Product Description
Handheld Pen Scanner / Windows Compatible
Customer Reviews:
IrisPen.......2007-12-21
The several versions of this product differ in the software offered, the scanning pen, apparently, is the same for all. Iris Express seemed good enough for me since I only wanted to copy information from library books.
Getting useful copy requires a steady hand, a modicum of practice and, above all else, proper settings of the scanner. Operating instructions are both obscure and sketchy, so a beginner should stay with the manufacturer's default settings until some proficiency is gained. It helped, somewhat, to download the instruction file from the ReadIris website when I was ready to create settings of my own. Those instructions are inadequate too, but better than those packaged with the pen.
Once technique is mastered, character recognition is excellent, but the output text is plain, with no formatting whatsoever. That lack is easily corrected by sending the copy to a word processor.
Everything considered, I'm glad I bought the gadget.
Wugo
IRISPen express 6: Tall Claims, Small Product.......2007-12-18
This product works alright, so long that one is willing to put up with plenty of grief. The IRISPen express 6 promises to scan printed text and numbers "with an accuracy of up to 100%." Technically, this is accurate, since anywhere from 1% to 99% of the time can be considered "up to 100%," but it is also misleading, given the experience of use. About 40% of the time, the scanner interprets chicken scratch from printed text, and the result is completely unreadable. Another 40% of the time, the text is readable but not accurate. One must spend a good deal of time determining what the scanner meant. ("W" often shows up as "\V" and "to" often becomes £o," spaces do not necessarily scan at all, soyourtextlookslikethis, and other similar inaccuracies.) Completely accurate text appears perhaps 15% of the time. With this in mind, the scanner handles highlighting fine, and serves as a good replacement for sticky notes and highlighting in books, and is usually faster than typing notes. Forget scanning underlined text, though. The pen shows almost no recognition for it.
The percentages above totaled 95%. The other 5% of the time, the pen will freeze. Although this product advertises full compatibility with Macintosh--one of the few products to do so--there are several technical glitches that need to be worked out. When the pen freezes, it is completely unresponsive to the "force quit" feature and remains unusable until the computer is restarted. Do not bother trying to do the safe restart. The pen blocks anything short of flipping the switch. I have sought technical support on this issue, but have yet to receive a response.
Does not even remotely do what it claims.......2007-09-26
We bought this scanning pen for an extremely simple task: scanning crisply laser-printed black numbers off of a white sheet of paper into a spreadsheet. Three of us read the instructions and attempted to scan numbers. None of us were able to successfully scan more than 10% of the time. Most of the time the scan of a number like "123456" would get input as something like "1~#!@#---=+" Looking at the image (pre-OCR'd) version of the scan, it was obvious why the OCR software could not convert this to numbers, as the images were uniformly blurry and garbled.
We contacted the customer support group for this product and they said "just turns option x on in the software" and that will fix everything. Further research indicated that option x was actually for a different product than this. I think this is the first product I've ever returned to Amazon in years and years of buying from them.
This pen is neat! .......2007-08-15
I am quite floored with this technology. Some gadgets bank on the "hip" factor, this one banks on the "did you see what I just saw!" factor. You use the pen to grab text off books and, through some kind of text recognition, what you scan pops up in your email, or wherever you are typing. Better to train to use it, you have to hold it at the right angle but if you have text to retype, the learning curve is not a problem.
I am giving high praise as it is also Mac compatible!
Product Description
The IRISPen Express is the fastest and most accurate pen scanner on the market! It's been redesigned to be lighter, more compact and more ergonomically correct. You hold it like a highlighter - just slide the pen over the printed text. The USB-powered scanning pen easily connects to your laptop or desktop company. With an accuracy rate of over 99%, the IRISPen Express is the perfect tool for home, business or school! Scans wavy and distorted images Programmable Pen buttons - easily assign keyboard commands to the 2 pen buttons (enter, space, tab, cursor up, etc.) Idle mode reduces power consumption Powered by USB port - no need for external power supply Directly connect to a PC, notebook, Pocket PC, Tablet PC and Macintosh devices
Customer Reviews:
Do NOT get this product.......2007-10-26
This product fails miserably at every type of text I tried. Any font, any size, any color, it simply didn't work. I spent more time scanning, pasting, and FIXING the errors than I would have ever spent typing the text directly myself.
This isn't even a good value if it were offered FREE because of the frustration level. Plus, as a Mac user, it is so clunky as to make me want to throw it out the window (I returned it instead).
Do NOT buy this unless 1) you have a very high frustration tolerance 2) you like using white-out 3) you have $100 you want to waste or 4) need to own every gadget, even if they don't remotely work.
Have I been clear enough how little I think of this product???
Cheers!
Get the Cpen instead!.......2007-10-10
In short - THE IRIS PEN SUCKS, buy the CPen instead.
I am a law student who had used the Cpen 800C for the past two years. I have become completely dependent on it and was crushed when it died. It turns out Cpen no longer makes that model (was portable, didn't have to be connected to your computer to use) so I stupidly decided to try the IRIS pen. It is a 100% waste of money - it scans crap on a perfect surface and is even worse on my textbook pages that are ivory instead of pure white. After two frustrating days of trying everything I could think of to get the IRIS to scan accurately, I bought the CPen 20. It works perfectly , you can get a 2 or 3 year warranty for $5 or $10 bucks, and for $13 I got a mousepad that allows you to use it as a mouse (very cool!)
Does the job after practice.......2007-09-12
I actually bought the IRISPen Express when I read the special price offered in the October issue of PCWorld. It was $30 off the retail price of $130 if you went to the link shown in the ad.If I had read the reviews here before I ordered, I might have had reservations about my decision.
It arrived in only a couple of days....the first big surprise. I opened the box and did exactly as the instructions said on loading the software first before plugging in the pen reader into the USB slot. What I got was no power to the pen when I tired to calibrate. I then read in the installed instruction manual that USB slots in the front of many computers do not give a good connection to power and to try one in the back of the PC. That worked!!!
After doing some test scans, I tried a few lines out of books and magazines. The results was not perfect, but I feel it does a good job after practice and doing what I see others mentioned; using a flat surface, having consistant light and keeping the pointer inline with the text when scanning.
I don't recommend more than one cup of coffee before doing many scans. A shaky hand can have an affect on the quality. On books when you get near the middle of a page that isn't flat can produce unreliable OCR as well.
The IRISPen works as advertised........2007-08-31
The IRISPen works as advertised. I am currently reading for my PhD comprehensive exam and I use the pen to lift quotes from the books I am reading. I am careful to calibrate the pen with each new book and each new lighting environment (i.e. when going from my desk to the couch, from daylight to desk lamp, from home to office, and vice versa). It only works well if the page I am scanning is held flat on a solid surface. It works with near 100% accuracy on hardcover books but does a terrible job if I just hold a softcover book on my laps, I can't imagine trying that on a magazine; hard and flat is key. When used carefully the IRISPen is a huge time saver. My only regret is that I discovered this gadget after I was halfway through my readings and my notes on the first 20 books where taken by hand.
iris pen.......2007-08-29
it doesn't pick up the data very quickly and is very sensitive to how the lighting is in the room/on my desk. It almost isn't functional in my office space (which has lots of shadows as it has dark wook walls/ceiling.
Amazon.com Product Description
Help manage labor-intensive typing and note taking--you've found the IRISPen Express handheld scanner. It's no more difficult to use than a highlighter, and its about the same size, too. Just run the scanner steadily over the text you want to transfer into your computer. Two buttons on the side of the pen are easily programmable to match keyboard functions.
Grayscale scanning is designed for precisely legible text, with impressive speeds; the Pen Express reads at about 1,000 characters or 3.15 inches per second, and can also scan simple logos and headlines. Fonts are irrelevant, as long as the size is between 6 and 22 pt. It's designed to work with 55 different languages, and the interface is translated into French, English, Spanish, Dutch, German, and Italian.
Power is received from your PC via a USB cable, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage--you won't have to worry about charging or replacing a battery, but you can't use the scanner by itself either. The unit functions on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. IRIS includes a six-month warranty.
Product Description
I.R.I.S. IRISPen Express -- For students and profess\sional researchers, there is truly no tool more essential than this Text Recognition Pen Scanner. Simply scan printed information from books, newspapers, magazines, faxes, letters, spreadsheets, etc. and instantly see all the words and numbers entered in your favorite application, wherever your cursor is. From hundreds of different types of documents to hundreds of different types of applications, the IRISPen Express captures the information you need! Easily assign keyboard commands to the 2 pen buttons Connects directly to the USB port of your laptop, desktop or tablet PC! Requires Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP Includes Cardiris Limited Edition for Windows
Customer Reviews:
Disapointing product, horrible support.......2007-10-06
The pen works well for a while but then, it crashes Windows XP :( I also tried it on a mac and it often doesn't recognize the device at all! Moreover, I tried to get some driver updates and I couldn't find them. So, I wrote their customer support people, they replied once to get some more info about my settings and then... nothing!
If I could return this pen, I definitely would!
Simple and Fast.......2006-03-04
The pen is somewhat awkward to hold but once you get used to it, then everything is a breeze. Recognition is good (not perfect) and integration with MS Word is seamless. Overall good product.
Perfect Product - nothing less...!.......2006-02-17
I used the IRIS Pen to scan all the printed text-media I gathered from work last year (about 300 pages of valuable data), in order to put it on a CD rather than having it in form of a huge pile of paper...it took me only 3days! Typing all of that information myself would have been a task unable to finish without this product.
Completely disatisfied..........2005-07-07
The iris pen scanner says that it needs a USB port and CD drive. Unfortunately, they failed to mention that most USB drives do not have enough power to run the Iris pen's scanner. I tried 2 computers and called technical support 3 times. Each time it was the same story... not enough power. I told them that I had a brand new, expensive computer with only 2 other USB devices hooked up and he still said it wasn't enough. Anyway, I had to return mine and I would highly suggest looking for another product because the Iris Pen Scanner does not live up to its claims.
It works as promised.......2005-03-20
I received the IRIS Pen Express a day ago, installed the software and the pen and started using it right away. I am pleased with the pen scanner. It works as represented and is quite simple to use. I wanted the pen scanner for small scanning jobs out of books etc (I practice law and will use the product in legal research and writing projects). For larger jobs, I will continue use a flat-bed scanner.
The IRIS pen is fast and amazingly accurate right out of the box. I carefully considered competing pens and decided to go with IRIS--so I have no experience with QuickLink or other competitors.
I think the reviews which are very tough on the IRIS Pen are unwarranted. The IRIS Pen is a very good product. I'm rating this a 4 out of 5 stars but it may be a 4.5 (and nothing is a 5).
Product Description
The IRISPen Express Translator is the fastest and most accurate pen scanner on the market! It's been redesigned to be lighter, more compact and more ergonomically correct. You hold it like a highlighter - just slide the pen over the printed text. The USB-powered scanning pen easily connects to your laptop or desktop company. With an accuracy rate of over 99%, the IRISPen Express is the perfect tool for home, business or school! Scans wavy and distorted images Programmable Pen buttons - easily assign keyboard commands to the 2 pen buttons (enter, space, tab, cursor up, etc.) Idle mode reduces power consumption Powered by USB port - no need for external power supply Directly connect to a PC, notebook, Pocket PC, Tablet PC and Macintosh devices
Customer Reviews:
Not for Macs.......2007-09-01
I read a review for IRISPEN EXPRESS in the NY Times in Aug 07 that was the best of the 3 pens that would read the print on paper and then put it on your computer. I sent for it but I could not use it since it waorked only with Windows and not with a Mac. I wanted to return it but I could not get the return merchandise number from their shipper though I asked for it twice.
Consequently I can not tell you anything about the product but I would warn customers of Amazon that the shipper of this product will not accept returns, I have told Amazon of this difficulty but have not received a response. This is the first time Amazon has failed me
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