myFirst Sketch Book addresses exactly that.
What is myFirst Sketch Book?
The myFirst Sketch Book is a digital tablet to draw, make notes, doodle, and save your child’s memorable work with a simple click. You can use it with your children or any other family member which you want to keep in touch with their creativity. The myFirst Sketch Book is a lot of fun for children to use, but adults can also use it to get in touch with their creative side.
myFirst Sketch Book vs iPad or any other tablet
I’m sure some of you will be wondering why to go for a dedicated digital monochrome drawing pad with a stylus over a proper tablet like an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. That’s a valid question indeed. But we are living in a time when children are locked inside the house and taking their school classes online. With the amount of screen time they are subjected to, it’s not wise to make them doodle and draw on that bright screen with a lot many apps (and hence the distractions).
In comparison, myFirst Sketch Book does one thing and does it well. You can use it to draw, make notes and save everything to your phone or tablet with a single click. The pressure-sensitive stylus is a delight to use, even for professional artists. If you are gifting this to a student, they would love to take notes, thanks to the ‘Pen on paper experience’.
myFirst Sketch Book: Design and features
The myFirst Sketch Book comes in two colors – White and Black. We got the White frame with a Blue plastic case. Interestingly, the company packs a matching color case, a couple of replacement tips for the stylus, and some stickers within the box.
It’s very light, and the build is mostly plastic, so it makes sense to use it with the case provided. Other than the 10-inch LCD screen, you find three buttons on the front – one to save your work to the paired device, the middle one to toggle power, and the last one to erase the screen. There’s a status LED on the bottom left which glows green when the device is powered ON and red when charging. There’s a lock switch on the left that will prevent the drawing from being cleared from the screen. The bottom houses a micro-USB charging port which is slightly disappointing to see in 2021. Once charged, you can use the drawing pad for about 50 hours of drawing. The standby time is quite commendable too.
The stylus needs to be charged (with a micro-USB port again), and it comes with two buttons to increase or decrease the line width as you draw. Sadly, the line width doesn’t change on display but only on the paired app.
Drawing experience
The drawing experience on myFirst Sketch Book is quite a delight, especially for the young ones. There is hardly any learning curve. So anyone can just pick up the pad and start doodling as it feels pretty much like drawing with a pen on paper.
Double-clicking the erase button erases the whole screen. I wish there were a way to ‘undo’ the latest part of the drawing. Erasing the whole screen isn’t ideal many times. Interestingly, if myFirst Sketch Book loses charge or is switched off manually, the drawing stays on the screen till you power it on and double-click the erase button.
Sketch Book app
myFirst Sketch Book can be paired with the official Sketch Book app, which is available on both Android and iOS. The app itself is pretty basic. There is an option to show what you are drawing on the pad in real-time. You will be able to change the color, pen tip, line width, etc., on the app while you are drawing on the physical display.
The app can playback a drawing, almost like a timelapse, which is pretty cool. Other than this, you can save your drawing with a single click, share the drawing with friends and family and check back on the saved drawings from the past. Using the app isn’t mandatory. If you are using it without pairing the app, the tablet can save quite a few of your drawings and upload them to the app when you pair. An important thing to note is that the stylus needs to be charged for the ‘Save’ feature to work, which is rather weird, and I learned it the hard way.
myFirst Sketch Book Review: Verdict
myFirst Sketch Book is a great device for kids to use that can help them learn and express themselves creatively. It delivers a good drawing experience but has its limitations like lack of ‘undo’ feature and inability to change line width on the tablet.
At $99, it’s slightly on the higher side when it comes to pricing, but all in all, it’s an excellent family present to introduce the fun of doodling and sketching for children or adults with a focus on creative expression. Buy myFirst Sketch Book
