Just when I thought I’d reviewed every Interactive Whiteboard, there ever was and along comes another one. Except, this one has been around as long as any of them. In fact, this board has a 75% market share in Northern Ireland. The board is called InterWrite and it’s being sold by a company called IMEX.
Well, the fact that very few of us in the south have heard of the InterWrite board is a sticking point for Imex. The salesman I met is very eager to make Imex as well known down south as it is up North. So what’s it all about? Here’s a short video before I review.
Well, firstly it’s a similar product to the pen-based boards out there. The most similar board to it is Promethean’s offering. However, the Interwrite board offers a couple of extra things that the Promethean doesn’t.
Firstly, it has a multi-touch option where up to 9 people can interact with the board at the same time using its software. It also has some nice shortcut buttons on the side of the board. Another cool thing is that it can double up as a normal whiteboard, i.e. you can use dry wipe markers on it. On top of that, you can also buy a special type of whiteboard marker for the board. This allows you to write on the board without a projector and whatever you write shows up on the screen but can also be saved to a connected computer.
Another couple of features that the salesman pointed out was the five year warranty and the free training provided. Impressively, the whole package with a long throw projector comes in at just under €2,600. This compares with the Promethean reseller €2,500 offer which does not include training. I think Promethean resellers also only offer a 1 year warranty with their €2,500 offer too.
The only downside to this whiteboard is that it is pen-based only. Apparantly, they are developing a widget that will turn the board into a touch-based board but this is not available at least until 2010.
I think for its price, quality and guarantee, this is a strong contender if you like pen-based boards. I doubt they’ll have 75% market share in the south of Ireland with this board but it certainly deserves to be better known.
Last Update: August 17, 2017
New 2010 features for the IMEX Interwrite board include:
– Workspace software with lots more content
– Two rechargeable pens
– The Dual function so you can have two users at the board at once
– Reduced cost €1,999