Ismail Dhorat

Yesterday i picked up my IrisPen Executive scanner. I have had a ton of messages asking about it so figured i would post a review of the IRISpen Executive.

Firstly, i purchased it since i often read a ton of books/printed materials for work and studies. I often find the need to summarize or type out the important points so i figure this would save me time. After reading a ton of reviews i settled on this one.

If you dont know what a pen scanner is, it’s a small scanner that can be held in your hand. You can then use it to scan part’s of text line by line. Note: This is different from hand held page scanners, which let you scan an entire page. Pen scanners come in use when you just want to pick out the important points from text. The come in two varieties:

Scanners with a USB cable , No batteries & No memory (i.e IrisPen Executive)
Scanners with a battery & memory on board (i.e Wizcom)

The second option is useful if you are going to be scanning away from your PC/Laptop in places like libraries or book stores, however it does come with a disadvantage when scanning. There is a slight delay when scanning new lines as the device has to process and convert the image within the device.

For me, i have my laptop with me and most of my reading is done at home. So the IRISpen was the best option. So how does it scan?

This was scanned directly from a magazine, with a really small front. Looks like 8.

“Sillce the announcement of its Ovi strategy late in the lmer of 2007, Nokia has been busy rebuilding the user erface on its devices to allow closer integration with )-based services_ Thl”

It’s supposed to read

“Since the announcement of it’s Ovi strategy late in the summer of 2007, Nokia has been rebuilding the user interface on its devices to allow closer integration with web-based services.

You cant run the the scanner over the text as fast as you would a normal highlighter as this increases the amount of errors. I suppose the more used to the scanner you get, the less errors you will get since even preassure and speed affects the quality of the text that is converted.

Testing on a slightly larger font:

“From what the market has already seen of okia’s internet services play, it is clear 1at the strategy is based on cross-platform evelopment environments”

Which took +- 30 seconds to scan, and supposed to read:

“From what the market has already seen of Nokia’s internet services play, it is clear that the strategy is based on cross-platform development environments”

Now, if you can do 60 word per a min in typing you would most likely be faster, i could type this as fast as the scanner could scan & convert it. However, that’s not where the saving is. The real issue is, while you are reading and you come across an important point that you would like to note down. The following has to occur, you Stop reading, Wake your computer if it was asleep and then type our the little bit of information you would like. This is cumbersome, interrupts your reading process and frustrating.

I also tested out the Barcode scanning, which i believe is only available on the Executive. This is highly accurate. Not once did it throw up an error. It’s useful if you would like to catalog your books/DVD’s etc.

So if you read a ton, and often make notes out of printed notes then the IRISpen will save you some frustration. Though it wont necessarily save you time.

As far as i know, the only company that stocks this in South Africa is Esquire.

Tagged as Executive, handheld scanner, IRISpen, scanner + Categorized as Uncategorized