I'm wondering if there's a more ecologically intelligent version of the Evernote Moleskin... a notebook I can scan and digitize, but uses 100% recycled paper?
How well do these digital pens work out in practice? Are they better than simply snapping photos of letter or A4 size pages with my iPhone or passing loose papers through a auto-feed scanner? How about the software that comes with the pens? Can they produce file formats that are easy to work with (pdf or plain text) without difficulty on different systems (Mac OS X or Linux).
I've never really been completely satisfied with any system of note taking (from pens to org-mode) but this is probably more of a poor craftsman blaming his tools.
The pen tracking in my experience isn't perfect so it's probably not better, in terms of fidelity, than a steady photo with your smartphone but the file sizes should be smaller and it can be more convenient.
The Livescribe uses a combination of a pen and special paper (you buy it or you can print it if you have a color laser) not only to record your pen movements but audio as well. This combination is interesting because your handwritten notes can serve as a navigation tool for the audio, tap on a note and it can playback the audio that was recorded at the time. We lend them to students to try but many find the pen too bulky to write comfortably (I've only seen photos of the latest model, it looks like it may be a little slimmer but still relatively bulky).
This site seems to have a decent overview of currently available options (site design is kind of crap, though). They liked the Sky WiFi pen best, probably because of its features tied to Evernote but the Wacom Inkling had the best capture quality ("100%"); its ranking probably suffered because it doesn't come with any handwriting recognition software.
http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com
(I suspect this would be particularly true if it needed to be white enough for digitizing.)