travishubble's Full Review: I.R.I.S. s.a. IRISPen™ II Executive Handheld Sca...
This review will attempt to give the reader information on scanner pens in general, as well as my personal experience with the Irispen express (functionally very similar to the Irispen II Executive).
To my knowledge, there are three companies, all European, who make OCR scanner pens: Irispen (French, irispen.com), Wizcom (German, wizcomtech.com), and c-technologies (Swedish, cpen.com). (There used to be one called the siemens-fujitsu pocket reader, but this has since been discontinued). There is also a product called the docupen from planon (docupen.com). This is a pen-sized scanner that scans an entire page-width. I have only done research on the pens by irispen, wizcom, and c-technologies, and of these, I have only used the Irispen.
Scanner pens come in two basic types: computer-dependent and computer-independent.
All of the Irispens and one of the c-technology pens (c-pen 10) are computer-dependent. They must be attached to the computer's USB port to function. They send the data you scan directly to the cursor point of your application.
The Wizcom pens and the rest of the c-technology pens are computer-independent. They are battery powered and have varying levels of flash memory to store the text you scan. You can use them on their own and later download the data to your computer or PDA via either infrared or a serial cable. (Some earlier c-pens could only connect via infrared.) Or you can use them as you do the computer-dependent pens, attaching them to your computer and sending the data you scan directly to the cursor point of your application (even the ones that only connect via infrared claim they can do this). At the moment there are no computer-independent pens that attach via USB.
It appears as a whole that the computer-dependent pens are considerably more accurate and faster than the computer-independent pens. So the trade-off is speed and accuracy v. portability. The computer-dependent pens are also, as a rule, slightly cheaper (but not always so).
I sought a pen I can use to input data directly into the cursor position of my laptop, principally in the library. Accuracy and speed are more important to me than portability, although portability would be nice. After doing much more research than I probably should have done, here are my results.
Based on what I was looking for, the three leading contenders are Wizcom's Infoscan (currently $85 after rebate at Frys and Compusa), C-technologies' c-pen 600c ($176 at cpenusa), and Irispen's Express (currently $84 after rebate at Amazon). There are other pens with more bells and whistles, such as translating and scanning bar codes, but these models are sufficient for a basic researcher's need.
All of the models make claims about speed and accuracy, but I quickly learned that they are not to be trusted. To get a real idea about how the pens actually performed, I read as many reviews as I could. I checked out user reviews on Amazon, Epinions, and cnet, as well as editorials on cnet and pcmag. Through google searches, I found more reviews at the following sites (some must be translated from German):
Irispen:
Alamax.de, ancestory.com, dwfusion.com
C-Pen:
Alamax.de, brighthand.com
Wizcom:
pocketpcmag.com, dansdata.com, the-gadgeteer.com, consumerguide.com, niad.sussex.ac.uk, computers4sure.com, callcentre.education.ed.ac.uk
The various pen models made by each company seem to vary only in their bells and whistles, so it seems that the basic scanning technology in each model of a particular company is the same. Thus, I checked out reviews for each company’s current pens in general, not limiting myself to the specific models I was interested in. The greatest weight I gave are to the reviews of those people who have specifically tried more than one pen. Here is what I found:
All who tried Irispen and something else preferred Irispen.
All who tried only C-Pen and Wizcom, preferred C-Pen.
No one who specifically said they had tried both Wizcom and either C-Pen or Irispen preferred Wizcom.
The next greatest weight I gave was to users in the aggregate. These are the results:
Irispen: 20 Amazon users gave 4.5 out of 5 (and most low scores were not for performance but for compatibility with newer operating systems, a bug that appears to have since been fixed).
C-pen: 52 Amazon users gave 4 out of 5 (another 10 who reviewed the older 600 gave it a 2.5, but most seemed undeserved; this would bring the total down to 3.75)
Wizcom: 29 Amazon users gave 3 out of 5; 8 epinions users gave 4 of 5; 10 computers4sure gave 5.5 out of 10; of 38 cnet users, 61% recommended, 49% didn’t (about 3 out of 5).
Bottom line:
Irispen is far and away the fastest and most accurate. But, of course, it is not portable.
After that, C-pen appears to have a clear lead over Wizcom. It is still quite accurate, perhaps 95% rather than 99%, and not super pokey (but slower than Irispen), and it is portable.
There are many dissatisfied Wizcom customers, but certainly several satisfied ones as well. Certainly don’t buy a Wizcom from a place you cannot easily return it to.
After all this research, I decided to purchase an Irispen. The accuracy and reliability of the Irispen was worth more to me than the portability of the c-pen. I probably would have considered a c-pen if I could have found one for a comparable price at a place I could easily return it to. (For some strange Swedish reason, c-pens are extremely hard to find in the USA. Yourmobiledesk.com, studypen.com, and cpenusa.com are the only merchants I have found who carry them (Amazon used to). I have not been able to find any bricks-and-mortar store with them.)
Now for my review of the Irispen Express:
Performance:
The scanning performance is amazing. On my first test, I scanned two paragraphs from a book (11 or 12 point font) and got a 99.6% accuracy. The speed was not quite as fast as using a highlighter, but not much slower either.
To compare the speed, I tried typing by hand the same paragraphs I scanned (I type at about 70wpm). Including the time it took to correct errors in both my typing and the Irispen scan, it took overall 3 to 4 times longer to type than to scan. Definitely a time saver.
I have not tried scanning photocopies.
Quirks:
The pen has a wheel at the bottom which also acts as an on-button. When moving the pen across the curve of a page, it is sometimes difficult to keep the scanner against the page, and the button will sometimes then turn off, stopping the scan prematurely. This is annoying, but it has been happening less often as I get the hang of keeping the pen flush against the page as the page curves. (By the way, the c-pens do not have a roller wheel, while the wizcoms do. Some people found this a problem with c-pen).
The manual for the express is nonexistent. Perhaps it is in development? The quick-start instructions are decent, though. But you are left to figure many things out on your own. For instance, there are three markers on the scanning tip. With which marker should you align the text you are scanning? From trial and error, it appears that you should align the middle marker across the center of the text you are scanning. Perhaps this is supposed to be intuitive, but I would have preferred a mark to align along the bottom of the line I am scanning. Also, due to the lack of documentation, there is a switch on this pen (in addition to the two buttons) that I am still trying to figure out what it does. Is it vestigial?
Also, the pen must be held at a slight angle, as a normal pen would be. The scanning tip is slanted to assure this angle. This makes it more comfortable to use than the wizcom pens (which must be held straight up), but there is a drawback. Because of the angle, the last words of text on the left-hand page of a book are sometimes difficult to scan. I have only found this to be a major problem with small paperbacks, although it can be a problem with any book with small margins near the spine.
I have not tried contacting technical support, so I can say nothing of that.
The software is fine. It worked flawlessly on my Windows Me.
I am overall very pleased with the Irispen Express.
Handheld pen-sized OCR scanner Scans up to 1,000 characters per second Supports up to 56 foreign languages Reads font sizes from 6 to 22 points Text-t...More at Amazon Marketplace
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