Wizcom SP1000V SuperPen Translator

by WizCom

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 2 inches ; 1 pounds
• 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: B0000AOWWD
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: SP1000V
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #87 in Electronics > Office Electronics > Electronic Dictionaries, Thesauri & Translators > Foreign Language Translators
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 2, 2008

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Ultimate Mobile Translator and Note-taker! In translator mode the SuperPen Translator allows you to get instant translations from over 25 language dictionaries - all included for FREE. Used like a yellow highlighter, you just run the ben over the printed word or line of text and instantly see the word by word translation displayed on the screen. In note-taking mode the SuperPen Translator scans and stores up to 500 pages of editable text, which can then be transferred to a PC when needed, automatically creating Microsoft Word or Excel documents

Instant on screen translation

View scanned text immediately on screen

.

See scanned text immediately
With its built in screen the SuperPen Translator allows you to see the scanned text immediately. In translation mode, this shows both the original scanned word and the translation on a split screen (shown on the left ). In note-taking mode the entire scan is shown, ensuring complete and accurating scnning everytime. You can scroll up and down within a stored to see all the stored information.

Easily change languages

The Superpen Translator® comes with free space on its memory card for maximum flexibility. This allows you to add additional dictionaries or replace installed dictionaries at your convenience from the over 25 diferent disctionaries supplied with the Pen

Use with virtually any printed text

Ideal for language students, students who need to read and/or copy texts, travelers, researchers, business people and others.

• Dictionaries included with the SuperPen
  • French - English English - Italian English - Arabic French - German English - Japanese English - Chinese Simplified German - English English - Korean English - Chinese Traditional German - French English - Polish English - Czech German - Spanish English - Portuguese English - Danish Portuguese - English English - Russian English - Dutch Spanish - English English - Slovene English - French Spanish - German English - Spanish English - German English - Swedish English - Greek English - Turkish
• Features
  • Dictionary Mode:
    • Comprehensive translation that extends beyond the simple, most frequently used meaning of the word.
    • Direct look-up of idioms/phrases.
    • Identification of inflected words and display of their corresponding entries.
    • Over 300,000 words and expressions per dictionary.
    • History option enabling retrieval of the last 80 reviewed words.
    • Audio word pronunciation with Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology using built-in speaker or earphones.
    • Recognition of a wide range of printed font types and sizes (6-22 points, up to 8mm), including inverted text on contrasting backgrounds (except red on white, white on red, blue on black and black on blue).
    • Recognition and automatic merging of hyphenated text.
    • Two display modes: Toggle between abridged and complete definition/translation display.
    • Over 25 translation dictionaries included for FREE on CD or downloadable from the website
    • Available free space enabling installation of additional scanning applications, interface languages and spellers for enhanced character recognition.
  • Note-Taking Mode:
    • Scan, Store up to 500 pages of text.
    • USB/IrDA connectivity enabling transfer of data to PC, Palm/PDA or Smartphone.
    • Optional conversion of text files to MS Word document on PC
    • Scan directly into any Windows based application.
    • Tables application allows scanning into spreadsheet format with optional conversion to MS Excel on PC
  • General:
    • Easy to use buttons and straightforward menus.
    • Manual insertion of words using the Opticard or Character Bar.
    • Supports various user-interface languages.
    • Right/left handed support.
    • Auto shut-off feature to preserve battery life.
  • System Requiremnts:
    • Win 98/NT/2000/ME/XP.
    • CD-ROM Drive (for installing Desktop Application).
    • Available USB port.

What’s in the Box

• Pen
• Carry case
• 2 x AAA batteries
• Headphones
• Training foot
• USB Cable
• CD with Desktop software, dictionaries and manual
  

Product Description

Superpen Translator Pen Scanner

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Efficient addition to an abridged dual-language dictionary, December 2, 2004

By 

nial_l (Maryland, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wizcom SP1000V SuperPen Translator (Office Product)

The superpen SP1000 is easy to setup and works almost as well as advertised. I have the version that supports bilingual dictionaries.

The pen came with a CD and a serial cable to connect to the computer. If you plan to transfer data to, or load dictionaries from, a laptop, check that your laptop has a serial port. The pen is supposed to support IR as well, but my laptop does not detect it (though I didn't really try to make this feature work). I installed the software from CD onto my Windows XP machine and connected the pen with the cable. After setting the pen to use the PC connection I was able to choose my dictionaries and load them onto the pen. The dictionaries took a couple of minutes apiece to load. Due to memory space taken by the applications that are pre-loaded on the pen I was only able to load 2 dictionaries at a time. I believe (not sure) the pro version has more memory so I would suggest investigating that version if you study more than one language or want to use dictionaries with other features like note-taking.

I tried scanning both left-handed and right-handed. In left-handed mode it is easier to see where to place the scanning point in front of the word. The pen rolls smoothly and the character recognition worked well even in a book that is not completely flat and has smallish type.

It is difficult to capture a short word by itself, but scanning several words at a time works well for capturing short words. The pen display allows you to scroll across the scanned words, showing the definition for each word in turn.

I have two reasons for giving the product less than 5 stars. When scanning French the pen does not always accurately identify reflexive verbs preceded by an apostrophe, e.g., s'asseoir should be recognized as a reflexive verb asseoir with a preceding s'. Compared to my pocket Langenscheidt dictionary, the electronic translation dictionary supplied with the superpen provides a lower quality of translation and has fewer alternative word definitions.

I suggest to Wizcom that they partner with a better French dictionary provider, such as Langenscheidt, in order to improve the quality of the translation.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Tool for travellers and students alike, August 5, 2004

By 

AA (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wizcom SP1000V SuperPen Translator (Office Product)

I tried the SuperPen a couple of days back. It is amazing! You can pick up any text in virtially any language, run your SuperPen over it and abracadabra! it is translated to your choice of language. A little speaker will even say it out to ensure you get the correct pronounciation!
Students, want to make book notes but don't have a laptop or just hate typing? Use the SuperPen. With enough memory to store data worth 1000 pages, you can never run out of space! And transfer your notes to your device(PC, PDA etc) whenever you would like to.
That said, the SuperPen does have a few problems:
1) You have to get used to holding the pen in correct position so that the content can be properly scanned.
2) You gotta run the SuperPen over the printed text slowly or it will garble the data
3) Will NOT work well if you want to scan data off magazines with glossy pages.
4) At $180, the SuperPen is not exactly affordable by all.

CONCLUSION: If you travel abroad a lot or have to take notes from books/reference materials, SuperPen is the best device out there. You will not be disappointed.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars limited function and misunderstandings, May 27, 2006

By 

Dieter Heine "dheine" (Bremen, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wizcom SP1000V SuperPen Translator (Office Product)

I use it almost since 1999 and the almost all functions described by WizCom work well. It is a usefull and valuable tool . There are 3 drawbacks for advanced users probably like me:
1. steady power supply without batteries is missing for enduring works (I constructed some cables for an external supply)

2. both products integrated into superpen can only be used seperately. There is no internal interface. This has one major drawback: You can only translate inside with quicktionary or you have to scan the same word twice for sending it to the PC. Also it doesnot make sense to switch circumstantial to the other pen function inside before scanning same words twice.

When I read the papers about the fine highlight of PC exchange everybody may be some kind of fooled (like I felt afterwards) in assuming that translated text should be able to be sent to the PC. The reading functions without translation for office purposes are not bad. But how makes the integration of both pens still sense when there is no benefit of sharing their functions by exchanging the scanned text between them ?

3. WizComs policy for permitting new software development is not open enough. They think the product is perfect and development has been closed for years. Some people miss support for open platform like linux/unix. Hints that QuickLink works well with the WINE (Windows) Emulation is missing. I tried it and it works.

4. Yes the price was already mentioned by many reviewers. Maybe it would be justified if both valuable tools would profit more from a better integration of two in one pen.