Office technology

I've got this device called a Pen. It works well and can cope with all sorts of different fonts and languages. It doesn't have predictive text, unfortunately, but maybe SwiftKey will do something about that now they have bags of money from Microsoft.

It is very portable, light and easy to pack away and store, It fits in a pocket easily but I probably wouldn't suggest a trouser pocket. There aren't any obvious versions and there is no need for upgrades or updates as most brands are cheap enough to discard when they stop working. Some do have replaceable units, a bit like printer cartridges but, of course, pen-shaped.

You don't need a printer for hard copy as that is produced automatically and you can use a very wide range of material which also need not be a particular size that fits in a printer tray. So if you like to print on banana skins, which a lot of people do once they've tried it, the pen is ideal.

I found that I couldn't create strings of text as fast as I can with a keyboard but if you need hard copy then the pen is likely to be quicker for small amounts of text and almost all simple drawings. Everyone will be different, I suppose, and it will be interesting to see at what point it is quicker to use a pen than type and print in the traditional way. Probably up to around 150 words in my case.

Whilst the pen doesn't come with a delete key there is an interesting device that has something similar. This device is a CIL edition of the Pen and, in a clever design, you can flip the Pencil and apply the opposite end to erase characters or lines. Unlike the Undo feature (or Ctrl + Z) on the keyboard, the smart thing about a Pencil is that it can undo selected elements in any order without the need to highlight them first.

If they do start having version numbers for the Pen then I am advised that marketing people would prefer they start at 16 or higher.