Rating: 
Summary: Great Gift For Students!
Review: Although when I purchased this item for my husband, a Ph.D. student at Notre Dame, it only had 2 stars and a mostly negative review -- my husband has found it VERY easy to use and LOVES IT! It picks up all types of fonts, font sizes, and even lightly printed text. He has had no trouble with the transfer (of text from the scanner to his computer)and uses it often! I am glad I didn't listen to the negative review -- it seems to have been misleading.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Good for Heavy Scanning
Review: First, here is a general point to consider about pen scanners: don't kid yourself that you can use then just as you would a highlighter. You can't. * You need to have a page of text that it flat. Tightly bound books can be a problem as the curving away of the page into the binding can make it difficutl for the pen to read accurately; *If you are riding a bus or train and you are bouncing, that will decrease your accuracy. *You can't just whip the pen across line after line of text at a high speed. You have to go slower and with more care (and a steady hand). * More than likely you will have to first read whatever article or book it is you want to read, then go back and scan the relvant parts afterward. Trying to use a pen scanner while reading is an exercise is self-torment. Your ability to enjoy it, to follow the flow of the narrative will be wrecked by the lengthy pauses you take to scan relevant portions. My suggestion: read your reading and lightly mark the margin with a pencil. Then, later go back and scan these lines of text (and don't forget to scan the page number at the top first!) Now I move to the Wizcom Quicklink Pen. I was disappointed by this product and returned it. I had to problems with it: 1. Scanning was slow. I dragged the pen over the line of text in a book and that took but 2-3 seconds. But then I had to wait as the pen processed the text. This added another 5 seconds or so. Thus, when it came to heavy scanning, say, sucking up a half-page of text, I found myself spending what seeemed to be a rather long time (and this is to say nothing of correcting any errors, and there were errors every 4 lines or so). 2. The pen seized up and quit working. I can't say why this happened, but my guess is that it is related to a memory malfunction. There I was, working on the third or fourth line of a paragraph I was scanning and it just stopped absorbing text. I waited a minute, pressed "escape"- no luck. Eventually I turned it off. Then, after waiting a few minutes, I tried to turning it back on. No go. The next morning I turned it on and it was back working. Too bad: I read much and would love to have a reasonably priced scanner pen that could suck up text rapidly. Oh well, I'm off to try another brand.
Rating:
Summary: Not a great product
Review: Hard to use. Difficult to hold, hard to edit text once you transfer it to your pc, cumbersome in general. Only buy it if you're tech savvy,
Rating: 
Summary: Slow going at first but then....
Review: I am also a PhD student who was looking for just about anything that could help with the workload. When I first installed the software I could not get the pen and PC to communicate. It was extremely frustrating. Wizcom help staff wasn't helping (although it was a noble effort). Then the sun shined down upon Amazon - I read the reviews - and voila! After using online comments as a guide, I removed my PDA from COM1 synchronization, and it worked. The pen is great! Research reviews take 1/2 the time! Another tip was helpful as well - switch to left -handed use, turn material upside down, and scan right to left. It is much more precise.
Once you get it going, it is a great tool.
Rating: 
Summary: It works, but very slowly
Review: I bought and used the pen for a while just to see if I liked the system. It does work as advertised, but it is too slow to really be of any use. A better choice would be to save the money and spend it on omnipage. I priced things after using the pen and realized that I could buy a better scanner 9x12" with omnipage for under $90. Even the lite version that came with the scanner is better then the pen. I was able to resell the pen to someone else since I had no use for it.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Scientific Literature Searches
Review: I came across an ad for this in a computer magazine. Decided to give it a try ... It has made my work as a scientist much easier (references and research methods can now be collected/scanned directly in to the pen, and then onto my desktop computer editing software). I no longer need to jot down notes in various pieces of paper. The pen had about 5% error rate, but that is more than compensated by the usefulness of this little known pen scanner and the relatively low price. It indeed is an electronic highlighter. A must have for any scientist on the run, or even for graduate students (can highlight paragraphs of text from books and compile them into a Microsoft Word document for review later etc.).
Rating:
Summary: Not compatible with Linux or MacOS
Review: I didn't see this anywhere in any of the other reviews, but this Pen isn't compatible with MacOSX or Linux. This is unfortunate since it'd make a great companion to my PowerBook G4 otherwise.
Rating:
Summary: Device Fine, Software lousy
Review: I found the scan effectiveness worthy of praise, but trying to get the content to my laptop unbearable. The software wouldn't install well or access the scanned text on my Win XP laptop, or my Win2000 laptop, and when I went to my old Win98 laptop it worked fine...albiet with a lame interface. And then, when I deleted the desktop software from Win98 system, the OS got smeared and now only fires up in "Safe Mode". Again, the optics work fine, no complaints at all, but the software is puke.
Rating:
Summary: Great tool, toy--no tool.
Review: I found this product easy to use, +95% accurate and fun! I am an attorney and constantly want to pull short quotes from documents and this is perfect. Use it more than my desk scanner.
Rating:
Summary: Meets All Expectations
Review: I got this product so that I could easily scan business cards and information in magazines on airplanes.... where I don't have my Visioneer StrobePro... Works exactly like it is supposed to... just read the directions... the OptiCard on the back of the case is great for editing... I would recommend... especially at this great price.
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