WizCom QuickLink Pen Handheld Scanner

by Wizcom

Product Details

Product Manual [416kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1 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: B00004VUHO
• Item model number: QL1000
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 1, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Handheld scanners are a convenient way to get printed text into an editable format on your computer, but the best devices are prohibitively expensive. Wizcom has bucked this trend with its aggressively priced QL-1000, which has more features than some products that sell for twice as much.

In our tests, we found the interface tough to learn and navigate, and editing text that's stored in the pen was a chore. However, with practice, we were able to scan pages of text with great accuracy.

An attractive feature of the QuickLink is that you don't need to hold down a button while you scan text. The device can "see" text and automatically activate the scanner when text comes into its field of view. Then, you only have to roll the pen smoothly over the line you want to capture and lift it off the page at the end of the text line. The optical character recognition (OCR) engine then translates the scanned images into editable text.

The QuickLink was as accurate as any similar device we've tested, but still far from perfect. The OCR process also took longer than it did with other products we've tested in this category. Still, these minor deficiencies are more than offset by the device's useful software tools, which, for example, let us send scanned Internet links directly to our PC's Web browser and quickly create an address book by scanning business cards. The QuickLink is less expensive than many of the products it competes against directly, making it a great buy if you need a handheld scanner. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Great accuracy with a little practice
• No need to hold a button while scanning
• Comes with great software and built-in tools

Cons:

• Cumbersome interface
• Editing text is a frustrating process

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great! A compact wireless scanner that travels anywhere., August 7, 2001

By 

Jones "itimbuktu" (Columbia, MD United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: WizCom QuickLink Pen Handheld Scanner (Office Product)

I just purchased this handheld scanner because, as a PhD student and full-time manager, I have tons of reading to do. Before I purchased QuickLink, I either had to hand write or type notes into my PC, spend hours at a copier, or spend lots of time using a full-sized scanner to save the quotes and important text that I needed. Now, this WizCom scanner allows me to easily and quickly scan articles, books and other text no matter where I am (on a plane, in a hotel room, at work, or by the

pool). Then I can quickly upload the text into Word or WordPerfect (or other software programs) when I have the chance. Or, if I want, I can scan directly into a specific file.

Though it takes a while to get used to the pen and its menus, a previous reviewer was right on the money when they offered this tip - "Put the pen in the "left-handed" mode, turn the material upside down and then scan from right to left. This lets the user "look ahead" along the desired pen track (printed line) and helps keep the scanning down the center of the line." THIS REALLY DOES WORK and makes scanning much faster and more precise. (I'm not sure, but if you are left-handed, the reverse directions might work for you.)

Now that I have the knack of using the QuickLink pen, I love it! It saves me tons of time and I can now scan only the text I want instead of copying the entire page. For the price and convenience, it's great.

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too many errors, May 1, 2003

By 

Kevin Lee (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: WizCom QuickLink Pen Handheld Scanner (Office Product)

I wanted to like this Pen so much. I loved the portability and the versatility that it offered. But, it just didn't perform well enough to be useful. It is extremely slow. If you scan with pen as fast as you would a highlighter, your accuracy can vary anywhere from 25-50%. The highest accuracy I was able to get was scanning at about 3 seconds a line. But then there's another 2 seconds for the Pen register the information that's been scanned. The accuracy issue is pretty ridiculous. I tried a lot of different techniques to try and improve the accuracy, i.e. using a ruler, scanning slow, adjusting the angle at which I held the pen. But in the end, I found that it was faster to type the line rather than scan with the pen.

If you're looking for a fast and accurate handheld scanner, I strongly recommend the IRIS II Executive (Not the Standard). I ended up returning my Quick Link Pen and getting the IRIS II Exec instead. It's incredibly fast and more importantly incredibly accurate. I can scan faster than I would with a highlighter and I rarely get mistakes. I'm a Biochem Grad Student and I scan a lot of words that wouldn't seem easily recognized, but the IRIS II works like a champ.

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wizcom quicklink pen 1000, November 11, 2000

By 

anantha reddy (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: WizCom QuickLink Pen Handheld Scanner (Office Product)

I rate this product 2-star because it wasn't easy to use. The shape was not correctly designed to scan text easily. The scanner was not as accurate as I would have expected. On the box, it claims that it is 97% accurate but I found that it was actually not that accurate. It has poor letter sensitivity. It also took a long time to read the text and process the text onto the screen. I expected it to work like a highliter but it wasn't true. I think that the price is exaggerated when you take all the reasons I listed. I think that this pen needs to have a few improvements to make it more accurate.