| Scanners Reviews : Handheld |
 | WizCom WSP1000P SuperPen Professional
make sure jack is plugged in ALL THE WAY -- 2008-11-27
Okay, I know it sounds dumb and obvious, but if you can't get the pen to communicate with your PC, make sure to push the cable jack is pushed in completely. I have a film background and am used to using a variety of cables and electronic devices, so when I read the advice in the help section of the desktop program about checking the jack and the batteries I thought yeah, yeah I'm not an idiot. So, I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver and desktop program twice from the disk and once from the wizcomtech.com downloadable files. I was convinced the program wasn't installed properly (especially because of the little white and blue icon in the top left of the title bar which usually shows up when a program is not responding). Finally I looked at the help file again and tried pushing the jack in more. It went "click" and all was well from there. Believe me, even if you're conviced the jack is in all the way, push it in harder until you hear a distinct "click."
Also, to reiterate what others have said, the innacurate text recognition is almost always due to scanning too fast or not holding the pen at the appropriate angle. When I get a line that scans poorly, if I scan it a second time and focus more on going slowly and holding the pen correctly nine times out of ten it comes out much better. I found especially that the ends of lines scanned badly because (without realizing it)as I crossed the page I would tilt the pen instead of moving my hand.
This product isn't perfect and will make some errors no matter what you do, but it is far better and more useful than I had hoped. It is better than other text recognition software I've used and so convenient for taking notes for graduate school from library books I can't write in. I also use a lot of primary documents from the early modern period and earlier and the pen can actually occasionally read some of that text as well. I didn't really intend to use it for that type of work anyway and I wouldn't recommend it for text pre 19th/18th century or so, but it's nice to know it may be possible in some instances. It also sometimes has trouble reading modern typefaces that are in italics or a bit large. It's a bit hit or miss if you go outside standard typefaces, but for most body text of books and magazines it's great.
Unusable and Worthless -- 2008-07-04
Even after the supposed training of the pen, out of 20 scans it did not completely recognize the text once. It is very position sensitive and the technology needs to be significantly improved.
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 | WizCom E04087 QuickLink-Pen Elite Scanner
Yes it is that bad.... -- 2008-12-11
This would be a great idea if it worked. Let me first start off with the good things. It copies text that's on a flat piece of paper pretty well, as long as you keep your nerves and make sure you keep the angle right. Now for the negatives. Say for instance you need to copy text from a book, that's gonna be a problem. A book isn't absolutely flat when you open it up, it has that lump in the middle,...there goes your angle, and lots of errors. So for the students who are thinking of getting this, DON'T. It will drive you crazy. The post before stated that you might not get the expected results if you zoom across the text like a fiend on coffee, well even if you're a zen buddhist monk, you might not be able to keep your hand steady with this thing. Overall, i think this product is a waste of money, and the people who are raving about it,...well they just seem to enthusiastic, they sort of sound like paid commercials. Read all the reviews and make your decision.
Quicklink Elite Pen Scanner -- 2008-02-08
Pen too bulky for comfort. Must hold in awkward position for it to read well. Slow, somewhat delayed reaction to see text. Software never set up properly on computer. And, of course, advertising was deceptive.
Wish we had never bought it.
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 | Genius ColorPage BR600 Portable Business Card Scanner
Performs like an inexpensive scanner -- 2007-10-17
Unfortunate for this scanner, I own a Cardscan 700c which does a great job at scanning business cards and has very slick software which builds the contact list, imports or exports contacts from/to popular programs, creates entries that have the front and back of the cards, has drag and drop functionality, and more.
I purchased this Genius ColorPage BR600 as a gift for my better half who recently became a Real estate agent. Of course, she has seen my Cardscan in action in the past. Her comment about this Genius scanner was "you could tell its a lower priced and inexpensive scanner. If the print on the card is in anyway faint, this scanner will not pick it up". Also, she has business cards that have black backgrounds with white text (business cards of the agents where she works). This scanner can not scan and OCR them, but the Cardscan scanner does well with these cards.
If cost is the most important thing to you, then this is a good product. But if you are looking for a scanner which can scan almost anything you give it, you should spend more and get a Cardscan product.
Item received isn't as pictured -- 2007-10-11
Item received isn't as pictured. Tried to contact seller to no avail. Would like to get it resolved.
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 | Wizcom SP1000V SuperPen Translator
Please, do not buy this translation pen! -- 2008-07-23
This software of the pen is terrible! I grew up with computers and software, but this is just terrible. The pen seems not to have the menues, that the software asks for. I tried hours, even another PC, but I was not able to install the dictinoaries to the pen, because the software could not connect to the pen. I am very angry now, and I had to return the pen. I am now looking for a pen from another brand.
I had read the other comments before, about the bad software, but I thougt, I can handle that - I could not!
Excellent post sale service -- 2008-06-23
I received an excellent service from Amazon, but i got not service at all from tech support.
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 | CardScan Executive 700 Compact Business Card Scanner
CardScan -- 2007-07-03
This little device is really awesome! I am going to buy one for my son. Works like a charm, and its software is incredibly "talented" in picking the correct information off every type of card imaginable.
CardScan does what it claims -- 2007-04-23
I have the CardScan Executive 700, and have used it for about a year. It works great, but I always had a couple of minor issues with the CardScan software v7. Recently purchased the v8 software upgrade, and it work so much better. The scanner just does what it should, and the v8 software works very well.
The CardScan Executive 700 with the v8 software work very well. Most cards in a traditional layout will scan and be recognized. If the color contrast is poor, or the fonts are two flowery, you may have to type in or correct information, but you will have the information and the image of the card (you can scan front and back). The new v8 software adds the ability to replace cards, when you get a newer card from an existing contact. The lookup feature is very fast even with 1500+ contacts, and the synchronization with Outlook just works (once you get it setup).
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 | Wizcom Quicktionary II Pen- Spanish Voice Portable Scanner-translator
Pen is a great time saver! -- 2007-01-22
When reading magazines or books in spanish, this pen saves time of having to look up word after word in the dictionary. It usually scans correctly after one or two tries, however sometimes, you have to get it just right, especially on smaller text. I think it is totally worth the price, and has helped my Spanish studies tremendously.
A useful device for translating reading material -- 2007-01-03
I bought the Quicktionary device to help me study Spanish. I have already been using the Franklin electronic pocket dictionary and wanted to complement it. If I had to chose between the two, I would keep the Franklin. Although the Franklin is somewhat slower and requires typing the words, it has more features such as conjugating, games, etc., it is cheaper and smaller and can be carried in the pocket. The Quicktionary is quite functional after you get used to the technique of scanning. Occasionally you may need to scan more than once to get the right word. Its weaknesses are that it is slow to boot up and to process the scanned words. It also cannot help when the word is split across two lines. Its advantage is that it can scan a whole expression or a whole line. In summary, it is a good complement to an electronic dictionary but cannot replace it. You should take this opinion with one caveat: I have not read the manuals of either device and just have been using them intuitively. There may be other featuers with which I am not familiar.
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 | NeatReceipts Scanner and Software for Expense Management and Reporting
Great for a traveling businessman with a HUGE laptop -- 2008-10-28
The product does what it says... it scans, organizes, and categorizes receipts from just about any retail store or restaurant chain. If you run your own small business and need to track expenses JUST via receipts, this is a great tool. Everything else about this product is broken.
First, the program itself is huge. It installs MSSQL, and an a large set of programs and data files. It also adds a background service (which autostarts at boot) that eats 500M+ of memory even when the main program isn't running. When it IS running, it's combined system usage is over a gig of memory.
Second is speed. The scanner itself scans receipts in quickly, taking only a second or two for a standard receipt, 5 or so for a letter sized page. The software then takes 30 to 90 seconds (2Ghz laptop w/ 2G of ram here) to "scanalyze" the receipt, depending on size and image quality. There is no way to batch scan receipts and put off the rest for later, so you're stuck waiting for it if you have multiple receipts. If you're lucky, it gleans and auto-enters data for 4 or 5 fields and/or auto crops and rotates your receipt. If not, you have to do that manually.
It also claims to organize other documents. But other documents it means recipes and newspaper clippings, which are about all it knows how to do outside of receipts. It can scan and store letter sized documents and pictures, but it then spends lots of time trying to "scanalyze" it, even though it's not a receipt, before finally giving up and letting you enter data manually. The interface is clunky at best, more so when you're trying to scan multiple pages from a document in. And if the scanner get unplugged from the USB port (which is very easy to do), you lose, as the software can not see the scanner again until you close it and re-open it, which takes at least a minute.
Finally we get to export. The QIF data is great, but most recent Quicken products no long accept the QIF format. And if you happen to have an older version, you're limited in what you can do with that data in any case. I've also yet to get it to export a single PDF properly, so I can't say much about that except that it's totally busted. And while I'm sure the tax reports it makes are really nice, who's going to use scanner software to print tax forms for filing?
Overall, the hardware is great, but the software is very lacking. It's nice that they offer a twain driver in the bundle so you can use other software with the scanning wand. But even that interface is clunky, and only supports one image at a time scanning. So doing anything multipage is painful, and the buttons on the device are useless outside of the supplied software package. Again, it does what it says, but only that, and not that quickly.
Also... It doesn't work on Vista. Period. They've released a few patches to try to update it, but they didn't work. And it now looks like they've given up on the older version and are trying to get people to update to the newest line of software (for a modest fee of course).
not compatable with windows -- 2008-03-22
simply put it isn't compatable with all recent versions of windows, there is a petition to try and get the company to respond to this. Until they do you should NOT BUY IT, and let the company know why.
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 | Corex CardScan Executive with Version 5.0 Software
Where is the Macintosh version? -- 2002-04-12
...I guess if enough people complain... :-)
POOR AFTER SALES SERVICE -- 2001-11-09
I have been disappointed with the Corex CardScan Executive. While ads claim the business card scanner will read business cards and then enable the user to import the data into other software applications, I have not had this experience.I purchased the unit and followed the instructions for the set up. During the set up, the user must test the unit by scanning a business card into the scanner. My unit would not pull the business card over the scanner. I re-installed the software, tried again without success. I contacted Corex customer service, and was given instructions on testing the scanning device. The results of the test indicated the unit was defective. I was instructed to return the unit, at my expense, to Corex customer service in Germany. I had to pay shipping plus customs clearance fees. After the scanner was 'repaired' it was returned to me. Again, I had to pay customs charges in Thailand. Upon installing the unit, again it would not pull the card through the scanner. Running the same tests, it appeared I had the same or another defective unit. I contacted Corex in the USA, and requested a new system be shipped to me. I received a nice note from Corex customer service with installation instructions, but no acknowledgement of my request. Buy from Corex with caution, they do not support their products. Buyer Beware!
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 | WizCom QuickLink Pen Handheld Scanner
Wiz- Com: Over- Hype, Under- Deliver -- 2006-08-23
Wiz- Com was one of the 1st to come out w/ a handheld pen scanner, and the idea is great...
The sell- point for me was convenience and the thought that I would be able to speed up processing data for school. Unfortunately, the software app. for this scanner sucked, the interface was a total pain in the a** to get functioning correctly, and text- editing was a nightmare. I ended up wasting more time trying to get it to work than it was worth. Total waste of my time and money.
Save your $$$ and wait until better models come out in the future. This was a case of rushing a great idea to market before the technology was ready for consumer application.
great for researchers -- 2006-04-18
The wizcom scanning pen is great for people who do a lot of reading and need to save 1-10 line passages every page or two.
It would be nice if the scanning accuracy were always 100% (I use foreign languages that have different characters thrown in sometimes) but it still saves enormous amounts of time since I don't have to type what I want into my laptop meaning I'm free to keep my eyes on the text without distraction.
If you don't care to have your laptop with you, just take the pen and store all the info to transfer over to your PC later.
If you want you can scan directly into your computer. I often scan directly into a little notecard program which means once I've finished my article or whatever. All my notes are saved together and are searchable. If you need to search for elements of text this is very handy.
It's good for humanities people like myself though I do think improving the technology could always continue.
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 | Visioneer CardReader 100
dont buy it!!!!! -- 2006-10-13
this is a piece of junk, it never worked fine, or the software crashes, or the scan results are terrible and very very slow.
Frustrated user -- 2004-06-10
If you like the poor working device with NO support - the Visioneer CardReader is just for you!
I have tried to download and install all recommended updates but it doesn't work.
The customer support is unacceptably awful!
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