DocuPen X hits earth for all your pen scanner needs
By Laura June 
posted Nov 8th 2009 8:02AM
posted Nov 8th 2009 8:02AM
Thinking maybe you can't live another day without finally breaking down and purchasing a pen scanner? We can sympathize. There are plenty on the market, but the newly hatched DocuPen X Series is mildly more interesting than most out there. They've managed to cram 64MB of memory, Bluetooth, a tiny OLED screen and a lithium ion battery all in that tiny package, and if you're the sunflower seed-eating, alien-hunting type, you probably want one of these for scanning your files at up to 600 dots per inch. DocuPen's teensy X Series scanners start at $370.
and a good but small Point and shoot camera still delivers better results and is more versatile than such a pen scanner.
I've done that several times, but a camera isn't really as pocketable.
I just use my mobile phone with the macro setting. But if you were required to copy/paste text from paper frequently in a job, the pen scanner could be really useful.
Are you insane? pen scanners scan text and send it to the computer via bluetooth. So when u scan ur computer types. A point and shoot camera? hahahah
Has anyone of you taken a look at the scan results of the one generation older DocuPen? Honestly, every phone can produce better results, especially because you can also 'scan' bended pages with a camera, not so with this docupen. The idea is great, it looks really cool, but too expensive for the poor results it produces. Maybe the DocuPen X has a much much better quality, but I don't really think so.
Engadget, you forget to mention it also makes you look like James Bond.
And the pen looks like Dell's Adamo XPS.
The hell is a pen scanner?
A scanner that is a....... pen...
Did you really need to ask or are you that dumb?
I was actually referring to its method of operation. I am aware of the "scanner" and "pen" inventions. Just like someone might know that a particle accelerator accelerates particles, but not know how it does it. But thanks for calling me dumb.
I used to wish that I had some sort of scanner in my pencil that would scan a math problem then project the answer onto the paper... 10 years later its nearly possible.
I'm sure this already is possible. It's probably not viable for release in the consumers market because of the price.
Actually I heard about that probably a decade ago...
....googles...."pen does math"
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/747998/fly_fusion_math_tech_pen/
As a grad student, let me assure you that these devices are 100% useful. I would previously be reading books and have to either stop mid-page to type in a long quote to reference later, or have to post-it flag the page for later. By the end of a book, I'd have (in some cases) hundreds of notes to type in. Tedious. With these devices, I can just highlight and go. Keep em in a word document, and while I still have to organize them when I'm done, now I no longer have to type them in. Huge time-saver, and far more comfortable than when I was constantly shuffling between keyboard and book.
ever thought about using a Tablet PC?
Or maybe instead of buying another pc, maybe he'd rather buy a device designed to complete said task. I know it's strange, buying accessories for computers in order to easily complete tasks rather than just buying more computers. But some people just like to save money and not be a total dumbass...
Or he could buy a tablet for the same price. Cheaper actually.
He could get the Always Innovating Touch Book, or the SmartQ 5/7. Theres a lot more for under $200.
It costs less. Does more. Wow. I wonder who the dumbass is now?
Its you enz1ey. You sounded kind of stupid so I figured I'd point it out.
I don't get how a tablet would speed up his note-taking process over a pen scanner.
Good luck recover the fuzzy part of the image.
Bad luck fuzzy the recover part of the image.
Good luck discover use of -ing suffix for use gerund verb.
Good luck :)
good luck have fun
I love Engadget (even though the podcast takes practically a week to be posted) but there is one thing about the site i've mentioned before and that's the fact that you very often don't give us any scale for products that you report on.
A disembodied shot on a white backgrounds gives us no information as to the size of something. I did a You tube search on the ducupen X and only found an older version and although the thing could technically be called a pen the word docuwand, docubaton or docuquite large stick might be more appropriate.
I know you guys work fast so you just grab the best or first image you can wich is usualy from pr material but it's quite annoying that I never have a clue how big or small stuff is when i read the site.
If I'm looking at printed documents it's because I printed them, or because I'm in a meeting and the chair person printed them. But I'd certainly ask for them to be emailed to me before taking out a pen scanner.
They sure have gottin' smaller.
They sure have!
cool links!
How does buying another PC solve enz1ey and Justin's problem? I'm pretty sure they know what Tablets are capable of.
how about a pen with built in spell check :P
Try Livescribe Pilot, it has a built-in dictionary application, you write a word and it translates it on the fly, pretty cool. Not exactly spell check, but you can add spell checking capabilities using their API.
Nice concept but they don't work well enough for practical purposes. I bought one and found it scanning to be totally inadequate for any practical purposes. Getting it to render text in an OCR level of accuracy was impossible as images and text were distorted along the axis of scanning.
i have the RC800 it is crap for the amount of money you pay.
1. its way to flimsy, cheap build quality.
2. drivers are horrible, never updated
3. compatibility issues with memory cards.
4. do not install paper port it freezes more than windows vista ( im a windows guy not a mac). why they didn't implement a simple drag and drop interface is beyond me.
5. the USB interface is an 8 pin (really?) it should be a mini B.
6. really it takes about 20 seconds per page. do not trust their specs, when they say you can scan in whatever number of seconds, they fail to mention that it takes time to save the scan to the 8mb internal memory or the micro sd card. Also after each scan, the pen shuts off.
7.the way the micro sd is formatted is proprietary or something, you can't just take it out and stick it in a reader to easily extract the scans.
8. when i got mine the battery was shot so i have to carry an external usb power source.
i use the pentwain driver that came with the RC800 and a program called edocx lite. they work well together. very simple and never freezes.
planon is dead to me.
i'm not too sure about the usb interface (being at 8pin or not) but its not one of the common ones.
How many pages can you scan on a single charge? Can you give a link to edocx lite?
maybe one if im lucky (as i said the battery is shot) i got it new and sealed from amazon and i could only get one scan (maybe) per battery charge. the only reason i did not return it is because i shipped it overseas and would have paid more to ship it back and reship a new one.
here is edocx:
http://download.cnet.com/eDocXL-Lite/3000-10743_4-10744012.html
the interface is not so perty, but it does the job better than paper port.