Rating: 
Summary: Wow
Review: After only a couple of days I wonder how I finished the first half of grad school without it. Notes are so much easier and faster when one just edits, formats and clarifies instead of starting with a blank page. It works well in both right to left and left to right mode (must flip scanner 180). I find using it with a ruler siglifigantly steadies the scanner; therefore, improveing OCR quality. I still ocasionally see capital letters in odd places, and when I use it left handed it seems to always make mistakes with the first letter scanned either printing the wrong one or leaving it off entirely. Even so I find the OCR quality comprable to most flatbed scanners and much faster!!I can simply highlight the text I need and it instantaneously appears at the cursor, run spellchecker, and save. Instead of waiting for warm up, scanning the whole page, selecting the section of the text I need, recognizing the text, proofing, exporting to a text file and then copying and pasteing into the appropriate application. It used to be faster to retype, but not anymore. :-) Best of all it actually works for scanning tables. I've never seen any OCR do that with a high degree of accuracy before. Usually thick table borders are translated into text, but no troubles here. I'm sold on IRIS products from now on!
Rating: 
Summary: A very average to poor product- look elsewhere
Review: Got the pen delivered and its easy to set up- thats the good point! On the down side:- - poor support taking over a week to respond to me.
- The speech synthesis doesn't work and gives me error messages
- The OCR is not particulary good and frequently mistakes letters (thank goodness for the little red squiggle in word. Will wait another couple of days for "support" to contact me before I box it all up and send it back. I suggest spending the money on getting a typing course rather than using this product.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I did a lot of due diligence before buying the IRIS Pen II Executive Scanner, including all the other pen scanner products on the market. I was initially a little put off by the fact you had to attach it to a computer via a USB cable to work. FWIW, I am using it with MacOS X 10.2.6 and a iBook. I have had it for over a month now, purchased in July 2003, and I LIKE it. I have primarily used it to scan text from photocopies of journal articles. These are clearly not the highest quality text material from which to scan, but nevertheless, the IRIS pen handles them acceptably. By that, I mean, I get around 85% accuracy. This clearly means, I have to go back and retype things, but still, I am able to capture large quanities of text to use *in a very rapid fashion*. Like one of the previous posters, I do tend to use it like a highlighter. As a word of instructive advice...it may be difficult to figure out how to hold the pen. Just try different positions and your hand will develop 'memory' in holding it correctly, such that it captures text. I guess my overall experience is neither the 100% success that others have had, nor the despair that a few have faced. I would certainly buy this product again.
Rating:
Summary: well done product, but still a few bugs
Review: I did a lot of due diligence before buying the IRIS Pen II Executive Scanner, including all the other pen scanner products on the market. I was initially a little put off by the fact you had to attach it to a computer via a USB cable to work. FWIW, I am using it with MacOS X 10.2.6 and a iBook. I have had it for over a month now, purchased in July 2003, and I LIKE it. I have primarily used it to scan text from photocopies of journal articles. These are clearly not the highest quality text material from which to scan, but nevertheless, the IRIS pen handles them acceptably. By that, I mean, I get around 85% accuracy. This clearly means, I have to go back and retype things, but still, I am able to capture large quanities of text to use *in a very rapid fashion*. Like one of the previous posters, I do tend to use it like a highlighter. As a word of instructive advice...it may be difficult to figure out how to hold the pen. Just try different positions and your hand will develop 'memory' in holding it correctly, such that it captures text. I guess my overall experience is neither the 100% success that others have had, nor the despair that a few have faced. I would certainly buy this product again.
Rating:
Summary: It works for me
Review: I don't know what those other people are doing wrong, but this product loaded fine and works for me. It's an amazing product!
Rating:
Summary: Poor product
Review: I gathered a lot of information before I bought it. However, the IRISPen fails to work no matter I tried (after 6 different power-hub including Hub behind my Mac Quicksilver & whatever angle I tried.) Just no red light at all! I had to change to another one. Worse still, there is no OSX driver ver4.6 available inside the box despite it was printed in the box cover. I HAVE TO PURCHASE THE SOFTWARE, cost US$82 as OSX upgrade (from 4.0 to 4.6)!! How come there is not printed that one have to order software separately!!
It is a waste of money and my time!
Actually, I have to give no star!
Rating:
Summary: Great accuracy
Review: I have been pretty impressed with the accuracy of this device. On one carefully scanned document with 12 point type, it was well over 99% accurate (better than my C-pen C600 which is about 95%). The pen is very quick with no pauses between lines scanned (the C-pen pauses between lines). The software was easy to install and it was running in a matter of minutes (a little easier than C-pen's serial port set-up). It also scans directly into applications (C-pen docs must be copied and pasted). The downside is that it must be attached to a computer via the USB (unlike the C-pen) and that limits its portability. It also is a little bulkier than the C-pen.
Overall, it does a good job on a variety of tasks. If you favor portabilty, try the C-pen. If you want accuracy, try the Iris Pen II.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I initially submitted a review describing this product as terrible. However, after spending a number of hours frustrated with the results I finally found the solution to my problems. The solution lay in moving the brightness cursor in the scan test to the darkest possible position. Once I did this the success rate rose from less than 50% to around 99%. I'm hoping it will improve even further as I get used to using the scanner. One happy and relieved customer!!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic in all ways - I'm really impressed
Review: I just received my IRISPen II and cannot believe how easy to use and accurate it is. I sat in my easy chair with my laptop on the table beside me and scanned in text from a book placed on a pillow on my lap (soft surface). I didn't take any particular pains; the scan was probably wavy, I used light pressure, and I did it fast -- just exactly like I would use a highlighter pen. The accuracy was 100%! I am amazed. I've been looking for a tool like this for a long time and almost despaired. The other pen scanner I tried was useless and I had to return it. I'm glad I didn't give up and gave the IRISPen II a chance. Thanks to my grad student message board for recommending it! What a difference this is going to make for my research this summer! Carole Beckham
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't work
Review: I tried everything under the sun to get this scanner to work, loading new drivers, and not only did it not work, it crashed my computer and my laptop - lousy product.
| 
