, it’ll take you some time to get used to the pad.

You

can use e-pad simultaneously with a mouse. It connects to a serial port and

installing its drivers is easy. The product comes bundled with Corel Print

House Magic 4 and Corel Photo House 3. It also comes with a software, called

ATGDocu Series, which adds a toolbar within Word 97 and lets you scribble

onto a Word file. This scribbling can then be saved, printed, or e-mailed

like an ordinary Word document.

e-pad has an active area of

15.3x12.8 cm, with a resolution of 10 lines per mm, and is compatible with

Win 3.x/9x/NT. There are five customizable and five preset buttons on either

side of the tablet. Commonly used functions like copy, paste, delete, undo

can be assigned to the customizable buttons. The preset buttons let you

change its settings, without having to go to the Control Panel. There are

two comfortably placed buttons on the pen, which are similar to the left and

right buttons on your mouse.

The tablet is pressure

sensitive. The harder you press the pen on the tablet, the thicker the line,

or higher the density of colors. For its price, it’s a good buy.