The docupen scanner does not have enough information. If you place the microsd in as awkward as it is to do, you have no clue if it is really working since nothing tells you how much memory you have used. Furthermore, scanning is automatic, which means you have no real control about when it will start and when it will stop. You just need to wave the scanner and hope.

The pictures are sub par. Even when you manage to run it over a sheet of paper at the right speed to get a strait image it is still very distorted. The scanner I received I got broken, so that the color function did not even work, restricting me to black and white. These of which turned out unreadable more times than not. Not only that, but they scanned inverted, forcing me to spin the image around in a software program just to be able to read it.

Besides that the software is not excellent. You require 3 programs just to get the images onto your computer in a usable format. the docupen software to download, paperport to turn it into a jpeg, another program so you can flip and rotate it, then you would need adobe acrobat to turn it into a pdf format you can really use. All in all a pain in the [...]. Although I don;t know if it scans inverted normally, it could be one of the ways mine was broken on arrival.

I give it a three because despite all of that, if it was working, I probably would have kept it. Obviously I had to return it and as long as I did that, I chose to get my money back as opposed to another not working replacement. It is very small and light, simple to carry around. If you get it, keep your expectations low, and if you have low expectations, it might not be worth $300 to you.

Seeing as the portable scanner is not really portable cause it has cheap case to protect it and the object itself is really cheap too, I went for a higher end real scanner for 1/3 the price. That’s my recommendation unless you need the scanner for a very specific purpose and that purpose is worth that much to you. Remember, it won’t be excellent enough for you to scan your textbooks, not the most bring anywhere you go like a flash drive kind of device, and cannot scan any item that is not completely flat.

Excellent luck with your scanner search!

The thought is fantastic, but the product thus far is not ready for prime time.

You also have to specifically buy san-disk brand mini-sd memory or it will not work. I had a nice Kingston piece. Did not recognize it. Nice to let people know ahead of time.

Sorry, this thing is pretty much a rip-off. How these guys get away with this junk is probably BUYING OFF Ziff Davis PC magazines and relying on the bone idle folks who do not return this broken-by-design piece of junk. EASILY THE WORST DESIGNED, WORST QUALITY ELECTRONICS DEVICE I HAVE HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO WASTE MY TIME AND MONEY ON.

The software easily converts scanned images into various common file formats. I’ve read the reviews talking about the cheap construction of this product but I don’t see the problem. It’s a portable scanner, you need to be careful w/ it. Under heavy use, the scanner can be plugged in to a laptop to both recharge the battery and view pages as they are downloaded from the scanner. On a two person team, one atty can scan while the other reviews the file. The major drawback for us is that the scanner can miss the edges of pages that lack margins (many of our documents are printed right to the edge of the paper), but it isn’t much on either side, you can usually figure out what’s missing.

So, yes, there is room for improvement in what is essentially a 1st-generation product, but you don’t have a lot of other choices if you want this functionality in a package this size (we won’t be hauling any flatbed scanners around the courthouse, thank you very much). Given Planon’s monopoly, I’m just pleased to see the prices coming down so I won’t have to share forever (this model has sold for hundreds more elsewhere). I’ve not had to deal w/ customer service, but I’ve been very careful w/ the pen, too. If your priority is high quality scanning, look elsewhere (a non-portable elsewhere). If, like me, you need a discrete, portable, and simple scanning device, then this is the product you should buy. It’s a pen that scans documents, maybe not a miracle, but still pretty 007.

I didn’t expect miracles when I bought this, and don’t really care about the clunky software, the wonki controls, and the other weirdnesses that the other reviewers have mentioned; I was willing to place up with all of this as long as I could get a decent text scan in the end. Can’t do that, though.

I wasted my money.