Tuesday, August 13, 2013

DocuPen X05 Bluetooth Scanner - 1 USB - PC- Mac

DocuPen X05 Bluetooth Scanner - 1  USB - PC- Mac
  • Flash memory upgradeable with optional MicroSD memory cards to 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB
  • Scans at resolutions in range from 150dpi to 600dpi
  • Windows, Macintosh and Windows Mobile compatible
  • Rechargeable battery with USB charge cable
  • Fully charges in about 60 minutes - Up to 80 page scan per charge

This product is, in a word, useless. In two words, useless and expensive.

I am a PhD student in History. I do most of my research in libraries. Some of these libraries do not have copy machines or scanners available, so when I found this product, I thought I had found a perfect solution for scanning multi-page articles from books and periodicals from non-circulating libraries. I am guessing this product was not designed with someone with my needs as a user.

For brevity's sake, I will stick to 3 fatal problems:

Does not scan as .pdf. Why does this *document* scanner only scan to formats primarily meant for *images* formats (i.e. jpeg, tif)? I have no answer. WHAT THIS MEANS: you will NOT be able to scan multi-page documents as a single document. You will have to scan each page as a separate file. But wait, it gets better...

The scanner stays "on" only as long as it takes to scan and save. After each file is done saving, it automatically turns off. WHAT THIS MEANS: Any time you have to scan more than one page in a row, you will have to turn on the scanner and wait for it to initialize. "Wow, that's crummy, but I can deal with that," you say...it gets better:

Do you have a Mac by any chance? (I'm not sure whether this applies to PCs). You know that pesky message that pops up whenever a USB device is pulled out without ejecting it properly? The one that says you may have corrupted the information? WELL, since the device automatically shuts off about 5 seconds after the last active command, as soon as it mounts to your desktop, you have 5 seconds to get any files off of the device, or it will TURN OFF, resulting in an IMPROPER DEVICE REMOVAL error message, not to mention, you will not have your files.

THE SOLUTION: If you are a user with my needs, just use a digital camera. If you have a steady hand, the quality will be virtually the same. You will be able to take images of documents WIDER THAN 10 inches, and while you may not be able to capture them as .pdfs either, you will save a lot of time (I forgot to mention, each file takes 5-10 seconds to save with the DocuPen after scanning). Heck, I've been using my iPhone camera, and it's worked about a lot better than this product.

Buy DocuPen X05 Bluetooth Scanner - 1 USB - PC- Mac Now

I purchased the X05 hoping to be able to make quick page scans from books for later reference. The X05 is extremely slow in uploading to the computer. You cannot just make a number of quick scans with the pen and then upload as I had to upload each page after scanning. Also, I carefully checked that there was Mac OS support but the unit shipped without ANY MAC DRIVER OF ANY KIND! I searched the Planon support pages and they don't even list Mac drivers for this model. I had to find and use a Mac driver from an earlier version of the device (different model) and perhaps this is the reason for the slowness. In any case, the device was a huge disappointment and I returned it.

Read Best Reviews of DocuPen X05 Bluetooth Scanner - 1 USB - PC- Mac Here

DO NOT BUY this item. It won't work with Windows 7 and could not get it to work with Vista either. I have called Planon support for 6 days, only to get a voicemail that technicians are helping other customers HA HA! They have no technicians. I have called all hours of the day, left numerous voicemails and no response. I still have a non-working product that is useless. I would not recommmend Planon products to anyone.

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My first Docupen X50bets of the best PlanOn flagship modellasted about 5 months and 30 copies or so before it quit. The brand new replacement worked about 2 months and produced about 10 copies. PlanOn customer service tech usually returned my calls within 2-3 business days and after extensive trobleshooting over the phone here are some of the problems discovered:

1) The images were coming out scrambled;

2) Both scanners qickly lost their calibration and would not recalibrate;

3) The SD drive was defective and the program would not recognize it;

4) The battery would not hold charge and the scanner would die in 1 min or so;

Even when operating properly, the text lines and images come out slanted because it is difficult to keep the pen perfectly straight while manually scanning a page. I was willing to accept this shortcoming as a tradeoff for portability. However I do not accept spending about $300 to make just a handful of copies. Per PlanOn tech I sent the Docupen back. 2 months later after 2 inquiries I received an email informing me that my Docupen was beyong repair and that it also was out of warranty. I was also informed that there will be no charge for PlanOn trying to repair my pen (really??!!!). As a remedy I was offered to purchase another scanner at a slight discount to retail. Wow!

I treated my Docupen as I do any precision instrumentwith great care. Over the last decade I purchased many items from Amazon and have never been disappointed. I am surprised to see a poor, borderline fraudulent vendor like PlanOn selling its products on Amazon pages.

BOTOM LINE: STAY AWAY FROM PlanOn AND IT'S PRODUCTS!

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I have bought two scanners from this company, the X05 and de R700. They where very low quality devices, the construction is very cheap. The r700 started scaning only half a page after a year of use and the battery on the very expansive X05 stopped working a few months after use, the battery is internal so you have two open the divice and use use a soldering iron to change it... if you can find a replacement. I tried to contact the company FOR SERVICE not a replacement and I got no answer. As working prof. we value this type of tecnology but on this perticular device it's not worth it to waste your hard earn money.

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