.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE The Planon DocuPen, not your plain old pen
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY Document portability is one of the foundations of mobile computing, but who wants to carry around five pounds of paper in addition to a laptop? That’s where the DocuPen R700 from Planon comes in. The DocuPen is a portable handheld scanner specifically designed to scan a full-width sheet of paper, yet remain portable enough to fit in your pocket. Read on to see what Senior Editor James Booth thinks of this pocket-sized page scanner.
.OTHER
Document portability is one of the foundations of mobile computing. After all, you’re not exactly mobile if you can’t get your documents to and from your clients and business associates. Sure, you can carry all those papers around in your briefcase, but who wants to carry around five pounds of paper in addition to a laptop? No one, that’s who. That’s where the DocuPen R700 from Planon comes in.
.CALLOUT This is a great little device.
The DocuPen is a portable handheld scanner specifically designed to scan a full-width sheet of paper, yet remain portable enough to fit in your pocket. The R700 model of the DocuPen, shown in Figure A, incorporates a built-in, rechargeable lithium-ion battery that recharges from the USB port on your laptop, ensuring a charge at all times, but isn’t required to be connected for operation.
.FIGPAIR A The DocuPen R700 portable page scanner from Planon.
Featuring one-button operation, the DocuPen can scan at two different resolution settings, 100 and 200 dpi, with enough memory to store up to 100 image scans. In addition, LEDs provide complete operational information regarding battery level, on, off, and error status.
Essentially, what Planon has done is attach a battery to the scanning bar of a flatbed scanner and wrap a housing around it. Guide rollers on the scanning surface help to keep the device rolling in a straight line while scanning. The Planon promotional image in Figure B shows how the DocuPen works when scanning a document.
.FIGPAIR B You can easily scan a full page with the Planon DocuPen.
.BREAK_EMAIL Scan your mouse here to find out how good the DocuPen actually works.
No scanner is any good without the software to make it work, right? As part of the software suite, Planon has included ScanSoft’s PaperPort OCR (Optical Character Reader) software for converting your scanned image into text. As shown in Figure C, you can scan and OCR documents directly into PaperPort, then send them to any number of applications for whatever format you require. Later, you can print the document if you need a hard copy for your permanent records.
.FIGPAIR C Planon included ScanSoft’s PaperPort software for your OCR needs.
To shorten note taking, the DocuPen can also be used to scan books when doing research, as in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Scan books as well as single page documents with the DocuPen.
In addition to the method shown above, you can also rotate the book and scan the full page height all in one shot, and the PaperPort software will rotate the page and OCR it for you. "But wait! There’s more," as Ron Popeil would say. You can scan artwork too, not just text. Bear in mind though, the DocuPen is only a monochrome scanner, so all your images, like a comic I scanned as a test, will be in black and white.
.H1 Putting it all together
So what’s the bottom line on the Planon DocuPen? The bottom line is, this is a great little device. It took a little getting used to in order figure out the proper speed to move the scanner down the page, but after about dozen scans I had it down. Even though the DocuPen comes with calibration software, much like hand-writing recognition software, you have to calibrate yourself to how the device works, not the other way around.
Who is this device for? Well, it’s for anyone who frequently handles a lot of documents and has to have copies of those documents. A couple of professions come to mind rather quickly, the first being the mobile salesperson. This is precisely the kind of situation discussed by Dale Troppito and Dawna Paton in their Keeping Score column, which deals with the cost and ROI (Return On Investment) of mobile solutions, see http://www.computingunplugged.com/issues/issue200501/00001444001.html. Field personnel can easily scan any document they need a copy of, storing it for later print out, or download it to a laptop and send to the home office for processing.
The other situation that comes to mind is the person doing research, as a student, source material for a book, or for whatever reason. The DocuPen can save the person conducting research an immense amount of time when taking notes. With the ability to scan any amount of text or graphics from a single sentence to an entire page, the DocuPen is an indispensable tool for any research project.
With its protective leather case, the DocuPen can easily slip into a jacket or pants pocket for easy transport. And with its rechargeable battery, you won’t be tied to a cord. The DocuPen is the perfect device for the mobile worker that has need of a copy machine.
I really didn’t experience any problems with the DocuPen, or its software suite. They both took a little getting used to, but with a device like the DocuPen, that’s to be expected. I think the initial difficulties I had with the PaperPort software were merely because I’m used to the OCR software I normally use, which turned out to also be compatible with the DocuPen.
I’d like to see Planon bump up the resolution of their next model to 300 dpi. That’s a resolution that most OCR programs are comfortable with and would result in fewer misread characters. But, by taking the time to learn how the DocuPen works, and what speed is best, you should have no problems whatsoever.
Of course, another benefit would be a battery that holds a longer charge. The mere mechanics of this device makes it a juice sucker. With improved battery technology, I have no doubt that future models will be able to take advantage of smaller batteries with more charge. Planon makes several models of the DocuPen, and the model I’ve specifically addressed here is the R700, "R" for "rechargeable". Other models rely on a wired connection or alkaline batteries for power.
I give the DocuPen R700 from Planon 4 out 5. At $199, this is a great little full-page scanner, and a must for anyone that has need of a portable copier. It’s ideal for anyone doing research, and is portable enough to take anywhere. With a little personal calibration, you’ll be scanning documents and pages left and right, saving untold space in your briefcase.
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.RATING 4
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Planon DocuPen, visit http://www.planon.com.
For more information on Gantry Group’s TCO and ROI series, visit Dale Troppito’s author page at http://www.zatz.com/authors/authorpages/daletroppito.html.
Or Dawna Paton’s author page at http://www.zatz.com/authors/authorpages/dawnapaton.html.
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.BIO James Booth is the Senior Editor for ZATZ Publishing. In addition to writing for Computing Unplugged and Connected Photographer, he’s the author of Do-It-Yourself Wedding Photography. A self-taught photographer, James also dabbles in digital graphics and has learned to be a PC and Palm specialist through personal trial and error. James can be reached at jbooth@zatz.com.
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