Rocketbook packed the power of the Everlast Notebook into a mini, pocket-sized Notebook from the Future.
One of the most frustrating aspects of meetings has been keeping track of the minutes, the notes and the papers Even worse, do you remember when you had multiple notebooks for multiple classes, trips, or events? The team from Rocketbook has worked hard to bring notebooks into the 21st century. Similar to freeze-dried, Astronaut food, the Rocketbook Everlast Mini arrived in a metallic/plastic, 7 1/2 inches tall by 6 1/4 inches wide, vacuum sealed bag. The glossy white surface served as a perfect background for the black concentric rings, with circles, representing planetary orbits. The black “ROCKETBOOK” title starkly contrasted with the slightly larger, lime green accent color of “EVERLAST MINI.” The cover promised an “endlessly reusable intelligent notebook,” with the ability to “send handwritten notes to my favorite cloud service,” to wipe the pages clean and to repeat this process. The reverse panel provided additional information about the notebook, using an attractive combination of black/lime green font. There were four paragraphs that detailed the book: Erase with Moisture, Cloud Connected, Instantly Organized, Seven Symbols. The Everlast Mini was designed to look like standard paper but was actually made of a synthetic polyester blend. The key to this system is the FriXion pen, which uses special moisture sensitive ink. When you write with the pen, the ink will dry and bond with the page within about 20 seconds. To remove the ink, simply wipe it away with a wet cloth. It is thus prudent to avoid the mistake of using a standard pen with this book.
To start, I navigated to the iOS App store and downloaded the Rocketbook App. The opening screen of the App displayed the “ROCKETBOOK” name/logo across the top, sign in/up across the bottom and information to “Transform your notes,” across the middle. If you sign up for a new account, you will need to give a full name, email address and create a password. Having already tested the App with the ROCKETBOOK EVERLAST, I simply signed into the app. I entered my Macsources email, added my password and logged in, without any hiccups. Within the App, you will see a white outline of a cog across the top left, history in the middle, a magnifying glass and three circles atop the screen. There was a large grey rocket in the middle and along the bottom, three icons: History, New Scan, and Destinations. If you tap the three circle icons across the top, you can sort by newest to oldest, oldest to newest, alphabetical order, sync files, delete files. Tapping the cog icon will allow you to change the scan settings, to toggle on/off Smart Titles, Smart Search and Email transcription, to Adjust the naming template, and email subject template. You can also learn more about the Rocketbook, view a how-to use the App video, send yourself extra Rocketbook pages, contact the team, and review terms of service.
The magic of the app lies within the paper airplane “Destinations” tab. If you tap the icon, you can adjust the scan location for each of the seven Lucky Charm like shapes (rocket, diamond, apple, bell, four-leaf clover, star, horseshoe). Returning to the book, use the included FriXion pen to compose a message, to take notes, to make a list, to doodle a picture, etc. As noted previously, do not use a normal pen with this book, as the pages are built to work with FriXion style pens only. You will notice that the white pages are surrounded by a black border. This allows the scan to isolate the white page and creates a clean copy for you to utilize later. Scan the page, apply a little moisture to the page and then wipe it clean with the included towel. The included microfiber towel is the ideal device to wipe the ink away but do not fret if you lose/misplace the device, as any towel will work for that step. The included instruction manual noted that FriXion pen ink is somewhat heat sensitive and will disappear at temperatures over 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). So, if you forget this in your vehicle on a hot summer day, the writing may fade. If that happens, place the book in your freezer to return the ink to the darker state. To reuse this book, you only need to write your message, scan it, dampen the page, wipe it clean, and repeat the process ad infanitum.
Each page of the book has a QR code along the bottom left and a series of grid lines that can be faintly seen along the back. Unlike the full-sized Everlast notebook, the Everest Mini does not have the seven icons along the bottom. When you scan one of the twenty-four double-sided pages, the App will take you to a preview page, which will allow you to delete, return, send or send feedback to Rocketbook. If you tap the Send icon, you can send the scan to Message, Mail, Facebook, Add to Notes, Airdrop, Send to Twitter, print, copy, save to Dropbox or a plethora of other locations. You can send to Google Drive, Box, Email, Evernote, Messaging, Dropbox, Slack, OneNote, iCloud or Onedrive. When you have completed your scan session, tap done, and a new screen will appear with the seven icons. Tap any number of the icons, and your scans will send to that location. If you add ##TEXT## to your page, it will rename the page to the text that is between the double pound identifiers. If you do not, it will place the date and time of the scan. Navigate to the location that you sent the file and access it, store it, delete it or whatever else you wish to do with it.
The OCR handwriting transcription was rather neat. When I sent the file to my Macsources email, the PDF was sent in my handwriting and it transcribed the text, albeit with poor punctuation. It capitalized the correct letters, but it did not use my exclamation point. This notebook was a perfect tool for my recent business trip to Boston. I did not have to keep up with multiple notebooks, multiple pieces of paper, etc. I was able to jot down the ideas, to send them to my work email and thanks to the ##TEXT## feature, search for the information again later. The reusable notebook proved to be a valuable asset to my Veho T1 Messenger bag. I did not have any issues with the pen nor with the scanning. Do not mistake the Rocketbook Everlast Mini for the full-sized Everlast or the Everlast Wave, the microwavable notebook.
Learn More about the Rocketbook family of notebooks.
Follow Rocketbook on Facebook and Twitter.
Download the free iOS app by navigating to the iOS App Store.
Download the free Android App by navigating to the Google Play Store.
