The Top 7 Pen Scanners

The fairly new technology of pen scanners makes things a lot simpler with the lightweight, take anywhere products out today. From translating any text simply and wherever you are, easy note taking, and enhancing your reading skills with scanning, inserting any text you wish and uploading. I recommend these pens, especially for the new generations and their involvement with technology. They can make your life a lot easier in many ways and are easy to program and learn to use. The people who may find them complicated may be the ones naive to technology and not bothering to read the manual. The prices of these products all vary but are not that bad. Three things to know when using most all scanner pens; always hold the pen at a more vertical angle than you would a normal pen, try to scan at a fairly rapid pace, and always read the manual due to many pens having different gathering functions. These pens I have found is a great portable solution for all of my information gathering wants and needs. Most pen scanners can be easily upgraded to also read bar codes. A must have of our generation for lawyers doing research for their cases, students in high school and college for their study notes, or even if you would like to scan your old books so you can preserve them forever on a computer.

The C-Pen 800

The best pen scanner I have come across yet. Better than just capturing your simple notes, this 5 ½ inch C-Pen can hold 3,000 pages of text, plus 1,000 addresses. Weighing only 3 ounces, this light weight wand can translate six languages, so if you are in a fancy Italian restaurant you won't have to have the waiter translate for you. Another perk of this amazing pen I found was the massive amount of storage, holding 8 MB. This C-Pen costs around $249.00 but is well worth the money, seeing how you may not find one better.

The C-Pen 20

Another lightweight pen scanning product of C-Pen, the C-Pen 20 is more for note taking. Just scan the words or numbers you need and quickly they will go straight to the location of the cursor in any open or active application on your computer. Very convenient and reasonably priced around $139.

The C-Pens and more information on them is located at their official website.

Wizcom Technologies QuickLink Pen
This 3 ounce, 6 inch pen scanner holds 1,000 pages of text. A sixty dollar upgrade will expand the memory as well as adding a two way translator. You may scan your text from left or right. This pen is also one of the better ones with easy to scan capabilities. A decent price at around $179.

Wizcom InfoscanTS
This little portable hand held scanner is great for storing and transferring your text to a PC, PDA, or a Smartphone. This pen holds up to 500 pages, offering a quick and simplified way of note taking. You also may insert and edit your text. An ideal tool to be used by students, and business people alike who take notes or just need to scan data when they are not near a computer. This pen runs around $80 - $100.

The Wizcom Pens and more information on them is located on their official website.

Docupen R700

Holding 100 pages of text, the R700 is a good but not great scanner. Their customer support is very responsive if you have any issues or questions to discuss. This scanner alerts you when you are scanning too fast, which is convenient so I can slow down to get the best scan possible. It is much slower to save to the storage card. This pen is priced around $199. More information on this pen can be found on the PLANon website.

Docupen RC800

Like the Docupen R700, the RC800 holds 100 pages of text. The resolution is a bit lower than pens like the C-Pens, and holds only about 50 images. Both Docupens have a dual-roller guiding system so you are left with a smoother more accurate scan. Very comparable to the R700, however with color. This pen is high priced at around $299. More information on this pen provided on the PLANon website.

Siemens Pocket Reader
This is for the quick, on the go person who doesn't need too much more than the occasional note taking. It stores only 20 pages, and does not have a translator. However the easy-to-use Pocket Reader rarely makes errors and tends to beat all others on accuracy in fonts such as Arial and Courier. The 3 ounce, 6 ¼ inch wand is a nice and simple little note taker, and easy to plug into your PC. The price of the Siemens Pocket Reader is around $99.95. More information is located at the official website.

In conclusion the electronic highlighters will become more and more popular as we progress. Before you buy research these products for yourself and read many reviews. These translators, mobile scanners, and reading pens, most the time all in one, make things a lot easier as I myself have come to realize. Using these pen scanners just goes to show that technology today is and will continue to make things more convenient in our technology filled generation.

Jenni Coffin, PLANon, Pen Scanners, C-Pens, associated Content.