IRIS Pen Express Handheld Scanner

by Iris

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0000TSSRI
• Item model number: USOA113
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 17, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Help manage labor-intensive typing and note taking--you've found the IRISPen Express handheld scanner. It's no more difficult to use than a highlighter, and its about the same size, too. Just run the scanner steadily over the text you want to transfer into your computer. Two buttons on the side of the pen are easily programmable to match keyboard functions.

Grayscale scanning is designed for precisely legible text, with impressive speeds; the Pen Express reads at about 1,000 characters or 3.15 inches per second, and can also scan simple logos and headlines. Fonts are irrelevant, as long as the size is between 6 and 22 pt. It's designed to work with 55 different languages, and the interface is translated into French, English, Spanish, Dutch, German, and Italian.

Power is received from your PC via a USB cable, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage--you won't have to worry about charging or replacing a battery, but you can't use the scanner by itself either. The unit functions on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. IRIS includes a six-month warranty.

Product Description

I.R.I.S. IRISPen Express -- For students and profess\sional researchers, there is truly no tool more essential than this Text Recognition Pen Scanner. Simply scan printed information from books, newspapers, magazines, faxes, letters, spreadsheets, etc. and instantly see all the words and numbers entered in your favorite application, wherever your cursor is. From hundreds of different types of documents to hundreds of different types of applications, the IRISPen Express captures the information you need! Easily assign keyboard commands to the 2 pen buttons Connects directly to the USB port of your laptop, desktop or tablet PC! Requires Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP Includes Cardiris Limited Edition for Windows

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, though, there are some issues., October 18, 2004

By 

sf "toomuchresearch" (Gaithersburg, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IRIS Pen Express Handheld Scanner (Office Product)

I've been using the IRISpen express for about 5 days now. I went into the purchase with my eyes open. I'd read the reviews on Amazon and knew that the opinions and experiences were polarized. However, with a major research project in the works I needed every bit of help I could get. So I decided to take the plunge and purchase the IRISpen from Compusa.

So far I am pleased, though the scanner is not without its deficiencies. It does a good job scanning in text, however there are limitations, but these can be worked around, and are understandable. Below are some of the problems as well as a few of the positive things I've found.

1. The scanner's OCR software cannot recognize writing that has been underlined by hand. This is understandable because, at least for me, these lines aren't straight and can intersect the letters, this will throw off the scanner. However, I haven't found this to be the biggest problem/

2. Despite the claims of the manufacturer the scanner does not always scan at 100% accuracy. Over all the accuracy is about 95% which is good enough for me, but not all letters come out.

3. Too much light can inhibit the scanning process. I learned this when sitting at Barnes and Nobles by a window. To much light dilutes the emissions of the scanner and the scanner does not have enough contrast, which is created by the green light emitted by the pen, to read and recognize the letter.

4. You need to be move your hand in a relatively straight line. When you look at the tip of the pen you see three lines, two at the ends and one in the middle. In order to effectively scan you need to line up the middle mark with the center of the line of text you want to scan. If you move in a line that is pretty straight the scanner will scan very well, however if you let your hand waver to much you will get gibberish. I see this as an understandable result, if your hand moves too much you'll get a line of letters that the OCR can't recognize.

5. It takes a little practice to get used to the scanning process.

6. If you are scanning from a photocopy and the copy isn't moderately clear then you won't get a good scan. Also understandable as I see it, the letters aren't complete and the OCR software isn't strong enough to recognize these letters.
7. Foreign letters. When the output language is set to English the scanner will not register letters with accents, such as `é'. This is one of the few bigger complaints that I have, but, it's not huge.

8. You can't scan too fast. If you move the scanner too fast then you won't read all the letters, you don't need to go slow but you also can't go too fast. This just takes a little practice.

9. The double click feature on the pen buttons is a little clumsy, but the buttons, are customizable to allow you to chose any keyboard command you want.

10. The scanner recognizes hyphenated words. If a word at the end of a line has a hyphen, and continues on the next line, the scanner recognizes that this is a partial word and combines it with the other part of the word on the next line.

11. My biggest complaint is that the pen software does not automatically load when you plug the scanner into your USB port. This is easily fixed with an icon on your desktop or toolbar but I've found it annoying.

12. The scanner must be used with the book or magazine on a hard surface. Otherwise the text will flex and corrupt your scan.

13. The size of the scanner sometimes means that you must hold your books at a 90 degree angle if you intend to scan to the end of a line.

14. Sometimes it does not scan well when going over a curve in a page. 85% of the time it works fine, but the other 15% you may get some corruption in your scan.

Overall I've found the IRISpen express to be a useful tool. I would recommend it, but I would also note that there are caveats to its effective use, it takes some practice to use. However, it does work well, and I expect it to be an invaluable tool for academic research. I recommend it.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Completely disatisfied..., July 6, 2005

By 

Wedding Lady (Vancouver, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IRIS Pen Express Handheld Scanner (Office Product)

The iris pen scanner says that it needs a USB port and CD drive. Unfortunately, they failed to mention that most USB drives do not have enough power to run the Iris pen's scanner. I tried 2 computers and called technical support 3 times. Each time it was the same story... not enough power. I told them that I had a brand new, expensive computer with only 2 other USB devices hooked up and he still said it wasn't enough. Anyway, I had to return mine and I would highly suggest looking for another product because the Iris Pen Scanner does not live up to its claims.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It works as promised, March 19, 2005

By 

J. Roby "Jim" (South Dakota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: IRIS Pen Express Handheld Scanner (Office Product)

I received the IRIS Pen Express a day ago, installed the software and the pen and started using it right away. I am pleased with the pen scanner. It works as represented and is quite simple to use. I wanted the pen scanner for small scanning jobs out of books etc (I practice law and will use the product in legal research and writing projects). For larger jobs, I will continue use a flat-bed scanner.

The IRIS pen is fast and amazingly accurate right out of the box. I carefully considered competing pens and decided to go with IRIS--so I have no experience with QuickLink or other competitors.

I think the reviews which are very tough on the IRIS Pen are unwarranted. The IRIS Pen is a very good product. I'm rating this a 4 out of 5 stars but it may be a 4.5 (and nothing is a 5).