Rating: 
Summary: A mixed blessing
Review: After working with this gadget on four business books, I concluded that the downside outweighed the upside.The upside:
When it worked, the scanning mode that transferred text directly into a WORD-document saved a lot of time. The downside:
(1) The text still needed editing since the C Pen misread letters and commas in every other sentence. (2) Most functions of the C Pen were very cumbersome for someone who is used to the convenience and user-friendliness of a PC or laptop. After an initial try at writing with the C Pen or copying my address book from a PDA to the C Pen, I gave up on these functions. (3) After about an hour of constant use, my C Pen tended to "hang up"; the scanning device in the tip of the pen simply continued to light up without scanning anything. (4) The C Pen needed a lot of power: After four books I had to replace the two AAA batteries in the pen. The bottom-line:
A good product idea in search of a reliable and user-friendly technology.
Rating: 
Summary: Enhanced Student Productivity
Review: As a foreigner going to north america for student exchange, I found this pen indispensable. The pen proved itself already on the flight over the pond; the man next to me got curious about my device and the following conversation ended with a business card and my first contact on the scary continent. I especially use the pen for translation and am more than happy with its use. The only thing its lacking is an easy way to build a list of words I've looked up; I'd like to save all the words I've looked up in a special file for further repetition and learning. It takes some time to get use to scanning text but once you get the hang of it C-pen is just great. A definite buy for anyone who uses a dictionary frequently. C-direct, the function that lets you scan text straight into the cursor's position (in a Word document e.i.) is also usable. Of little use is the address book. There is no need to have your address book in Outlook, cell-phone, PDA and C-pen. If you need more than one dictionary (I could need one English-Swedish-English plus one English-English)you need to get the C-pen 800 (has more RAM). But with the 800 you also get (and thus pay for) some other useless functions such as SMS and fax.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fantastic!
Review: As a part-time MBA student, I've bought this to help me with storing research information. Beats manually re-typing references & quotes any day of the week!
Not many 'whistles & bells', but it does the job I bought it for & more besides - who could ask for anything more?!
Rating: 
Summary: Never got it to dependably synch
Review: Boy, what a great idea. I bought the pen because I do a lot of research and wanted to be able to take notes which could then be downloaded into my computer for editing. That way, I could quickly find and incorporate source material into my own work.
As one reviewer mentioned earlier, my scanned material was messy after transfering it. I didn't mind that too much. It's still one heck of a lot faster than retyping handwritten notes.
It's my inability to consistently synch that caused me to give up on the CPen. I was only able to get the pen to synch once using infrared. This was after spending way too much time holding the pen at various angles and distances from my infrared port.
I was able to synch using the cable but I only attempted to do this once.
When I bought a new notebook computer (a Dell Inspiron 300m) I first downloaded and installed CPen's XP update. I had zero luck getting an IRR connection. I was able to connect via the serial cable exactly once. After that I was never again able to successfully connect.
I communicated by email with CPen's support. Their replies were prompt and friendly but ultimately their advice was pretty basic...the tech equivalent to "take two aspirins and call me in the morning."
I suspect the problem is XP systems based (aren't they all) and because I have minimal knowledge of MS operating systems, this means hiring a rather expensive tech support person to help. There have to be some less expensive alternatives to transfering notes to the computer.
Bottom line: A terrific concept but CPen doesn't deliver. Some folks can tolerate quirky products, I'm not one of them. Reliable, affordable OCR just is not a reality yet. Or if it is, I haven't yet found that product.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: Excellent product, works great and is very easy to use. Hope it will prove greatly beneficial for my studies.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty cool
Review: I admit I'm a sucker for technology. But this is pretty cool. I've only had it a couple of days, but with practice the accuracy is very good, much better than I expected actually. I also found a version of the software on the C-technologies site for Windows XP and it works without any problem. It also beams, again without problems, to my Pocket PC. I've returned to school part time and I think this will save a lot of time, allowing me to scan in terms and definitions to study on my PDA. This also is definitely a good price. CompUSA has a closeout on the 600C. Ugh. I just wish I could find a case somewhere, but nobody seems to be selling them.
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but good enough
Review: I am a student reading tens of pages daily I am supposed to remember. The only way for me remembering what I have read is exposing myself to the key sentences 3-4 times daily.
So here is what I do since I have my C-Pen: 1. When I read a book, after I read and understood a chapter I scan the important info with my C-Pen out of the book.
2. I beam the file into my Palm. (if necesarry I edit it on my pc, but usually it is not needed) Whenever I have a little time like in the elevator or during lunch or waiting for the bus, I just flip out my palm and read a sentence or two so that the subject I dealt with comes back. This method rocks. I can refresh or recall things I have read months ago! Everything is at the touch of my finger in my palm. This method works for me so much that I am willing to deal with the CPen 600. It is not flawless. I have found the scanning is accurate enough only for books with ordinary text: not many abbreviations special characters etc. My books are luckily like this, so I only have a letter wrong every 3rd sentence or so. Fine, I don't mind that. But do not expect that you can just see some tel number in a newspaper or some mathematical expression and scan it out with 100% accuracy. First of all, I have found that I have to adjust the pen for every book I scan, which take 10 secs altogether. Secondly, when you want to scan important data, you can not afford the accuracy of this pen. Summary:
Good for students researchers, people who deal with lots of plain text and want to make notes. One more cool feature is that I can carry my files (6M) in the C-Pen between my office and home computer. Not good for quick 1-line scans from various sources.
Rating:
Summary: Can't get it to sync
Review: I have not been able to connect the C-Pen to my computer(Compaq Presario). The Laptop doesn't have a com port so I had to use Keyspan but still the C-pen was unable to sync. I Email to the address on the brochure still nothing works. I took my Laptop to CompUSA and they couldn't get it to sync to the C-pen. After approx. $100.00 and many months later I still cannot use the product. I need it to work to help me with my school work.
Rose
Rating:
Summary: Can't get it to sync
Review: I have not been able to connect the C-Pen to my computer(Compaq Presario). The Laptop doesn't have a com port so I had to use Keyspan but still the C-pen was unable to sync. I Email to the address on the brochure still nothing works. I took my Laptop to CompUSA and they couldn't get it to sync to the C-pen. After approx. $100.00 and many months later I still cannot use the product. I need it to work to help me with my school work.
Rose
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!!!
Review: I just received my 600C C Pen, and it works really, really well. So far I've used it to scan in text and then beam it to my Palm - really cool, and I've used it to scan in business cards. I couldn't believe how accurately my 600 C scanned in such small tightly spaced text on those cards - but it did! Great product C Pen!!!
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