A stand alone low cost writing pad includes a rechargeable battery, a low capacity memory, a low power processor, a first pair of connectors and supports audio, video and digital ink capturing functionalities. The writing may be detached from and re-attached to a stand alone base unit using the first pair of connectors. The base unit includes another rechargeable battery, high capacity memory, high power processor and a second pair of connectors. First data bus of the writing pad and second data bus of the base unit respectively run into the first pair of connectors and the second pair of connectors thereby ensuring that a communication pathway is set up between the writing pad and base unit when the writing pad is attached to the base unit. The base unit receives the captured audio and digital ink from the writing pad via the communication pathway and the high power processor runs voice recognition and optical character recognition software on received data to generate a second data. The second data is displayed on the writing pad and/or stored in the high capacity memory for future use.