NoteSlate, the $100 electronic drawing pad

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Noteslate plans to offer an e-ink drawing tablet later this year. Its single-purpose design — it's for drawing things in monochrome and dumping them to SD card — will hopefully keep the price at the advertised $100. Editions will also be offered with colored overlays. CNN tracked down designer Martin Hasek for a skeptical article; if nothing else, the attention demonstrates that people still like the idea of gadgets that do just one thing, perfectly: "NoteSlate is best described as buzzware: a tech concept masquerading as a full-fledged idea because it needs consumer enthusiasm to support its development."

Personally, I think it might be disappointing for artists given the lack of pressure sensitivity, which seems the holy grail for artists and tablet computers. Currently, however, you have to fork out a thousand dollars or so for a Wacom-equipped Tablet PC to get that, so a $100 digital notepad has its charms.

Product page [NoteSlate]