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Planon DocuPen Pen-Sized Full Page Scanner

Planon DocuPen Pen-Sized Full Page Scanner

List Price: $199.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It works, but is it useful?
Review: After two hours of practice and a session with the quite helpful help line, I got some usable scans out of this largish pen-sized gadget. It is elegant to look at (what a pretty toy!), but the batteries are a bear to change, and fairly pricey. I'm not sure I won't get more use out of a digital camera to copy documents in archives, but if you can afford it and you like gizmos, this is for you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It works, but is it useful?
Review: After two hours of practice and a session with the quite helpful help line, I got some usable scans out of this largish pen-sized gadget. It is elegant to look at (what a pretty toy!), but the batteries are a bear to change, and fairly pricey. I'm not sure I won't get more use out of a digital camera to copy documents in archives, but if you can afford it and you like gizmos, this is for you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Battery Problems
Review: Great concept and with a little practice this device does delever usable duplicates (Equivilent to a fax). The software that comes with this pen is great.
Enough of the good.
The battery life in this pen is terible. I had to replace the original batteries within a week. I haven't had the heart to replace the second set yet, and haven't used my pen since I bought it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Battery Problems
Review: Great concept and with a little practice this device does delever usable duplicates (Equivilent to a fax). The software that comes with this pen is great.
Enough of the good.
The battery life in this pen is terible. I had to replace the original batteries within a week. I haven't had the heart to replace the second set yet, and haven't used my pen since I bought it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Useful Device for the Legal Field
Review: I am a lawyer that has found the DocuPen to be a very useful device in my field. I am able to capture important documents in the courtroom, at a client's home/office, and even in the library for legal research purposes. It also came in handy for in office use when one of my client required a document to be e-mailed immediately, but we did not have a flatbed scanner, so therefore we used the DocuPen to scan the documents and send it via email using the free software provided - ScanSoft PaperPort. It also has a neat OCR feature in the software that can convert text based documents into editable text in Microsoft Word. The DocuPen was very easy to get a hang of once you get the scanning technique down. I have since then purchased more DocuPen units for my team at the office.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Useful Device for the Legal Field
Review: I am a lawyer that has found the DocuPen to be a very useful device in my field. I am able to capture important documents in the courtroom, at a client's home/office, and even in the library for legal research purposes. It also came in handy for in office use when one of my client required a document to be e-mailed immediately, but we did not have a flatbed scanner, so therefore we used the DocuPen to scan the documents and send it via email using the free software provided - ScanSoft PaperPort. It also has a neat OCR feature in the software that can convert text based documents into editable text in Microsoft Word. The DocuPen was very easy to get a hang of once you get the scanning technique down. I have since then purchased more DocuPen units for my team at the office.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This product works great for Me
Review: I bought this product with very high expectations. Silly me. No matter how many tries, no matter how much advice and valiant effort from technical support, no matter how many work arounds attempted, my computer and the scanner could not connect; i.e. the USB connection did not work. Shortly after I finally gave up, I installed a new digital camera, also calling for an USB connection (natch) with no problems at all. My suspicion is that the scanner is not at all comfortable with XP, which is on my system. But whatever the reason, the scanner failed to install, I returned the product for a credit, and commented to the technical support that "It simply shouldn't be this hard."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Only Connect - Not a Chance
Review: I bought this product with very high expectations. Silly me. No matter how many tries, no matter how much advice and valiant effort from technical support, no matter how many work arounds attempted, my computer and the scanner could not connect; i.e. the USB connection did not work. Shortly after I finally gave up, I installed a new digital camera, also calling for an USB connection (natch) with no problems at all. My suspicion is that the scanner is not at all comfortable with XP, which is on my system. But whatever the reason, the scanner failed to install, I returned the product for a credit, and commented to the technical support that "It simply shouldn't be this hard."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Getting Good Scans
Review: I recently got my DocuPen. I was extremely impressed with it. It clearly outshines any of those line-by-line scanners such as Wizcom, C-Pen, etc.

The technology is simply mind boggling, the way they cram all that impressive technology into one small pen-shaped like device.

I was impressed with the scan quality of the device as well, considering that its a small pen-shaped device. The sample scans on the DocuPen homepage is truly an indication of the quality of an attainable scan. I scan mostly documents, bank statements, deeds, receipts etc. In fact all of those scans of those documents all turned out good, as good as the quality indicated on the site.

As for the OCR feature, the OCR was decent. OCR basically onverts your text based document scans into editable text, but then again OCR was never a good or perfect technology. In fact the DocuPen never really promoted the OCR feature from my recollection. I have a high-res flatbed scanner, and when I used the OCR feature, I still get errors from the conversion and that's from a hi-res flatbed scanner.

I love how light weight it is and how portable it is. Truly a tool for road warriors.

I am also looking out for Planon's future DocuPen version which I hear is sometime soon.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This product works great for Me
Review: I recently purchased the DocuPen and the product has been fine for me. It connected perfectly fine with Windows XP and to my other computer systems such as Win 98 and Win 2000.

For some people I know that if a product does not work, it may be in part due to something in the computer system itself. Take a look into the system first to see if its compatible with the product, because the product worked wonders for me.

The DocuPen literally took me like 3 scans to get the technique down. And I get very legible scans.

It seems that many expect pure carbon copy duplicates, but that's not really the concept behind the DocuPen, because I really see it as a tool to scan documents and other materials for reference that does not need to be super high quality. If need be, then use a high resolution flatbed scanner. The key difference is in the fact that it is totally portable, something that a flatbed scanner is not.

The free software is also amazing, its called PaperPort from ScanSoft that integrates with various programs from my computer like Outlook, Word, etc...I am also impressed with the OCR feature within PaperPort because it does a very good translation of scanned text image into editable text.

By the way, the technical support staff is superb in assisting with technical needs, because I only had a slight issue but was resolved immediately.


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