The Moleskine Smart Writing Set offers excellent note tracking and allows you to easily share and save your notes as you write them.
There are a few companies that build smart notebooks, but in our experience, the best smart notepad is built by a famous notebook company called Moleskine. It's called the Moleskine Smart Writing Set, and it includes a paper tablet, smart pen, and one pen ink refill.
The pad measures 8.50 by 5.25-inches, and looks just like a standard notebook, though the pages protrude a little from the cover. On the inside, you'll find that the pages are dotted with a grid pattern. Unlike some other smart notebooks, you can't use standard paper when you run out of space in this notebook.
Instead, you'll have to buy a new Paper Tablet from Moleskine for $26.05, but it's not too pricey and you get more accurate note-recording in the companion app with this system.
The included pen uses smart technology and an embedded infrared camera to track your movement as you write or draw on the dotted paper. Because of this, you won't be able to switch to any other pen, but it's well-built and easy to handle. Thankfully, the pen's ink refills are standard, so once the ink runs out, you can replace it with these affordable refills from Zebra.
Unlike standard pens, you'll find an LED status indicator, power button, and a small MicroUSB port for charging on it. The pen lasts five hours on a charge and stores up to 1,000 note pages at a time. In the app, you can add color and save the notes anywhere you want.
Insider Picks' Mara Leighton tested the Smart Writing Set, and she loved it. She is also a fan of Moleskine's Smart Planner, which syncs up with Google Calendar.
Other reviewers seem to like the Moleskine Smart Writing Set a lot, too. PCMag gave it 4.5/5 stars, while Wired gave it a rating of 7/10.
Pros: Easy to use, high-quality, decent app, beautiful notebook, good app
Cons: Must use dedicated paper, expensive
Buy the Moleskine Smart Writing Set on Amazon for $129.48 (originally $199)