Customer Reviews

Planon Systems Handheld Portable Scanner RC-800

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

First, let me say that I could not review this product completely as it quit working after about 20 scans (30 minutes after charging it for the first time). I did have the chance to perform scans at 100, 200, 400 dpi as well as in black and white, 12- and 24-bit color. I was also able to install the software and import about 10 scans into my computer.
It did scan photos well (at both 200 and 400 dpi), but it was tough to get the images to scan in perfectly vertical. At the higher resolution and higher color (24 bit), the scanning process took to long (about 12 seconds for a full page). When scanning at 200 dpi and 12-bit color it took about 8 seconds per page. Also, the scanner actually turns off after each scan, thus it takes 15-20 seconds and button pushing to reboot the device before scanning another page. Importing 7 images from the device to my laptop (while it was still working) took about 4 minutes. The OCR software (Paperport) was good, but the scan quality (Black and white and 100 dpi) was too poor to allow it to be functional. The 8MB internal memory is not enough and the 128MB or 256MB expansion card is definitely needed.
What I was most shocking was the very poor craftsmanship. There were seams on the device where the plastic was glued. One of the two main buttons was recessed into the device. Also, the indicator lights were misaligned with the overlying symbols. I cannot emphasize enough how poorly made this was. I am returning it for a full refund (30 day money back and 90 day exchange - if bought from Planon).
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

Addendum (April 20th 2006): I have had a very difficult time dealing with the Planon company. To return this product within the first 30 days and get a full refund, you must first get an authorization which required no fewer than 7 phone calls and 5 e-mails. Once I finally had returned it, they said they had credited my charge when they never did. Upon calling them they said it would "take some time" to see the credit come through... That was 6 weeks ago. They do not return phone calls or e-mails and in order to return this it has required alot of time and effort. There business practices (product quality, customer service, and return policy) are poor at best. I will re-emphasize: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

I have used the RC-800 for about six months and despite its James Bond image, its quality is sub-par, though both battery life and, with the added 1GB card, the memory have performed well. The plastic could not be more brittle. The first week resulted in the piece that covers the usage lights simply coming unglued, which is what later resulted with the lens covering the scan light on the end. So I use this thingy that still seems to scan, though it now looks like something I made. Regardless, since I had heard of the customer service reputation, I have held out from even trying to return; partly out of laziness and partly due to its functionality -- the thing still works and takes great images. The software offers simple through-put to turn the images into usable docs, jpgs, PDFs, TIFFs, and the quality of the image is fantastic. It would help with some documents if this thing was 1" wider and if they could develop a software that lets you line up images side by side to form a larger image, that would be great. If you want something you have to babysit and tend to its boo-boos in order to scan documents in the field with great ease, this is for you. As for Planon -- get your acts together with the quality and customer service; most professionals would pay $50 or $100 more the next time around if it was made solidly and your customer service actually picked up the phone.

Bought this thing expecting a miracle. Did not expect a piece of junk. It's cheap flimsy plastic (why not anodized aluminum for a $240-$300 device like this?). It TURNS OFF after every scan (absurd). It TURNS OFF while you are DOWNLOADING pictures over the USB cable (ridiculous product design).

You also have to specifically buy san-disk brand mini-sd memory or it will not work. I had a nice Kingston piece. Did not recognize it. Nice to let people know ahead of time.

Sorry, this thing is pretty much a rip-off. How these guys get away with this junk is probably BUYING OFF Ziff Davis PC magazines and relying on the lazy folks who do not return this broken-by-design piece of junk. EASILY THE WORST DESIGNED, WORST QUALITY ELECTRONICS DEVICE I HAVE HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO WASTE MY TIME AND MONEY ON.

I've been using a Planon RC-800 for about 5 mos. It's been great. Attorneys in our area are often required to take extensive notes by hand from criminal case files. The Planon lets us scan the documents and download them with incredible ease. I've seen over 70 pages scanned out of a single file. As far as I am aware, this is the only portable scanner of this size that allows users to scan an entire page in one pass (others require you to go line-by-line, for example). In just the last few weeks, I've noticed more and more attorneys carrying these pen scanners around the courthouse.

The software easily converts scanned images into various common file formats. I've read the reviews talking about the cheap construction of this product but I don't see the problem. It's a portable scanner, you need to be careful w/ it and that should be expected. Under heavy use, the scanner can be plugged in to a laptop to both recharge the battery and view pages as they are downloaded from the scanner. On a two person team, one atty can scan while the other reviews the file. The major drawback for us is that the scanner can miss the edges of pages that lack margins (many of our documents are printed right to the edge of the paper), however it isn't much on either side, you can usually figure out what's missing.

So, yes, there is room for improvement in what is essentially a 1st-generation product, but you don't have a lot of other choices if you want this functionality in a package this size (we won't be hauling any flatbed scanners around the courthouse, thank you very much). Given Planon's monopoly, I'm just happy to see the prices coming down so I won't have to share forever (this model has sold for hundreds more elsewhere). I've not had to deal w/ customer service, but I've been very careful w/ the pen, too. If your priority is high quality scanning, look elsewhere. If, like me, you need a discrete, portable, and easy scanning device, this is the product you should buy.

I can not recommend this unit because my experience is that after receiving a new RC-800, it switches off before I even manage to start scanning or during a scan, after finished about 30-40% the battery icon turn red and switch off. And this is a brand new scanner!!!
Have written to support today, so hopefully they will come back with a solution!

But as it is today, I find both the manual, faq and problem solver for specific scanner very very incomplete.
First I find the online support very confusing. If you want to find out how the batteries works with the RC-800, the online support is just saying something about coin batteries and recommend you to change them without specifying that this is only for the previous models and not RC-800. I went out buying a new set coin batteries not realizing, that this was only for DokuPen R700 and BW: :o(

Also very little information to help you to solve a specific problem for a specific model!

Per

After reading the other reviews on this site, I postponed ordering the RC800 twice. However, since I needed a scanner that would scan antique books that cannot be flattened to fit on a flatbed scanner (without damage to the books), and since Planon promised a 30 day guarantee--no questions asked--I decided to make the purchase. (I actually purchased a refurbished unit that was about 50% off the regular price).

Although I returned the product just prior to the end of the 30 day return period, I decided to write this review to offset many of the negative reviews that simply do not reflect my experience with the RC800.

I used the scanner off and on for nearly 30 days and found it to perform as advertised. You will want to purchase a memory chip for it, however, (I bought two for the price of one at [...]) to maximize performance.

I contacted tech support the first day and found the personnel to be exceptionally cordial and helpful, as was the individual I spoke with in customer service. When I did decide to return the unit (see explanation below), I was treated professionally and my request was processed promptly. Within two days of receiving the returned product, Planon had credited my credit card with the full amount of the purchase (less original shipping of about [...]--it cost about [...] to return it via UPS). Since Planon says it could take up to as long as 10 weeks for monies to be returned, I was prepared for a wait. But the process was as prompt and professional as any I have experienced with any company I deal with online.

My reason for returning the unit was due to the fact that the scanner lens or window, does not extend the entire length of the pen. So there is about a half inch (I don't know the exact measurement) of the end of the pen that does not scan. This means that when you place the pen on a book page, the margin of the page must be sufficiently wide to allow you to get the scanning lens over the entire body of the text. Granted, you can scan laterally, from side to side, and let the OCR software rotate the page. But even this approach is limited by the size of the margin--if it is smaller than the thickness of the pen, you cannot place the pen in the margin deep enough to scan from the inner text margin to the outer.

While the quality of the scan is not as high as most flatbed scanners, you can expect to achieve a relatively high degree of accuracy with the scanner if the text you are copying is relatively clean and clear (and does not contain old typeface with ligatures between letters or broken type).

I found the unit to be well assembled, contrary to other reviewers. The plastic casing makes the pen light-weight but it does not appear to me to be of poor construction. There are things about the accompanying software I don't like, but I could say the same thing about all software applications I use.

While I hope this review proves to be helpful toward enabling you to make an informed buying decision, should you have questions about my review, feel free to contact me at [...]. I'm a college professor, not an employee of Planon or of any of its competitors.

I bought this docupen 800 from the planon website at $299 through a friend in US, since they would not accept non US address. The pen automatically turns off after scanning for a few seconds. I tried to charge the battery, assuming it is a battery problem, but since there is no indicator showing it is charging, I still do not know whether I have been able to charge the battery, and the scanner still can't scan for more than a few seconds, which covers only a few lines of a page. The manual is badly written, does not cover trouble shooting, and does not explain why some buttons are flashing after a few seconds of scanning and before it shuts off automatically. It also does not take user through step by step, such as start by checking if battery is working, how to charge it, and so on. A total disappointment.

I bought this crappy "scanner" so I could use it at the jobsite without having to haul my computer everywhere. To this day I can't charge it completely, I can only scan ONE page before it goes dead. So now I have to take my computer if I want to use it. That being the case I wound up BUYING a thin flatbed scanner (from canon) which is easier to use and works A LOT better and is WAY cheaper. If you buy this "portable scanner" you'll regret it!

The Docupen does work. It is the size of a pretzel and does function as a magic scanning wand. If you don't have the luxury of having a flat bed scanner with you when you are on the go (who would?) this device is the next best thing. I am an attorney; I can scan items that can't be passed through a reader (the way some other companies' products work) and the Docupen reads whole pages unlike a puny pen type scanner which read a line or two and are unsatisfactory. It is plastic, light weight, and eminently portable. I take it to court. It is a must to get an additional 1 gb of memory for under $20 for multiple scans. The company is responsive to technical questions. I don't believe there is another product like it on the market. I dropped the first one I bought (black and white)(my fault) and recently bought the color model which I strongly recommend. I doesn't take the place of a sturdy flat bed scanner when you are in the office and need precision copying of a photograph for example. But for quick scans on the go, it is outstanding. Some reviews complained that the light went off after each scan--so what. A flick of the switch instantly turns it on for the next scan. An automatic feed copier/scanner machine the Docupen is not, but it fits into your attache case easily. The images are loaded into your pc with a USB cable readily enough through Paperport software.

When I first got my RC800, I was underwhelmed by the build quality--it seems cheap and flimsy, with terrible fit and finish. Still, it seems to hold up fine under use, and it hasn't broken yet.

At first, I had a terrible time using this thing--my scans were coming out crooked, the "Too Fast" light blinked all the time, and the scans would finish prematurely, before the entire page had been scanned in. The resulting scans were unusable, and I almost returned the scanner.

Recalibrating the RC800 fixed all of that and turned the scanner into a terrific little tool. It took a while to do the recalibration, which was somewhat confusing because the scanner would finish way before the end of the calibration page, but I finally got it right with 100% accuracy. After that, the scanner works flawlessly, allowing for an uneven scanning speed and scanning full pages completely. I've gotten into the flow of using the device, which while not fast, isn't too slow either. I can easily scan page after page with a single pass each, and the OVERALL speed is actually better than flatbed scanners where I have to open the lid, replace pages, position the page, all before actually making the scan.

The trade-off in portability and compactness makes this a wonderful scanner to have--I'm used to having relatively large flatbeds take up a bunch of shelf space, and this is a joy to store.

As for the software complaints, I didn't have any trouble with the latest drivers (for both Mac and PC, which I both tested). Sure, there are the usual "Not Digitally-Signed" errors under WinXP and the drivers themselves are somewhat clunky to use, but it all works reliably as promised in the documentation. If you require elegance, this isn't the scanner for you. But then again, I've never had an elegant scanner experience with all of the dozens of scanners I've used EXCEPT the giant multifunction copiers that are capable of scanning to email or network drive.

If you aren't particularly techie in nature or are rough on your equipment, this probably isn't the scanner for you. Otherwise, this is perfect for low-volume, space-constrained, or portable scanning.