The MousePen comes with a driver and software suite called PenSuite which gives it much more functionality beyond simply drawing.

In theory, one can use the MousePen in conjunction with Microsoft Office (though not OpenOffice), your email client or even to draw notes onto anything onscreen, save it to a JPEG and send it to someone.

You can also control the computer using PenCommander, though years after we first saw the technology in action we still can't help but wonder why anyone would want to use a gesture system to control their computer. It takes longer to correctly invoke gestures, which are more akin to something you'd expect of a wizard, than it would to simply point the mouse and click.

In reality most of the abilities are redundant in everyday life, as handwritten emails, making notes to documents using separate JPEG files and so on just isn't practical. The main job of the MousePen remains firmly with drawing.

In this arena it's pretty alright. When moving the mouse around the screen you have to be mindful to hover the stylus just above the surface of the tablet lest you accidentally draw on something, but for the most part the tablet is responsive and accurate. Being USB it can get jerky if you do too much in too short a space of time, and the tablet doesn't seem to like sharing USB ports with other devices. Once you get a feel for the tablets limits however you can do far better things with it than our inartistic hands.

In Conclusion

The Genius 8x6 MousePen has plenty of extraneous extras and some drawbacks, but essentially you're getting what you pay for: A solid entry level graphics tablet. If you are yearning for electronic doodling abilities and have £35 in your back pocket, this is for you.