The vision of an endless, always-on tablet that is designed for simple note-taking has always haunted me. Call it a Celestial Trapper Keeper, if you will. To be able to write on a screen and then press a button to erase the notes would be a dream and this $52 device does just that: you can write on the LCD screen with the included stylus and it just shows up, like on regular note paper. Then you press a button and poof. The pad lasts for 50,000 iterations and the battery can remain charged for five years. In short, it’s the world’s most high-tech whiteboard.

But do you see the fatal flaw? The thing that burns before my eyes like a great grey god of technological progress? This thing can’t record what you’ve written and play it back. You can’t even download pages. It’s enough to break a man’s heart.

I’m sure that functionality is coming soon and if you want to set this up as a quick to-do and grocery list storage system, you’re probably good to go. However, I still wait for the day when these tablets replace the reams and reams of paper kids go through each school year.

UPDATE – Looks like these guys will have a storage-capable version this year. And, mea culpa, this can be had for $40 at Brookstone.

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