Docupen? Anyone heard of this?
Oct 12, 2006, 8:54 am
#1
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Docupen? Anyone heard of this?
A friend in Russia is asking me to buy him one these. While the technology is intriguing on some level I suppose I know nothing of this company or this product's history. I've looked at CNET as well as some other sites but am curious of any FTers might have experience or an opinion on it. I don't want my friend wasting $300 on a piece of crap.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Oct 12, 2006, 9:01 am
#2
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Join Date: Sep 2000
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I played around with the 700 version of this, was not impressed. First of all, you need an absolutely flat surface, secondly you need to make sure it goes over the image completely flat (so it won't work on books or magazines), it also tends to slip to an angle when you drag it over the image (which meant that it didn't work well on glossy paper, and then there was the quality; it sucked.
Nowadays I just use a digital camera, their resolution is much higher than any of these handheld devices.
Nowadays I just use a digital camera, their resolution is much higher than any of these handheld devices.
Oct 12, 2006, 9:29 am
#3
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Originally Posted by ScottC
I played around with the 700 version of this, was not impressed. First of all, you need an absolutely flat surface, secondly you need to make sure it goes over the image completely flat (so it won't work on books or magazines), it also tends to slip to an angle when you drag it over the image (which meant that it didn't work well on glossy paper, and then there was the quality; it sucked.
Nowadays I just use a digital camera, their resolution is much higher than any of these handheld devices.
Nowadays I just use a digital camera, their resolution is much higher than any of these handheld devices.
His words were "I need it for work. I offen go to other people's offices where they do not allow to use there xerox machines or faxes. Sometimes you have to just handwrite the information off a sample on the wall. Sometimes you need to make a copy where there is no xerox but there is a printer."
I wonder if the flat surface of the wall would make this any better. Nothing is laminated there and he could pull the documents out of the plastic protector which everyone uses there to avoid the glossy issue. The quality question is cause for concern though.
Think the technology has improved much from the 700 to the 800?
The camera option might just work as he has a nice little pocket Sony he uses. I'll pass this along.
Oct 12, 2006, 3:30 pm
#4
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Originally Posted by woody125
A friend in Russia is asking me to buy him one these. While the technology is intriguing on some level I suppose I know nothing of this company or this product's history. I've looked at CNET as well as some other sites but am curious of any FTers might have experience or an opinion on it. I don't want my friend wasting $300 on a piece of crap.
Thanks!
Thanks!
A better solution: make a picture with a digital camera. Email it to scanR (www.scan.com). scanR cleans up the pic, returns it to you as a PDF. Still not perfect, but lightyears better than the Docupen.
Oct 12, 2006, 4:28 pm
#5
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I wasn't going to blow our horn again...but what the heck. 
If your friend gets a good digital camera (or even not so good -- I had a 4.0MP Casio Exilim that wasn't fantastic) -- scanR will yield excellent results. I used that Exilim + scanR to "scan" and then fax my loan documents to the bank and they looked no different than had I faxed the hard copy through a fax machine.
In addition, for documents, some of the cool cameraphones now on the market are fantastic as well. In GSM-land, two that come to mind are the Sony Ericsson K790a and the Nokia N73 (for which we just released a Symbian app to make it even easier!).
Our actual website is http://www.scanR.com/
scan.com is an entirely different entity (I think it's a domain owned by someone waiting for a good idea)
Steve
If your friend gets a good digital camera (or even not so good -- I had a 4.0MP Casio Exilim that wasn't fantastic) -- scanR will yield excellent results. I used that Exilim + scanR to "scan" and then fax my loan documents to the bank and they looked no different than had I faxed the hard copy through a fax machine.
In addition, for documents, some of the cool cameraphones now on the market are fantastic as well. In GSM-land, two that come to mind are the Sony Ericsson K790a and the Nokia N73 (for which we just released a Symbian app to make it even easier!).
Our actual website is http://www.scanR.com/
scan.com is an entirely different entity (I think it's a domain owned by someone waiting for a good idea)
Steve
Oct 17, 2006, 5:13 am
#6
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Originally Posted by sllevin
Our actual website is http://www.scanR.com/
scan.com is an entirely different entity (I think it's a domain owned by someone waiting for a good idea)
Steve
scan.com is an entirely different entity (I think it's a domain owned by someone waiting for a good idea)
Steve
Oct 17, 2006, 3:49 pm
#7
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Originally Posted by woody125
....While the technology is intriguing on some level I suppose I know nothing of this company or this product's history. I've looked at CNET as well as some other sites but am curious of any FTers might have experience or an opinion on it. I don't want my friend wasting $300 on a piece of crap.
If you are looking for the transition strategy between paper and digital ink I woud suggest technology based on this:
Anoto
THey don'e sell direct but there are at least a couple of US providers and increasing - this stuff really does work becuase it is not just about the pen but the pen AND the paper.
Apr 29, 2007, 1:09 pm
#8
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Trying scanr today! Thanks FT for this forum - have been trying to find a service who will digitize all of my docs; I'll report once I have experienced their service.